Donald Trump’s presidency rests on the premise that he and the United States are so powerful that allies and enemies alike must submit to his will.
His break with decades of US foreign policy doctrine is laced through his speeches and national security strategies. It was best explained in January by top aide Stephen Miller, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “iron laws” dictate a real world that is “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
But the philosophy faces its most serious tests in deepening showdowns with Iran and Canada.
Iran has defied the might of the US military for six months in a war Trump started but has been unable to end.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, who shut down trade talks with Washington, has meanwhile argued more forcefully than any other Western leader that the US under Trump “has changed.” He told his country Saturday that Trump was using “economic integration as a weapon.”
It is a commentary on the extreme disruption of the Trump era that Canada, one of America’s most loyal friends, has found itself in a similar state of economic warfare with the US as Iran, one of Washington’s worst foes.
But the Trump administration left no doubt Monday what it wants as it fights a trade war with Ottawa and a shooting war with Tehran.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an “economic onslaught” against Iran’s global financial connections, drawing an analogy with the D-Day invasion that turned the tide in World War II.
Trump, meanwhile warned on social media that “The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada.” He added: “Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line.’”
The administration’s rhetoric Monday suggests that Trump is now sending the US economy to war.
Trump hopes to chalk up a lopsided trade deal with Canada and to finally bring about the downfall of Iran’s regime.
But the way forward is uncertain on both fronts because the president often backs down when the economic consequences of his attempts to assert his authority become clear.
Any prolonged US effort to prevail over Canada and Iran — and third-party nations sanctioned in his bid to shut down Tehran’s financial networks — could trigger retaliation that causes energy and food price hikes for US consumers. It could also rattle US markets at a time when some investors fear a bond crisis.
If Monday’s threats are the precursor to more TACOs (“Trump always chickens out”), the president will undermine his own power and the nation’s, and slip closer to lame-duck status as difficult midterm elections loom in November.
Bessent’s announcement was the latest US effort to find a new way out of the war with Iran.
But the D-Day analogy seemed tonally off, given the terrible sacrifices made by American soldiers to liberate Europe. And unlike Bessent, allied commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower didn’t spent days in 1944 previewing a massive attack only to follow through with new threats of sanctions and no timeline.
Still, administration skeptics often ignore the genuine power that Trump could wield by clever use of economic warfare.
A truly global effort to cut off Iran’s pathways to finance and trade could inflict extreme damage on an already devastated economy.
“It can work if we can get the buy-in of our partners,” Max Meizlish, a former senior Treasury official, said on CNN News Central Monday, specifically referring to Bank Melli, an Iranian commercial bank controlled by the government that operates in France, Germany and elsewhere and is a cog in Iran’s efforts to evade sanctions.
Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who is now a Harvard University chair, told CNN’s Richard Quest: “Fundamentally, sanctions work if you can get most of the world behind you. But if they’re not, it’s very hard.”
Trump might have had more success with such an approach before alienating US allies with a war many regard as unwise and illegal.
And the White House may be misreading its capacity to influence events inside Tehran. Signs of disagreement between pragmatists and hardliners over the economy are encouraging. But Washington has for decades over-read such tea leaves and assumed regime collapse would follow.
Most damagingly, the Trump administration is sending signals that it may not be serious about its own policy.
There was no immediate action against an array of Chinese banks that facilitate Beijing’s trade in cut-price Iranian oil. China has already said it will defend its interests — code for potential retaliatory reaction against the US that could further raise prices and anger US voters. It showed last year in threatening to curtail rare earth mineral exports critical to the US defense and tech industries that it can counter Trump’s power.
And the US leader also has a big date circled on his calendar — the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. It’s hard to see him souring the atmosphere before then.
In a revealing moment, Bessent only reinforced doubts about the administration’s staying power. He was asked why he was not immediately imposing secondary sanctions on entities that deal with Iran.
“Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior; why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” he replied.
The administration is less wary of sanctioning the manufacturers of Canadian hockey sticks than Chinese banks.
And cross-border rhetoric is increasingly toxic.
“We have to remember, Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident,” Vice President JD Vance said Monday.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference that “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so (Trump) has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”
Venting can sometimes create political room to relaunch talks.
But Canadians believe they are embroiled in more than a trade dispute.
Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, Ontario, just across from Detroit, explained the damage inflicted by Trump’s 51st-state claims. “When you say it the first time, perhaps you can laugh it off, but it was the doubling down and certainly continuing to reinforce that,” he told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.
Ottawa said that, among other disputes, Carney ended trade talks after the US sought to water down its constitutional guarantees of bilingualism. Printing packaging for products sold in Canada in French as well as English is an inconvenience for US firms. But it’s a validation of the cultural and linguistic diversity that keeps Canada whole. Carney also implied Washington sought to restrict trade deals that his government could make with third countries.
“We will not allow any nation to dictate our future,” Carney said Saturday.
As the smaller economy, Canada would suffer the most harm in a trade war with the US. But it can challenge American power. A long tariff duel could result in the mutually assured destruction of the auto industry on both sides of the border. And the growing impact of Canadian boycotts could weaken Republicans in key contests in border states Michigan and Maine, which could decide who controls the US Senate next year.
And in seeking to impose his dominance, Trump may have revealed another iron law of power that Miller did not mention back in January.
When people see their sovereignty and independence threatened by a hostile greater power, there is almost no price they will not pay.
