Trump and Neo-Royalism

As some readers may know, I have a political science degree from the University of Illinois (I also have a master’s degree from Georgetown University, but that is less relevant to this post). Over the past few days, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about which political theory, if any, explains the behavior of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Every theory that I considered fell short. While Trump has portrayed himself as "America First," it is quite evident in his second term that he is actually "Trump First." Trump is not a patriotic nationalist, but rather a self-serving narcissist whose loyalties extend beyond national boundaries. Explaining Trump and his actions requires a new political theory.

One clear aspect of Trumpism is that it does not recognize national borders. This may seem a strange thing to say about someone who has made border security and deportations a central part of his rule, but simply viewing this as an issue of borders is a mistake. Enforcing border security and implementing a policy of mass deportations has provided Trump with a justification for creating a national law enforcement force that is loyal to him. Trump has, in effect, created his own Republican Guard. He is now using that force to terrorise cities and to enhance his own power. In this way, combatting undocumented immigrants has been more of a means to an end rather than the end itself.

On the world stage, Trump is close to Viktor Orbán, Javier Milei, Nigel Farage, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman. He displays a high level of respect for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. These are leaders who, like Trump, either are authoritarian or have authoritarian ambitions. Most are singularly fixated on their own wealth and power. Trump’s relationships with such leaders are far more important than his allegiance to fellow Americans. Does anyone think that if Trump were told that he had to either kill Viktor Orbán or Tim Walz, that it would be any other than Walz meeting his demise? Trump’s relationship to Orbán would far outweigh Walz’s nationality.

Similarly, in Trump’s mind, there is little difference between Caracas and Chicago. He has deployed U.S. troops to both of them. In his mind, both are hostile cities. Trump once mused that U.S. cities should be training grounds for the military. Trump’s world is not one of laws — domestic or international — but one delineated only by the question of who will stop him. If Trump wants to do something and he can get away with it, he will likely do it. Regardless of the legality.

One example of Trump’s transnational interests is his bailout of Milei’s Argentina. At a time in which U.S. citizens were facing rising costs and drastic cuts were being made to healthcare spending, Trump devoted $20 billion to bailing out the Argentinian economy and helping Milei win parliamentary elections. As a result of this bailout, Argentinian farmers were able to export soybeans to China, something that U.S. farmers were unable to do as a result of Trump's tariff policies. Trump didn’t consider the interests of those whom he was elected to represent, but rather the interests of a foreign ally. Similarly, news now comes that Trump is considering paying the costs of U.S. oil companies to rebuild Venezuela’s oil sector. At a time that U.S. citizens are facing rising energy costs, Trump wants to spend U.S. dollars in Venezuela. Moreover, increased Venezuelan oil production could cause petroleum prices to drop to the point that a significant amount of U.S. production would no longer be profitable. If this comes to pass, Trump will be spending U.S. taxpayers’ dollars in a way that will cost U.S. jobs.

As I attempted to piece together a theory of what I call Trumpism, I thought that I was on to something. Then, I came across an article by actual political scientists that had already developed a similar idea, but much better than I could hope to do.

In "Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System," Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman propose an international order that they have labeled "neo-royalism." They describe neo-royalism as such:

It centers on ruling cliques, networks of political, capital, and military elites devoted to individual sovereigns, seeking to generate durable material and status hierarchies based on the extraction of financial and cultural tributes.

This describes Trump and his ruling circle perfectly. As the authors acknowledge, Trump is not the first neo-royalist. They write:

Over the last decade, numerous leaders – including Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, India’s Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, China’s Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin – have embraced elements of a neo-royalist order.

However, Trump, with the economic and military power of the United States at his disposal, is in an unprecedented position of being able to reorder international systems. Indeed, "Trump is capable of mobilizing like-minded sovereign rulers and other supporters of his preferred system, and of sidelining those who might resist."

To put this in historical context, at one time the dominant order featured kings or feudal lords. Their domains were not determined by national borders, but rather by the extents to which they could exert personal rule. As such, you might have a King of England who also ruled a significant part of today's France. This was followed by the Westphalian system of nation-states. In this system, state sovereignty — generally exercised in the form of a national government — was the primary type of rule. After World War II, the Liberal International Order gained ascendancy. This was a regime of international institutions that attempted to normalize interdependence of nation-states and to implement rules-based systems. In the neo-royalist system, Goddard and Newman see what they describe as "cliques" replacing governments as the dominant actor. "Cliques" are described as being:

“vertically” centralized around dense social ties that create personal loyalty and connections. Non-clique individuals (for example, commoners) remain relatively isolated from royalist actors. These networks can extend across territorial boundaries, and intertwine within them.

