America’s Predatory Turn: How Trump 2.0 Is Recasting U.S. Power in a Multipolar Age

The US has always reinforced its interests in foreign policy by giving it the name of ‘national interest’. Whether it is Alfred Mahan and his ideas of dominating foreign lands by controlling bases, the Monroe Doctrine which set up geopolitical zones of dominance, or the Roosevelt Corollary which gave a green light to interventionism as a necessary means to sustain regional stability, these paradigms have fostered an exceptionalist ideology that has seen American expansion as a special, noble enterprise to export domestic political systems overseas. Today, as the US President acts in an unprecedented manner, analysts find it hard to put it into any particular category. Trump has been called a realist, a nationalist, an old-fashioned mercantilist, an imperialist, and an isolationist. Each of these terms captures some aspects of his approach, but the grand strategy of his second presidential term is perhaps best described as “predatory hegemony”. Its central aim is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world. 

Evolutionary lineage

In the post-1945 bipolar world, the US had adopted the technique of ‘empire by invitation’, whereas their foreign policy, starting with the Marshall Plan, had dedicated a lot of efforts and resources to build and support allies so that they could maintain leverage against the coercive nature of the Soviet foreign policy under Stalin and thereafter. The creation of NATO in 1949 is one of the prime examples of this policy in practice. In the 90s, when the world power game had gone from bipolarity to unipolarity, the grand strategy had shifted along with the changes. The Benevolent Hegemon of the bipolar era succumbed to hubris and became almost a careless and Wilful Hegemon. Facing no powerful opponents and convinced that most states were eager to accept American leadership and embrace its liberal values, U.S. officials paid little attention to other states’ concerns; embarked on costly and misguided crusades in Afghanistan, Iraq, and several other countries; adopted confrontational policies that drove China and Russia together and pushed to open global markets in ways that accelerated China’s rise, increased global financial instability, and eventually provoked a domestic backlash that helped propel Trump to the White House.

But both Democratic and Republican officials believed that using American power to create a global liberal order would be good for the United States and for the world and that serious opposition would be confined to a handful of minor rogue states. They were not averse to using the power at their disposal to compel, co-opt, or even overthrow other governments, but their malevolence was directed at acknowledged adversaries and not toward U.S. partners. This is where the Donroe Doctrine of Trump 2.0 goes far beyond.

Enough is not Enough!

Rather than fostering stability through multilateral cooperation, this emerging strategy views traditional alliances as transactional burdens to be renegotiated or discarded if they do not provide immediate fiscal or strategic rent. Under Trump, however, the United States has become a predatory hegemon. This strategy is not a coherent, well-thought-out response to the return of multipolarity; in fact, it is exactly the wrong way to act in a world of several great powers. It is instead a direct reflection of Trump’s transactional approach to all relationships and his belief that the United States has enormous and enduring leverage over nearly every country in the world.

The predatory nature of Trump’s foreign policy, which basically says that what’s mine is mine but what’s yours is negotiable, is not a new phenomenon. Athens practised it in their time; so did the Chinese in their tributary system, and so did the European colonisers. But not differentiating between allies and others while punishing is a new feature of Trump’s approach. Today, in this multipolar world, albeit lopsided, this practice, and that too without having any velvet gloves, is like, in its efforts to avoid a quagmire, finding a dead end for itself.

This predatory nature of Trump’s foreign policy is most evident in his obsession with trade deficits and his attempts to use tariffs to redistribute economic gains in Washington’s favour. Trump has repeatedly said that trade deficits are a “rip-off” and a form of looting; in his view, countries that run surpluses are “winning” because the United States pays more to them than they pay to Washington. What becomes more interesting is the fact that there is nothing like ‘Enough is Enough.’ The predator is going on usurping the global order, value chains and international frameworks to restrain dependence on foreign suppliers while weaponising these channels for geotechnological supremacy one after another.

The Apex Predator

The hegemony does not stop just by being a predator. What is more concerning is its symptoms of being an apex predator. To maximise U.S. leverage, Trump has repeatedly linked his economic demands to allied dependence on U.S. military support, largely by raising doubts about whether he would honour alliance commitments. He has insisted that allies should pay for American protection and suggested that the United States might leave NATO, refuse to help defend Taiwan, or abandon Ukraine completely. But his goal is not to make U.S. partnerships more effective by getting allies to do more to defend themselves. In fact, drastically increasing tariff levels will damage partners’ economies and make it harder for them to meet higher defence spending targets. Instead, Trump is using the threat of U.S. disengagement to extract economic concessions. This strategy has paid some short-term dividends, at least on paper. In July, EU leaders accepted a one-sided trade deal in the hope of convincing Trump to keep backing Ukraine, and Japan and South Korea got their tariff levels lowered in deals signed in July and November, respectively, by pledging to invest in the U.S. economy. Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, and Ukraine have all sought to solidify U.S. support by offering the United States access to or partial ownership of critical minerals located in their territory.

A predatory hegemon prefers a world where, in Thucydides’s famous phrase, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” That is why such a country will be wary of norms, rules, or institutions that might limit its ability to take advantage of others. Not surprisingly, Trump has had little use for the United Nations; has been happy to tear up agreements negotiated by his predecessors, such as the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal; and has even reneged on agreements that he negotiated himself. He prefers to conduct trade talks bilaterally rather than deal with institutions such as the EU or the rules-based World Trade Organization because dealing one-on-one with individual countries further enhances U.S. leverage. Washington’s reluctance to give impetus to international organisations like the UN and WTO and its articulated opposition towards the climate change regimes by calling them a ‘hoax’ are nothing but a reflection of the same.

