{"text":[[{"start":9.14,"text":"Has any year in memory started with such a bang as 2026? In little over seven days, Donald Trump’s America has captured the Venezuelan president and declared control of the country and its oil. The president has tossed out threats to Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Greenland, and warned Iran’s leaders that America is ready to intervene if they kill domestic protesters. The US has seized two oil tankers linked to Venezuelan oil exports — one reportedly escorted by a Russian submarine. And in one move this week it withdrew from some 66 UN and international organisations."}],[{"start":54.67,"text":"So startling has been the opening of January that US air strikes on Nigeria, on December 25, already feel like the distant past. Trump started the new year in a confident mood, and the success of his Venezuelan gamble — which could easily have backfired — has emboldened him further. The world is dealing with a Trump unbound: a president who feels unconstrained at home and is asserting America’s right to act internationally as it sees fit — not just within the western hemisphere over which he has asserted US dominance, but wherever it can get away with it."}],[{"start":98.32,"text":"This amounts to a sharp escalation in Trump’s America First foreign policy. But the president continues to throw his weight around at home — from pressing the US oil industry to pile back into Venezuela despite the lack of legal protections, to a misguided move to ban big institutional investors from buying single-family homes in an effort to boost housing supply. The heavy-handed tactics of his Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons have led to an unarmed woman in Minneapolis being shot dead, sparking protests. Videos raised doubts over Trump’s claim that she ran over an ICE agent."}],[{"start":142.31,"text":"It is debatable how much his actions add up to any coherent worldview from Trump himself. This is a president who follows his whim and his “gut”. Military adventurism abroad distracts from his languishing ratings at home. At 79, his hyperactivity also constitutes a riposte to rumours of infirmity and ill health."}],[{"start":169.24,"text":"Yet if in his first term many in his administration sought to rein him in, powerful White House figures in his second term embrace the president’s audacity and portray it as strategy. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, this week scoffed at the “niceties” of a “rules-based system”. He claimed the administration was reflecting the realities of a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”."}],[{"start":202.34,"text":"America has, of course, intervened militarily abroad countless times before. Even as it sought to construct and enforce the post-1945 rules-based order, it broke those rules when it suited it. In the past, however, rule-breaking was the exception; now it is becoming the norm. Though not solely responsible, the Trump administration is accelerating the shift to a Hobbesian world carved up between strong powers who dictate terms to the rest."}],[{"start":237.29000000000002,"text":"What might restrain Trump? The courts have had some success; the Supreme Court may soon curtail his tariff powers. Losing control of Capitol Hill in the November midterm elections, if the Democrats regain the House of Representatives, could reduce his room for manoeuvre at home, though less so internationally. Law-breaking is also possible, to influence the voting or try to overturn the result."}],[{"start":266.68,"text":"Arguably, little may change in foreign policy unless Trump’s projection of US power is seen by Americans to be harming their own lives. For America’s democratic allies, the implications of the past week, and past year, are stark. However much they may rue the passing of the old world, they need to adapt fast to the new one."}],[{"start":300.46,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1768173366_5583.mp3"}