The authors go on to say that:

Trump’s vision of absolute sovereignty, his reliance on a clique composed of family members (primarily his children), fierce loyalists (Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem), and elite hyper-capitalists (often tech elites like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen) guides not only US foreign policy, but his ordering of international relations itself. Consistent with neo-royalism, Trump sees certain leaders as holding something akin to monarchical sovereignty, and has prioritized relations with other dominant cliques. It was not by chance that his first international visit was not to European allies, as is the tradition, but to dynastic rulers in the Middle East, who treated him “as royalty,”

A key function of neo-royalism is the establishment of hierarchies. On the international level, Trump clearly sees the world as consisting of other dominant cliques — those such as Putin and Xi — and those who are less relevant and who he expects to submit. As a practical example, Trump views resolving the Ukraine-Russian war as something to be completed by himself and Putin. The Ukrainians are expected to simply accept what the dominant actors decide. Similarly, Trump regularly derides Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and suggests that Canada should become the 51st state. Carney is not viewed as part of a dominant clique or given the respect due to such an actor.

Neo-royalism rests on reducing or destroying the power of international institutions that characterized the Liberal International Order and even weakening the nation-states of the Westphalian system. As the authors put it:

In neo-royalist orders, hierarchy is the point. The purpose of neo-royalist orders is to develop rules that allow a small clique to maintain dominance in both material and symbolic goods. It thus rejects notions of sovereign equality and noninterference, and rests instead on the idea that a royalist clique is dominant, and will only recognize rival “great cliques” as peers; all others are unequal, and not due recognition.

Importantly, countries and leaders are being signaled that "their relative standing in the international system is not based on legal status, but on their relationship to Trump and his ruling clique." How often have we heard Trump comment on another leader having been "nice" to him or liking Trump very much? In the case of both domestic political and corporate leaders, and the heads of other nations, the demonstration of subservience to Trump is key to being awarded concessions and accepted into good standing by Trump's ruling clique. It is not the rule of law that matters, but rather the acknowledgment of Trump as the dominant ruler. Or, as Goddard and Newman put it:

Leading cliques engage with local cliques in a process of distribution, in which they leverage threats, promises of access to the inner circle, or status recognition to maintain their hierarchical positions.

Importantly:

protection and cooperation become private goods doled out to encourage obedience. These exchange relations benefit a clique’s position, and may even come at the expense of a state’s general welfare.

As in the case of Argentina and, potentially, Venezuela, Trump provides favors to those who have been accepted into his clique even at the expense of U.S. citizens. Another important point is that while self-enrichment is a key goal of the dominant clique, especially in Trump's case where his personal enrichment has been astounding, it is not the only goal. As the authors point out:

The goal of rent extraction is not simply self-enrichment; it amasses wealth from both the domestic and international peripheries so as to perpetuate and extend clique political dominance.

Neo-royalism explains Trump's obsession with tariffs. Tariffs allow Trump to extort concessions from weaker nations, forcing them to essentially bend the knee in exchange for trade relief. The same is true of other trade policies. An example included in the paper is Nvidia's agreement to provide 15 percent of its revenue to the U.S. government in exchange for increased market access in China. In theory, this revenue should go to the U.S. Treasury and be appropriated by Congress. In reality, Trump sees such funds as money that he can personally allocate later. For instance, Trump frequently refers to tariff revenues as being a "shelf" and free to be spent as he wishes.

If you begin to view Trump's actions through the framework of neo-royalism, much of what he is doing begins to make sense. For instance, last night White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller engaged in an epic rant on CNN about Greenland. Miller's wife recently tweeted a map of Greenland covered in an American flag with the caption "SOON." CNN's Jake Tapper asked Miller whether he could rule out that the U.S. would use force to take Greenland. Miller responded by saying, "Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?" and then went on to argue that "Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over the future of Greenland." Neo-royalism would suggest that Greenland is very much in danger of being taken by the U.S., by force if necessary.

European leaders have said that seizing Greenland would lead to the destruction of NATO. Many rightfully point out that the destruction of NATO would serve Putin’s interests. But if you look at such a move through the lens of neo-royalism, it is clear that this would serve Trump’s interests as well. To establish a new international system based on neo-royalism, the old International Liberal Order must be destroyed. NATO is a vestige of that order and, as such, an obstacle to neo-royalism. The destruction of NATO would further weaken European countries and incentivize them to more willingly submit to Trump's dominance — something that, of course, would come at a price.

Goddard and Newman are sure to point out that there is no certainty that neo-royalism will succeed as the dominant international order. China, for instance, while showing some signs of neo-royalism, benefits greatly from the Liberal International Order and may not be willing to abandon that system. The authors propose their framework not to be predictive, but rather to encourage further research that views possible international orders more broadly. From my viewpoint, neo-royalism goes far to explain the behavior of the Trump administration.