{"id":206433,"date":"2026-04-04T08:32:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/how-trumps-unchecked-power-has-changed-the-world-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T08:32:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:32:35","slug":"how-trumps-unchecked-power-has-changed-the-world-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/how-trumps-unchecked-power-has-changed-the-world-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s unchecked power has changed the world – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diplomatic norms, law and institutions have proven to be no hindrance to the US president. Can he really do anything he wants?<\/em>
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The decision by United States President Donald Trump to launch a war on Iran has left many international law experts questioning if the world order established after World War II is actually working.
In his second presidential term, Trump seems to be wielding total power without restraint, and the system of checks and balances enshrined in the US Constitution appears to be failing to limit his power.
Since Trump was sworn in in January 2025, he has ordered two unprovoked attacks on independent states, Venezuela and Iran; threatened to annex Greenland; strained traditional alliances with Europe; undermined the United Nations; and rattled international trade with his sweeping tariffs.
Previous constraints set by the UN system and international law appear supplanted by what Trump told reporters in January was a vision of power limited only by his \u201cown morality\u201d.
So what checks are there on Trump? Is he really free to attack states, set tariffs at will and, as leader of the world\u2019s most powerful state, essentially dictate global policy? And if so, why are so many observers now saying his war on Iran is faltering?
Not so far.
According to analysts, both his attacks on Venezuela and Iran were in clear breach of international law and the UN Charter, <\/em>principally the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4).
Debates about international law, how it has been geared over the decades to underpin the interests of the West and the US specifically, are hardly new. However, experts<\/a> said, the Trump presidency has seen even the notional restraints of international law trampled underfoot.
Trump himself has brushed aside international law, saying in January that it would be up to him to decide when and how much international law applied to the US and his actions.
\u201cIn many respects, international law has historically served US interests, and self-interest should continue to generate US support for a rules-based order organised around the core principles enshrined in the UN Charter,\u201d Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin who previously worked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, told Al Jazeera, \u201cBut finding value in international law often requires adopting a long-term outlook that does not sit easily with short-term political agendas.\u201d
\u201cIn the current geopolitical climate, the capacity of international law to provide a meaningful constraint on US action under Donald Trump has proven negligible,\u201d Becker added. \u201cThat seems unlikely to change, especially given the failure by other states to strike a united front against Trump\u2019s gangsterism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not so much.
From its founding, the role of the UN has been to promote dialogue instead of conflict and provide a global response to international challenges. However, Trump\u2019s relationship with the body, like so many of the president\u2019s associations, has rarely been so straightforward. On the one hand, while appearing to try to supplant the body with his members-only Board of Peace as well as sidelining UN aid efforts in Gaza, he has on occasion sought the legitimacy of the UN for a number of his projects, such as his calls in August for the UN to establish a Support Office in Haiti, to help limit migration to the US.
However, while the support of the UN may be helpful, it is clear that Trump has no intention of abiding by its charter, Richard Gowan, the Crisis Group\u2019s UN director from 2019 to 2025, said.
\u201cWhile other UN members see the US is breaking international law on a regular basis, they often hold back from criticising Washington too loudly in forums like the Security Council because they fear blowback from Trump,\u201d Gowan said. \u201cSo Trump is learning he can sidestep the UN when he wants to and get away with it while occasionally using it for instrumental purposes.\u201d
Up to a point.
Many countries known as \u201cmiddle powers\u201d, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and other Western and European states, have proven successful so far<\/a> in pushing back against Trump\u2019s efforts to unilaterally annex Greenland. But European powers have failed to condemn Trump\u2019s unprovoked war on Venezuela and Iran, exposing their double standards in conflicts in the Middle East and the Global South.
Many analysts expect that a withdrawal of investments<\/a> in the US by Gulf states, which are bearing the brunt of Iran\u2019s retaliation to US and Israeli attacks, may also hasten the war\u2019s end.
\u201cMiddle powers can generate friction but not a veto,\u201d HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London said. \u201cCollective action \u2013 European governments, Gulf states \u2013 can raise costs and extract tactical adjustments. The structural imbalance remains: The US retains decisive military, financial and institutional primacy.\u201d
Smaller states often hedge their bets, follow Washington or look to regional alliances for protection, Hellyer added, continuing that while pressure was strongest in Europe, where the US is no longer seen as a reliable security guarantor, the idea of establishing an alternative continues to be a hurdle. \u201cThe logic of an alternative model is accepted; the capacity to execute it quickly is not. A prolonged interregnum follows. The Gulf Arab states are in an analogous position,\u201d he said.
In the meantime, Trump and the US are free to act as they choose. \u201cThese are exposure-management strategies, pursued until structural dependence on the US security umbrella can be reduced,\u201d he said.
China and Russia have so far criticised the breaches of international law while avoiding clear escalation, and India and other members of the BRICS bloc have largely stayed silent, suggesting a preference for strategic ambiguity over confronting Washington directly.
Not really.
The US Supreme Court<\/a> was able to block Trump\u2019s use of tariffs to manage large parts of his foreign policy by rewarding allies with lower tariffs and punishing critics with punitive import duties.
But none of the other traditional guardrails \u2013 such as Congress; the Department of Justice, which has provided unwavering support to the president; and even the news media \u2013 has contained the president\u2019s ambitions. This isn\u2019t entirely new. Previous presidents have ordered wars without congressional approval. However, with Trump, analysts suggested, it has been systematic.
Powerful US institutions have largely failed to hold the Trump administration accountable, analysts, such as Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of international affairs at Princeton University, said.
\u201cHis base of strong supporters are saying that they are willing to experience short-term increases in gasoline prices if it leads to a friendly government in Iran in the long term. His opponents have been his opponents on everything, so he simply ignores and threatens them,\u201d Scheppele told Al Jazeera.
\u201cTrump pays more attention to market performance than to public opinion, so he started saying that he was minimising costs and saying that the Iran war is short term to boost markets again.\u201d
\u201cWhat the US is spectacularly missing is leadership to oppose Trump. Congress is not doing its constitutional job to constrain him. The Supreme Court is in his pocket because he packed the court in his first term. Lower court judges are heroic and have done amazing work under serious pressures, but they don\u2019t get foreign policy questions, given the difficulty of anyone getting \u2018standing\u2019 \u2026 in the area of international matters,\u201d she said, referring to the requirement that parties to a lawsuit must show actual or future direct harm to themselves to bring a case to court.
She noted that lower federal courts, although limited on foreign policy, have repeatedly checked executive overreach on immigration, sanctions designations and emergency powers, often under intense political pressure.
In the eyes of many observers, Trump, with no clear war aims or a defined resolution, is in danger of losing control of a conflict that appears to be both growing and reaching into economic areas apparently unforeseen by his administration, so while traditional restraints don\u2019t apply, market forces, like gravity, always do.
Trump has repeatedly said the war would be over soon despite none of his claimed war aims being achieved.
Oil prices have surged due to his attacks on Iran, Tehran\u2019s counterstrikes and threats to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, through which about 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas passes.
The International Energy Agency\u2019s decision on Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil from international petroleum reserves has failed to tame the prices. Iran has warned that oil could hit $200 a barrel as it continues its stranglehold of the waterway.
\u201cUltimately, the factors that might be most likely to constrain Donald Trump\u2019s neoimperialist impulses \u2013 or his willingness to pursue the policy goals of those who have his ear \u2013 are the economic fallout from disrupting global energy markets and a broader disenchantment among US voters with his globe-trotting militarism, his rampant self-dealing and his callous disregard for the human costs of war,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n

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