Trump: An unexpected nuclear savior

By: Azhar Azam

The US ulterior motives of using Ukraine as a proxy to force a regime change in Russia were unveiled once former US President Joe Biden at the beginning of Russia’s invasion put Kyiv at the forefront of the liberal democracy and vehemently declared “this battle will not be won in days or months either.”

His comment the Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” left US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to tidy up the ensuing mess: "As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter.”

While Blinken forgot Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and many more that descended into chaos, instability and social unrest over the US regime change policy, Biden’s remarks told all: he wanted to reinforce the US primacy by simultaneously sending arms to Ukraine in an attempt to wallow the Russian army in a quagmire and imposing harsh sanctions on the Kremlin, hoping Russian people to stage a civil uprising in the country.

The US Department of Defense’s data – showing the US Congress elevated the cap of the Presidential Drawdown Authority from $100 million to $11 billion for the Fiscal Year 2022 and Biden used this power 55 times to transfer the Pentagon’s defense articles and services worth $65.9 billion to Ukraine during his tenure – as well as a myriad of sanctions corroborated that his administration’s objective was to make Russia bleed economically and militarily with Ukraine as the pivot.

But this strategy failed as the Russian economy swam against the tide and its military continued to make advances. This forced Biden to authorize Kyiv to use powerful America-provided long-range weapons, the Army Tactical Missile System, to strike deeper into the Kremlin as a last-ditch effort.

His decision didn't alter the course of the conflict yet it raised the specter of a major escalation with Russia revising its nuclear doctrine. The updated policy vowed to shield Russia and allies from “aggression of any state from a military coalition” and extended nuclear umbrella to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a multination alliance that commits to exercise the right of collective defense in accordance with article 51 of the UN Charter.

At the root of the US’ Russia containment strategy has been the fallacy if Kyiv could be carved out of Moscow's orbit and sucked into the Western camp, Putin might struggle to survive. This liberal delusion, which began with West's vocal support of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine during the 2004 Orange Revolution and culminated in calls of Kyiv’s accession to Nato, turned out to be a geopolitical farce.

Right from the outset, Biden per a former US defense official knew Kyiv's victory was unattainable; still, he pursued a dangerous strategy of enrolling Ukraine into NATO. This “propaganda narrative” of supporting democracy in Ukraine, he warned, carried a real risk of nuclear catastrophe as indicated by his warning of an “Armageddon.” As if it wasn’t troubling enough, Biden kept bedeviling a nuclear-armed behemoth.

Until now, Biden’s reluctance to provide long-range weapons to Ukraine had relatively prevented to provoke Russia. But his key policy shift has radically lifted the threat of nuclear escalation. As a result, the world has found itself mired in nuclear threats.

The US President Donald Trump wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with China and Russia once he “straighten(s) it out” in Ukraine and the Middle East. Beijing has linked the denuclearization negotiations with “drastic and substantive cuts” to the US and Russian nuclear arsenal, stating they together possessed 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

If Trump is serious in encouraging China and other nuclear powers to join the nuclear disarmament process as well as to protect the world from unfathomable consequences of a nuclear war, he should first evolve an agreement with Moscow on no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Russia has rejected his proposal yet should he address some of the Russian concerns, the world could be prevented from being shunted on the brink.

One fundamental factor for Russia's rejection is threats to its national security by Nato expansion and America’s attempts to keep flames of the Ukraine conflict belching out. The US policy of containing rivals by ganging up military alliances and flooding the regions with weapons has inflicted a crippling damage to peace in the Middle East and led to the risks of nuclear proliferation and is now threatening to capture Europe in a powder keg once the Ukraine conflict concludes and poses new challenges for the continent.

The implications of the US’ perilous approach of seeing other countries as a challenge or adversary are formidable. While this policy leads to confrontation between major nuclear states, triggers a race in the rest of the world to acquire nuclear weapons and shuns cooperation on nuclear security, it gives a free rein to non-state actors, pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, to exploit the great-power tensions.

