Will Trump's 'madman' strategy pay off?
Incoming US president likes to seem unpredictable but, this time round, world leaders could be wise to his 'schtick'

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US president this afternoon. In the run-up to his second term in office, he has wasted no time in "returning to centre stage in US foreign policy" and "reprising his hallmark blend of bombastic rhetoric and threats" to keep both allies and enemies guessing.
Trump has already engaged in "undiplomatic talk", threatening, for example, to reclaim the Panama Canal and annex not only Greenland but Canada. And world leaders have been "scrambling" to respond, said NPR.
Panama, Canada and Denmark (which oversees Greenland) have strongly reminded Trump of their sovereignty but the new US president's sabre-rattling is clearly stoking tensions on the global stage already.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What did the commentators say?
It's easy to dismiss such pronouncements as a "nothing-burger" asides and instead "wait for a more authoritative expression of the new administration's plans", said Ed Kilgore for Intelligencer. But that would be "a mistake". Trump has conveyed something important to the world: "a forceful reminder that he is an extremely unpredictable champion of America's interests, as he sees them", and that neither "precedent, taste, or conventional wisdom" will constrain him.
When Trump first ran for president in 2016, "he sounded mad an awful lot of the time – in both senses of the word", said Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, in Foreign Policy. Time and time again, he made it clear he would be a different kind of president "because he was willing to be a little bit crazy, a little bit unpredictable".
Trump's delivery is often a marked departure from that of his predecessors but his sentiments echo that of President Nixon, "who also liked to get mad in both meanings of the word". It was Nixon who developed the "madman" theory of governance, wanting the North Vietnamese, for example, "to believe he was capable of doing anything to bring the Vietnam War to an end – up to and including the use of nuclear weapons".
"Trump's madman schtick" has so far worked best "with US allies", who have been "rattled by his threats to withdraw from long-standing alliances and trade treaties", and so have "made some public displays of fealty". But Trump has been "too busy trying to ingratiate himself with the autocratic rulers of China and Russia to act crazy in front of them". And, in any case, as he enters his second term, "most foreign leaders are now intimately familiar with Trump's playbook" – which makes him "more predictable to a host of foreign leaders who had to deal with him the first time around".
There is also little evidence that such an approach works historically, said Brad Glosserman in The Japan Times. For Nixon, "it didn't win the Vietnam war". And, though Vladimir Putin "flirts with the madman theory when he hints at his readiness to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict", that war is still going on.
What next?
Today, Trump will seek to "flex one of the most intense and sweeping demonstrations of presidential power on the first day of any administration" with a "blizzard of hardline executive actions" on energy production and immigration, and pardons for the January 6 rioters expected "by sundown", said CNN.
And this "inaugural show of force" will set the tone for Trump's second term – one which is "anchored on Trump's strongman persona and vision of an all-powerful presidency", a presidency which will be "aimed at unleashing intense disruption at home and abroad".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.
-
How will Trump's megabill affect you?
Today's Big Question Republicans have passed the 'big, beautiful bill' through Congress
-
How successful would Elon Musk's third party be?
Today's Big Question Musk has vowed to start a third party after falling out with Trump
-
How would the Trump administration denaturalize immigrant citizens?
Today's Big Question Using civil courts lowers the burden of proof
-
'Trucking is a dangerous business'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump sues LA over immigration policies
Speed Read He is suing over the city's sanctuary law, claiming it prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities
-
Obama, Bush and Bono eulogize USAID on final day
Speed Read The US Agency for International Development, a humanitarian organization, has been gutted by the Trump administration
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidents
The Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
Trump's strikes on Iran: a 'spectacular success'?
In Depth Military humiliations 'expose the brittleness' of Tehran's ageing regime, but risk reinforcing its commitment to its nuclear program