“I don’t need any laws, the only thing that can stop me is my own morality and my own mind”

The US president said he did not need international law, but that he was not looking to “harm people” either. Asked if his government took compliance with international law seriously, Trump responded yes, it did, but depending on journalists’ “definition” of international law, of course.

“Trump’s assessment of his own freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement American supremacy was the most direct recognition yet of his worldview,” the New York newspaper’s journalists write.

“At its core is the idea that national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions, must be the decisive factor when powers clash,” they warn.

In the interview, the White House tenant acknowledged that he had had to face some limitations when it came to “punishment of institutions he dislikes, imposing retaliation on his political adversaries and deploying the National Guard in cities against the objections of state and local authorities.”

He also exhibited his most belligerent version. He boasted about the attacks last June against Iran’s nuclear program, the express capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Floresand his plans in Greenland, his next big objective.

The journalists of Times They wanted to know what their priority was on this last front, whether to maintain NATO unity or take over the Arctic island, a territory under Danish sovereignty. Trump was not able to respond. He only managed to say that, without the United States, the Alliance was a useless instrument.

Trump did answer the question of why he coveted Greenland. “Because that’s what I consider psychologically necessary for success. I think ownership gives you something that you can’t get when you’re talking about a lease or a treaty,” he replied. “Ownership gives you things and items that you don’t get just by signing a document.”

Trump is also convinced that Maduro’s capture has not set any dangerous precedents that the Chinese leader can assert in the future. Xi Jinping in Taiwan or the Russian president Vladimir Putinwho attempted a similar operation with Volodímir Zelenski at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“This was a real threat,” Trump insisted on the case of Venezuela. “You didn’t have people pouring into China. You didn’t have drugs pouring into China. You didn’t have all the bad things we’ve had. You didn’t have Taiwan prisons open and people pouring into China.”