Trump – with his known transactional approach, anti-Nato rhetoric and accelerated efforts to end the Ukraine war – could prevent the world from sliding into a nuclear meltdown. His actions to nip the root cause of the crisis by ruling out Ukraine’s Nato accession would alleviate Moscow’s core grievances, deter it from using nuclear weapons and force it into demonstrating commitment to nuclear security.

His ninety-degree turn from defending democracy to economic opportunism and refusal to grant security guarantee to Kyiv unfortunately leaves the country stranded and Europe shocked; it will save millions of people from dying and pave the way for nuclear disarmament and a stronger cooperation on risks of proliferation and illicit transfers, helping build a robust global nuclear security architecture.

*My article (unedited) that first appeared the Express Tribune

World's future lies in multipolarization and multilateralism

By: Azhar Azam

In his keynote address at the "China in the World" event of the 61st Munich Security Conference, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China's answer to the question whether multipolarity will bring chaos, conflict and confrontation as well as domination by major countries and the strong bullying the weak, is, "We should work for an equal and orderly multipolar world," abide by the UN Charter and respect international rule of law without double standard. It is important to practice multilateralism and pursue openness and mutual benefit.

As political and economic liberalism, which shaped the post-World War II era marked by U.S. hegemony, continues to crumble under the rise of national populism in many Western democracies, Wang's emphasis on pursuing cooperation and pledge that China will be a steadfast constructive force offers valuable insights on tackling common world challenges.

The developing nations in the Global South widely consider Washington as incapable of tackling global challenges and major conflicts due to the double standard it displays when it comes to applying equal norms of accountability to all. And they are justified, given that America, which contravened international law and the UN Charter repeatedly in the past, is now trying to breach Ukraine's territorial integrity – just as it did in Iraq in 2003 – to suit its own interests.

China is regarded as the "most prominent and powerful" advocate of a multipolar order. Beijing's principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign countries and respect for the diversity of civilizations have been well-received internationally. However, the West fears it is rallying the Global South's support to reform the global order in order to replace the dominance of Western developed nations with its own.

China is a strong advocate of peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes and when facilitating talks between rival countries has also ensured that the hard-won peace is sustained. For instance, after brokering the historic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 that sparked a wave of reconciliation in the Middle East, it is now ensuring implementation of the China-Iran-Saudi Arabia Beijing Agreement.

It was a notable achievement of the Beijing-proposed Global Security Initiative, which underlines respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, promotes true multilateralism, and calls on major nations to uphold the authority of the UN and its status as the main platform for global security governance.

U.S. President Donald Trump's talk about buying Greenland from Denmark and the Panama Canal and making Canada America's 51st state is making political analysts perceive Washington as not "an anchor of stability, but rather a risk to be hedged against." His announcement of "buying and owning Gaza" and displacing Gazans has strengthened that perception. The mentality of seeing the world as U.S. property will have serious implications for global security, setting a dangerous precedent for others to annex the territories of smaller, weaker states.

The perception in the past that America upholds global stability by leading a rules-based international order changed gradually as American interventions generated "more ill will than goodwill" in many parts of the world, becoming a symbol of hypocritical posturing and double standard. Washington's weaponization of the concept against its geopolitical rivals and repeated violations of international law have bolstered this impression.

The notion of a rule-based international order is losing credibility with the U.S. seeking to construct a bloc of like-minded states with the objective of imposing its will on the rest of the world.

The prospect of a multipolar world is far from appetizing to a unilateralist power tending to fuel conflicts and tensions, shunning channels of economic and peace dialogues, and following protectionist and imperialist policies. These actions have weakened global institutions and deprived developing nations of their rights.

In a polycentric system, based on the UN Charter and international law, regional powers have the opportunity to become leading geopolitical actors. Wang's suggestion is that equal rights, equal opportunities and equal rules should become the basic principles of a multipolar world. That will democratize international relations and incorporate the Global South into international bodies, giving more economic and strategic stability to a turbulent world.

Unilateralism has failed to develop a common approach to global problems, undermining international cooperation even in areas of shared interests. Multilateralism holds the potential to maintain peace in the world, improve the quality of people's lives and resolve global challenges such as climate change and health crisis.

