After taking office, the old-new leader of a superpower made bold moves that could reshape global dynamics. Promising to tackle financial vulnerabilities of adversaries, he hinted at a ne...

The old-new President of the United States began taking action immediately after his inauguration. Of course, the promise to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours has been forgotten, but Donald Trump made several very interesting statements. Very interesting – and significantly broader in scope.

To start with – let's talk about Ukraine. More precisely, about the Russian Federation, because as Trump explained, everything is clear and understandable with Ukraine – it is ready for negotiations, despite the ban on talking to Putin that has been in place since 2022 (although Volodymyr Zelensky, during a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Maia Sandu, managed to explain that negotiations are prohibited, but they can still happen).

As expected, the American businessman president, with his entrepreneurial manner, decided to strike at the most vulnerable point in Putin's "special military operation" – finances. Specifically, the oil industry, which is essentially the only sector that still somewhat fills the federal budget of the aggressor country and allows it to wage war against Ukraine.

Of course, after Donald Trump's remarks about possible agreements with Saudi Arabia and OPEC countries, everyone immediately recalled the legendary story from the mid-1980s. At that time, the price of oil, which was trading around $37 per barrel, fell by more than three times – which is believed to have dealt a fatal blow to the clumsy planned economy of the Soviet Union. A political apocryphal story suggests that this price drop was linked to certain agreements between then-President Ronald Reagan and the Saudis.

The parallels between those events and the current times are more than evident. For instance, there is talk of a potential price drop by half (from the $80 mark). Moreover, Trump, not only a Republican like Reagan, has also chosen a slightly modified version of Reagan's slogan Let's Make America Great Again for his campaign. In short, there is plenty of room for speculation. However, the current administration is not limiting itself to just Russia.

And there is nothing new in this either – during Trump's first presidential term, it was clearly stated that the main strategic enemy of the United States is China, not Russia. Therefore, the 45th / 47th President of the United States almost immediately after returning to office announced a financial strike against China – the imposition of tariffs on all Chinese goods. Of course, not at the fantastical level he promised before the elections – then it was about 60%, now it’s only about 10% – but even this is quite sufficient to deliver a significant blow to the economy of the world's largest dictatorship.

This blow will actually affect not only China but also Russia, which is increasingly tied to the Chinese market, transforming from a raw material dictator of Europe into a raw material appendage of the PRC. And if we look at it on a larger scale – of the whole world. Primarily its authoritarian part. Of course, one way or another, the slowdown in the Chinese and American economies will affect everyone, but the European Union has demonstrated an incredible speed in switching from Russian gas to other sources since February 24, 2022. Many experts and analysts confidently predicted serious gas consequences for Europe at that time (and not all of them were funded by the Kremlin). It turned out that the serious consequences primarily affected Russia itself. So, market-capitalist countries will manage, but global tyrannies…

And here it is worth mentioning another point that seemingly has no direct connection to the history of (Russian) oil prices and tariffs on Chinese goods. This is the decision to unblock the supply of 2000-pound (900-kilogram) MK-84 bombs to Israel. The Israelis did not receive them due to a ban from the democratic administration of Joe Biden – claiming they were too powerful for the Gaza Strip and could cause excessive destruction there.

It should be noted here that, firstly, the destruction there is indeed impressive even without MK-84 bombs. There is a plethora of photographic and video evidence on the internet, making it impossible to view everything. Thus, as we can see, Jerusalem has managed without these models. And now, it seems, it is too late to deliver them; the war in the sector has ended, at least the current one, with Israel and Hamas (under pressure from the United States, of course) having reached some agreement, at least exchanging hostages captured on October 7, 2023 (on one side) and terrorists sentenced to various terms (on the other). Trump himself even suggests relocating the civilian population – conditionally civilian, as we understand, meaning those who have not been overtly involved in Hamas's actions – to Arab countries like Egypt or Jordan.

It seems unnecessary to have these megabombs then. And here we recall "secondly." No, not about Lebanon, where Israel successfully defeated Hezbollah and, if necessary, will finish them off. Nor about Syria, where the Israeli army quietly annexed a portion of territory with Druze settlements to the Golan Heights under its control. We are recalling the Islamic Republic of Iran. And its nuclear program. In fact, not just the nuclear program, but the fact that Iran is the main problem in the Middle East, from which financial streams flow to support all these terrorist organizations – from the Houthis far to the south (who have blocked the Red Sea and significantly increased shipping costs from Asia to Europe) to Hezbollah and Hamas.

The idea of an Israeli, or rather an Israeli-American (at least at the level of tacit support, but not only) strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, and in the long term – the idea of destroying the Ayatollah regime altogether, did not emerge on January 20, 2025. However, right now, with Trump's return, they have taken on new, quite realistic outlines. And this can only mean one thing.

Trump has indeed begun a planetary war. But not the Third World War, as has been buzzing from all sides like annoying flies – but a Second Cold War. With elements of hot conflict, as seen in our case or in the Middle East. And it is worth remembering one thing. That the democratic West, despite all its mistakes and failures, despite the Brandts and Carters – won the First Cold War. It won because it is economically significantly stronger than authoritarian regimes. Of course, today's China is not the Soviet Union of Khrushchev-Brezhnev (and this is the fault of the previous generation of Western politicians who allowed Beijing to create a powerful economy oriented, in particular, towards Western consumers). But this only means that the war will again be difficult and protracted. Or short – if the intensity of “cold hostilities” increases, which Trump is now hinting at with his statements.

In short, the American president has effectively launched a remake of that global conflict that destroyed – but did not finish off – the world's tyrannies. We hope that this time the West will not make such a gross mistake, the mistake named Bill Clinton (who effectively saved Yeltsin's Russia from complete and final destruction).