Trump finds gangsterism doesn't always end well

National Post, 2 October 2026

It's a foolish policy — especially when it comes to foreign affairs — if the other fellow is stronger, or at least strong enough to inflict damage

Over the summer, after President Donald Trump took the Gordie Howe bridge hostage at the behest of his billionaire benefactors, I wrote that gangsterism was a key part of the New York real estate world of the 1970s and 1980s. It was part of his formative experience. Trump was in New York last week and announced at the United Nations that it was also the animating spirit of his foreign policy.

“To the victor belong the spoils,” he instructed the General Assembly, apropos of the oil “deal” he made with America’s now puppet regime in Venezuela. When gangsters take over a rival’s turf, they do not wind down the operation, much less hand it over to a new local thug. They take it over and claim the proceeds — the spoils, if you will.

Trump then returned to Washington to roll out the (literal) red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping. While Xi was waiting to deplane, he could observe uniformed American military personnel on their knees to clean the red carpet before his descent. He likely does not see such literal kowtowing even at home.

American presidents do not greet foreign leaders on the tarmac — not since the protocol was revised during the Kennedy administration. The sole exception is for visiting popes — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton respectively greeted John Paul II in Alaska (1984), Miami (1987), Denver (1993), Newark (1995) and St. Louis (1999); George W. Bush welcomed Benedict XVI in Washington (2008) as Barack Obama did for Francis (2015). But that’s it. No one else.

A papal visit to the United States while Trump is still president is unlikely, so perhaps Trump thought Xi the best he could do. Certainly, Trump speaks more favourably of Xi than he does of Pope Leo XIV, whom he subjected to a social media tirade earlier this year.

Only Vladimir Putin — red carpet in Alaska last summer — gets the adulation given to Xi, a sort of affection for gangster regimes by one who celebrates, as he did at the UN, the gangster ethic.

Gangsterism as the organizing principle of foreign policy is hardly new, but ancient. The phrase itself — to the victor belongs the spoils — arose in the context of naked American political patronage in the 19th century and, it must be conceded, has been applicable on occasion to American foreign policy, too.

Is this such an occasion? Gangsterism had been largely set aside after WWII; whatever “rules-based order” means, it means not gangsterism. Is the Trump administration now correct that the gangster-spoils principle is well suited to American interests and global order in 2026?

It did suit the administration on the Gordie Howe hostage-taking. Canada had to concede or the bridge wouldn’t open. But it also likely cost the Americans in the trade negotiations. Why would Canada make other concessions with a gangster who takes hostages?

As for hostage-taking, or extraction-by-law-enforcement if you prefer, in Venezuela, shed no tears for Nicolas Maduro, languishing in a New York jail. But the deal that Trump made with Venezuela will require massive private investment over the long term, and what company will be confident in an environment in which there are gangsters on both sides, in Caracas and in Washington?

Gangsterism did not play well in Greenland, in which NATO allies forced Trump to back down and accept an enhanced version of the same arrangements the U.S. has had since the 1950s.

Gangsterism is proving difficult in the Persian Gulf, where in the heady days after starting the war Trump announced that he wanted to “take the oil.” Despite an overwhelming imbalance in military power, not only can the U.S. not take the oil, but at enormous expense is struggling to re-establish the status quo antebellum — namely free and safe passage of all oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

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