Multilateralism encompasses inclusivity, equality and cooperation and fostering a more prosperous, secure and sustainable world and is the world's future, as indicated in the Munich Security Report 2025.

China's commitment to a multipolar world and multilateralism isn't aimed at displacing America; it simply seeks to empower the developing nations too so that they can assume greater responsibility internationally. China's intention is to develop broad cooperation between developing and developed countries, including the U.S., and to combat real challenges such as conflicts, economic regression and climate change that threaten international stability and the very existence of mankind.

*My article that first appeared in the CGTN:

Trump's tariff approach is unwise both as a policy tool and a strategy

By: Azhar Azam

On February 10, U.S. President Donald Trump announced new 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. Many critics believe that yet more import duties are coming.

Trump has framed tariffs as a tool to stimulate the U.S. economy, protect jobs, generate tax revenue and pressure other countries into trade talks, not grasping that this strategy could backfire, ending up weakening America's growth, raising the cost of living at home and causing economic disruption worldwide.

Trump's new policy has a wider influence. The largest sources of U.S. steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to data from the American Iron and Steel Institute. New 25 percent tariffs would be a serious impediment to these cross-border trades and likely to hurt the U.S. economy in return. Even Trump himself has acknowledged that tariffs will do harm to Americans.

Academic and governmental studies confirm that tariffs have raised prices in the U.S. and lowered its economic output and employment since 2018. These taxes were almost completely absorbed by American consumers and retailers. There is resounding evidence that new tariffs will be passed to U.S. importers and consumers, severely affecting lower income households and hurting growth and pushing up prices.

It isn't that the U.S. does not comprehend the cataclysmic repercussions of tariffs on Americans. In 2019, Joe Biden denounced Trump's tariffs on China, saying "He thinks tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs."

This led to hopes that Biden, after becoming U.S. president, would rescind these duties to help alleviate some of the economic worries of Americans. Yet, in his ideology-driven pursuit of weakening China economically, the former U.S. president kept those levies in place that hit Americans hard and eventually became a political liability for his party in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Levies will not make a significant impact on the Chinese economy given the fact that China is comparatively less dependent on the U.S., thanks to its steady shift to domestic production and consumption and trade with other countries. Studies of the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis show that Chinese exports are outpacing global trade – with Chinese exports up 12 percent or more in volume terms while global trade is growing at more like 3 percent.

But these domestic tariffs will surely hurt the U.S. growth, drive up inflation and lead to spiraling prices of everyday products for American consumers. Due to the catastrophic impacts of tariffs, the U.S. health sector, that despite efforts to build a domestic supply chain relies heavily on international sources for generic drugs, will come under tremendous pressure, making it more vulnerable to drug shortages.

Tariffs will also neutralize Trump's own economic agenda that he, on the campaign trail, billed as a surefire way to cut the cost of living for Americans, making the lives of the most of them a lot tougher.

By pursuing a trade war with China and others, the "tariff man" is meting out a blow to U.S. households and exacting a "self-inflicted wound to the U.S. economy." This "bully strategy" didn't bring manufacturing jobs home before and could contract the U.S. GDP, say economists, by 1.5 percent and 2.1 percent in 2025 and 2026.

While Trump's tariffs are a wake-up call for countries that have hitched their political and economic interests solely with the U.S., underscoring the importance of diversifying their relations, they will exacerbate trade tensions, lower investment, reduce market efficiency and disrupt supply chains, resulting in further erosion of the international trade system.

The first Trump administration's tariffs undermined its exporters' global competitiveness by increasing the input costs of components and parts imported from China. The new trade war could be even more devastating for Americans and the U.S. economy as it covers a much broader range of goods.

Trump's tariff approach is unwise both as a policy tool and a strategy not only because it simultaneously hurts domestic consumers, puts the U.S. exporters at a disadvantage against global rivals and curtails the country's economic prosperity, but also because it damages America's credibility as a reliable trading partner and drives countries to instead trade among themselves.

*My article that first appeared in the CGTN: