The US's former friends need to realise the old global order is over

A resonant phrase during Donald Trump's first administration was the advice to take him "seriously, but not literally".

- Nesrine Malik

It was a singularly detrimental expression, widely quoted by politicians and the media. Its adoption fitted with the position many felt most comfortable taking: Trump was bad, but he wasn't smart. He wasn't intentional. He wasn't calculated and deliberate. He sounded off, but rarely followed up with action. He was in essence a misfiring weapon that could do serious damage, but mostly by accident.

The residue of that approach still persists, even in analysis that describes Trump's first executive orders as a campaign of "shock and awe", as if it were just a matter of signalling rather than executing. Or that his plan for Gaza is to be taken - you guessed it - seriously, not literally. When that was suggested to Democratic senator Andy Kim, he lost it. Trump is "the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world... if I can't take the words of the president of the United States to actually mean something, rather than needing some type of oracle to be able to explain, I just don't know what to think about when it comes to our national security".

Part of the problem is that people are reluctant to imbue Trump with any sort of coherence. But a Trump doctrine is emerging, most sharply in foreign policy. First, it is transactional, particularly when it comes to warfare in which the US is playing a role. Nothing has a history or any objective sense of right and wrong. Time starts with Trump, and his role is to end things, ideally while securing some bonus for the US.