Trump acts like an imperial bully-in-chief

President Trump’s view of international relations can be summarized in three words: “Might makes right.”

Trump clearly agrees with his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who recently told CNN: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Trump is turning back the clock to the days of imperialism, when the Roman Empire and later England, France, Spain and other great powers — followed by Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire, fascist Italy and the Soviet Union — imposed their will on weaker adversaries by force.

Americans used force to enslave millions of Africans. America seized land from Native Americans, take what is now the Western U.S. from Mexico, and conquer other territories. And Trump wants to bring back those days of unrestrained American power and expansionism.

He is using the U.S. military to demand other nations do whatever he commands, as if he is emperor of the world. He arrogantly ignores limits that U.S. law, the Constitution and international law place on what he can do.

Asked in a recent New York Times interview if there are any limits on actions he can take to impose his will around the world, Trump responded: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

“I don’t need international law,” Trump added. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”

Trump recently ordered the abduction and imprisonment of Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a raid that Venezuela says killed more than 100 people. He claims the right to run that country and control its oil for years, even outrageously calling himself Venezuela’s “acting president” on social media. He had earlier ordered attacks on boats near Venezuela that were allegedly carrying illegal drugs, killing more than 100 people on board without any attempt to arrest them.

Trump’s obsession with grabbing Venezuela’s oil and encouraging more domestic fossil fuel production — while doing all he can to limit the development of clean energy in the U.S. — makes no sense. But he refuses to believe that harmful climate change is caused by oil, natural gas and coal emissions, calling the scientific consensus a “con job,” a “hoax” and a “scam.”

Trump has demanded that Canada become the 51st U.S. state. He says America will retake control of the Panama Canal. He says the U.S. must control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO member Denmark. Until this week, he had been refusing to take military force off the table to achieve his goal.

Trump has attacked Iran and threatens to do so again. He has ordered attacks on Islamist terrorists in Syria and Nigeria. He has made threats against Cuba, Colombia and Mexico, asserting that the U.S. has the right to dominate the Western Hemisphere under an updated Monroe Doctrine that he calls the Donroe Doctrine.

He has also said America should take ownership of the Gaza Strip and turn it into a tourist resort.

Whatever happened to Trump’s campaign promise to get out of foreign wars and not start new ones? Is he not concerned that his military adventurism could trigger retaliatory strikes and terrorist attacks by his targets that would kill U.S. military members and civilians at home and abroad?

Trump’s aggressive actions could encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to use military force to conquer not just Ukraine, but other nations once part of the Soviet Union. Chinese President Xi Jinping could be encouraged to invade Taiwan and intimidate other Asian nations.

We don’t know how Trump would respond to such attacks by strongmen he has openly admired and tried to emulate with his own ruthless exercise of power.

Following the deaths of tens of millions of people in World War II and the development of nuclear weapons, nations around the world established the United Nations and strengthened efforts to use international law to limit future conflicts and promote global cooperation. Although there have been many new wars, we have thankfully been spared from World War III.

But Trump has frequently denounced the U.N. and recently withdrawn the U.S. from 31 U.N. agencies and dozens of other global organizations. He has eroded our moral standing in the world by eliminating almost all funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had provided lifesaving medical and food aid and saved millions of lives in poor nations.

Trump has made the world a more dangerous place with incompetent, erratic and dangerous policies based more on his emotions, ego, personal business interests and ignorance than on America’s strategic interests. He has alienated our allies by acting as the global bully in chief and embraced our enemies, most notably Putin.

“Might makes right,” though immoral, anti-democratic and destructive, was the dominant form of international relations for thousands of years. It is frightening that the president of the most powerful nation on Earth seeks to abandon the progress of the post-World War II era, return the world to the deadly and barbaric law of the jungle, and exercise tyrannical control over weaker nations. We deserve better from our president.

A. Scott Bolden is an attorney, NewsNation contributor, former chair of the Washington, D.C. Democratic Party and a former New York state prosecutor.