Furthermore, no discussion about Trump’s predatory instinct would be complete without mentioning his bet for the territories that belong to other states and interfering in the politics of the other states as well. For instance, whether Washington’s eyes on the Arctic territory of Greenland or Trump’s musings about making Canada the 51st state or reoccupying the Panama Canal are an indication of avarice. Kidnapping the President of a sovereign state or attacking a state miles away from its shore are also pieces of the same chessboard. To the Apex Predator, no issue is off-limits.

The Perils of the Uniform Formula

Although Washington has been able to achieve some short-term gains in a coercive manner. The principal weakness of the Donroe Doctrine lies in its assumption that the same coercive formula can be applied across all relationships irrespective of context, capability, or strategic necessity. History has long taught us, ‘One size doesn’t fit all’. In the contemporary international system, however, power is far more diffused. States today possess greater room for manoeuvre, diversified economic partnerships, and alternative centres of power to hedge against excessive dependence on Washington. And hence Trump cannot bully great powers the way he has bullied weaker states. By treating allies and adversaries alike as entities from which concessions must be extracted, the United States risks eroding the very foundations of its global influence. Unlike empires sustained through direct control, American primacy has historically rested upon a network of willing partners who accepted U.S. leadership because it was perceived to be mutually beneficial. The replacement of trust with transaction and partnership with pressure weakens that foundation. Allies may comply in the short term, but they simultaneously begin searching for strategic alternatives in the long term.

The consequences are already visible. European discussions on strategic autonomy, growing efforts to conduct trade through alternative arrangements, and the increasing willingness of middle powers to diversify security partnerships indicate that states are adapting to an uncertain American commitment. Even where countries continue to cooperate with Washington, they do so with greater caution and reduced confidence. In effect, the pursuit of maximum leverage may gradually diminish the very leverage it seeks to maximise. Furthermore, the doctrine underestimates the collective capacity of other powers to balance against coercion. History demonstrates that excessive concentration of power often generates countervailing coalitions. Just as the rise of Napoleonic France, Imperial Germany, and the Soviet Union provoked balancing behaviour, a United States perceived as predatory may encourage greater coordination among actors that otherwise possess divergent interests. The growing convergence as well as increasing calls for institutional reform from the Global South can partly be understood through this lens.

Most importantly, the doctrine confuses dominance with leadership. Dominance relies on coercion and fear; leadership relies on legitimacy and consent. The former may produce immediate concessions, but the latter creates durable influence. A strategy focused exclusively on extracting benefits risks sacrificing long-term credibility for short-term gains. In an interconnected world where economic, technological, and security challenges transcend borders, the costs of such an approach are likely to outweigh its temporary rewards.

The Indian Case

Consider the case of India. India’s commitment to strategic autonomy inherently clashes with the transactional foreign policy framework favoured by Trump. Unlike formal treaty partners, such as Japan or NATO members, India has consistently eschewed rigid alliance architectures to preserve diplomatic manoeuvrability in an increasingly fluid global environment. Consequently, as Washington prioritises immediate fiscal returns, defence sales, and trade metrics, New Delhi faces mounting pressure to provide concessions that diverge from its long-term strategic objectives.

Moreover, while access to the U.S. consumer base remains sought after, it is no longer the sole game in town. This reality was underscored shortly after Trump imposed a draconian 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods in August 2025, when Modi travelled to Beijing to participate in a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. When Putin later visited New Delhi in December, the Indian Prime Minister famously described the country’s friendship with Russia as “the North Star”, and the two leaders established a $100 billion bilateral trade target by 2030. While India did not formally align with Moscow, Modi effectively signalled to the White House that New Delhi possesses viable strategic alternatives.

For India, the rise of a dominant U.S. power reinforces the need for strategic independence. While partnerships are beneficial, they must not come at the expense of autonomy. Rather than choosing between global poles, India is trying to prioritise its own national interests over the self-serving demands of external actors. 

Conclusion

Hard power is still the primary currency in world politics, but the purposes for which it is used and the ways it is wielded are what determine whether it is effective in advancing a state’s interests. The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ represents a significant departure from the post-1945 tradition of American statecraft. If the era of the Marshall Plan embodied the logic of partnership and the post-Cold War period reflected the excesses of liberal triumphalism, Trump's second-term foreign policy reflects the logic of predatory hegemony. It seeks not merely to preserve American primacy but to monetise it.

Yet the transformation from hegemon to apex predator carries inherent risks. By prioritising extraction over cooperation, bilateral leverage over institutional legitimacy, and short-term advantage over strategic stability, Washington may find itself weakening the very order that underpins its power. The irony is profound: in attempting to maximise American dominance, the United States could accelerate the emergence of a world less willing to follow its lead. To be sure, the United States is not about to face a vast countervailing coalition or lose its independence; it is too strong and favourably positioned to suffer that fate. It will, however, become poorer, less secure, and less influential than it has been for most living Americans’ lifetimes. Future U.S. leaders will operate from a weaker position and will face an uphill battle to restore Washington’s reputation as a self-interested but fair-minded partner. Predatory hegemony is a losing strategy, and the sooner the Trump administration abandons it, the better. In a multipolar age, the strongest predator may discover that the hunt itself has become unsustainable. To quote Ernest Hemingway’s famous line about the onset of bankruptcy, a consistent policy of predatory hegemony could cause U.S. global influence to decline “gradually and then suddenly”.