#us-foreign-policy

#us-foreign-policy

Iraqis in the audience broke out in cheers, leapt up from their seats and pumped their fists in the air many had waited decades for that moment. This is a great day in Iraq's history, Bremer said, adding: The tyrant is a prisoner. I was in the audience that day in Baghdad, covering the Iraq invasion's aftermath as a correspondent for a US newspaper.

Donald Trump just carried out an external coup in Venezuela and kidnapped the president of that country-and he's only getting started. In the wake of this violent assertion of American dominance over the Western Hemisphere, Trump has started threatening other neighboring countries, promising interventions in Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia. And, most pertinently for Europe, he's renewing his vows to annex Greenland.

Trump has shown a willingness to use the brute force of the US military to achieve his foreign policy goals. On Saturday, the US launched an early-morning attack on Venezuela, with explosions reported across the capital Caracas and at Venezuelan military bases. US troops ultimately abducted Venezuelan President Maduro from Caracas in what critics say was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

On Wednesday night, the Trump administration announced plans to withdraw from 66 global agencies, including premier U.N. groups that focus on climate and health issues.

The US is advancing a new global order. Over the past eight decades Washington pursued when it suited American interests an order based on international law, liberalism, multilateralism and democratic values. The new one is based on autocracy and the use of force, and is underpinned by xenophobic nationalism. For the transatlantic relationship this is transformative: it means that coercive action now drives policy change. Europe's security dependency on the US is leverage to be ruthlessly exploited.

Graham's Sanctioning Russia Act, drafted with Democrat Richard Blumenthal, would give Trump the authority to impose a tariff of up to 500 percent on imports from countries doing business with Russia's energy sector. This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin's war machine, Graham said in a statement, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.