President Trump declared “America First” as his foreign policy when he first ran for president in 2016 but the Europeans did not pay attention. They should have, as the slogan was rooted in the American non-interventionism that opposed the U.S.’s entering both World Wars. The president and his people have repeated it on numerous occasions. The Europeans had good reasons to neglect such ominous sign of an earth shaking political, and military, turnabout because Americans and Europeans were ideologically brothers and sisters. Defending Europe was to protect America’s security.
They may perhaps have been warned behind the scenes of the changes, but Europe never had a second thought about Washington’s commitment to the American-European alliance. The president loudly but reasonably demanded that Europe pay their NATO’s full dues on time. After all NATO was more about Europe than America. Trying to cheat on their financial responsibility was not very nice. But they probably laughed at the idea of paying the dues in full. You are, they thought, scared of the Russians more than we do. A few months ago, former President Joe Biden’s administration’s commitment to the defense of Ukraine was not in doubt.
In only three weeks since the change of the guards in Washington, the world has drastically changed. To be more accurate, American foreign policy has shifted in a different direction because the underlying fundamentals of world and domestic political dynamics have changed.
First, Russia is no longer considered by Trump’s Washington a foe. Quiet and seemingly small things spoke loud and clear. Biden had tried for four years to get Marc Fogel, who brought MEDICAL marijuana to Russia and was imprisoned since 2021, released. Putin just ignored it. Dmitry Peskov, President Putin’s spokesperson, threw a smoke grenade into diplomacy, complaining ostentatiously that the U.S.-Russian relations were at a historic low. Then, a call from President Trump, Fogel was out of the Russian prison and back to the U.S. President Putin does not have the habit of releasing prisoners after receiving a phone call. A quid pro quo was, and is still, at work.
What is it?
It is a new alignment of ideals and security among America, Europe, and Russia. The elephant in the room is China.
For centuries Americans and the Europeans looked at the Chinese and saw nothing more respectable than a cook, a valet, a coolie, or a bunching bag for Peter Sellers to hit when he came home. Then suddenly, the West discovered that whatever they did, the Chinese did as well or better, from a kitchen knife to a supercomputer. The West built an atomic bomb, they built an atomic bomb. The West constructed the Space Station, they did the same. The West went to the moon, they also did and to its other side where no western country has ever been. They have built airplanes and now carriers. In America, we were in the midst of marveling at Silicon Valley’s geniuses building ChatGPT and before we got over our ecstasy, they showcased DeepSeek, which works as competently as ChatGPT but costs users much less, about 3.67% of ChatGPT’s price.
By now, America has probably found new respect for them. But while it doesn’t really know what is going on, it must be careful and prepare itself. That requires a pivot of strategy to deal with the Chinese phenomenon.
America’s interest in the Pacific, from Japan along the coast down to Indonesia to Australia and New Zealand is huge. Any of these countries fell under China’s influence would cause a seismic shift in the balance of power in favor of China and against the U.S. Confronting China by itself in the Pacific would probably be a doable task but expensive in terms of money and human sacrifices. A better solution is to create a formidable pressure on China’s north border to force them to have a second thought about expanding its power eastward and southward. That would come from, you guess it, Russia. The American “quid” is Russia working with U.S. to deter China. The Russian “quo” is Ukraine falling back into Russia’s sphere of influence. That would leave Europe in the lurch and the U.S. endure a lot of uncomfortable nagging.
Europe must be made aware of the new reality that it has to survive on its own, starting with Ukraine whose abandonment by the U.S. is no longer a possibility; it is a reality. It is a bribe the U.S. is paying to get Russia into a new alliance, let’s call it US-Russia North Pacific Alliance.
Europe has no alternative but to mobilize their industrial powerhouses to prop up their defense capability. One hopes that it will not be too late to save Ukraine from that repeated tragedy of dividing a country and its people.
The bond between Europe and America is too deep, culturally, traditionally, and ideologically for one side to leave the other. That was the conventional belief. Such belief did not count the thinking and calculation of MAGA.
JOHN P. LE PHONG.

The title of this article (with the long English translation) is a military tactic promulgated by a Chinese, Sun Tsu, and now faithfully executed by MAGA, which hates the Chinese’s guts. Greenland, Panama Canal, and the latest Gaza Strip bravado are “Dương Đông”, make a feint to the East. Tariff serves the same purpose but is also intended to achieve another political goal.
Dismembering Democracy is “Kích Tây”, attacking in the West, taking one quiet step at a time. The first step: concentrating governmental power into the executive branch. Such a move would not be too radical to the public as it was supported by some political theorists and even one of the country founders, Elexander Hamilton, when the nation is in a crisis. It is also necessary for a party in power when it wants to subvert Democracy to replace it with an oligarchic or aristocratic regime. That is what is going on in America, a non-bloodshed revolution (except for a clumsy attempt on January 6, 2021) to reverse history and replace the Democratic political system with a dictatorship.

Democracy is perfect for the common men. One feels gratified walking down the street to have a cup of coffee or say the emperor has no clothes without worrying about being stopped by the secret police or a knock on the door at midnight. But the rich and the hardheaded do not like it. What goes in their mind is like this: how can Joe sixpack have one vote just like me who lives in a 50-room mansion and travel in 700-foot-long yacht? They believe the nation needs to go back to a social order in the shape of a pyramid, they being at the top and us the multitude fighting for space ourselves at the bottom. Equality is a fantasy in your head, they say; you forget at your peril that you are at our mercy.

We must now ask the question: is Democracy flawed and weak?

Like everything else in the universe, American Democracy’s survival depends on its innate ability to resist all assaults from all sides and flourish. When it goes head-to-head against MAGA, Democracy does not seem to possess that ability.
How could MAGA prevailed in 2016 and again in 2024? The answer is now obvious: they skillfully blended racism with nationalism.
The Democratic Republicans as opposed to MAGA, were persuaded that
American Traditional Christian Values were threatened and damaged by an uncontrolled influx of immigrants. More, domestic policies pouring so much money into social programs have made the U.S. a magnet for foreigners wanting to have an idly good life without any prospect of making contribution to the national economy or making life in the U.S., as they understand it, better. Then, they saw the Trump Administration’s ineptitude and excesses and voted Democratic in 2020. But the Biden’s weak or half-hearted legislations and executive actions sent them back to the Republican side in 2024. They wanted decisive policies, even willing to vote MAGA, to clean up the immigration mess, which lured the majority of Americans, Republicans and even Democrats, into voting for Donald Trump.

But they don’t seem to be aware that his policy of high tariffs, tax cuts for the rich, and higher tax for the middle- and low-income folks will push them back to where the hand-to-mouth governing doctrine wants them to be: don’t give the multitude more money than to satisfy their basic needs, lest extra money gives them ideas.
MAGA has raised the immigration problem to the level of a national crisis and loudly denounced the Democrats for failing to do even a minimum job to deport immigrants and stop them at the borders. In fact, from 2009 to 2017, the Obama Administration deported more than 3 million people. In his four years in the White House, Trump deported one (yes 1) million people. In four years, Biden deported or expulsed more than 4.4 million, 270,000 deported in 2024 alone the highest annual number in a decade. The ICE arrests decreased by 33%.

So, immigration has been insignificant and a bogus issue during the campaign, a MAGA’s Dương Đông tactic while pursuing a larger scheme that they had devised to implement Project 2025, weaken or destroy Democratic institutions, and create an oligarchic or aristocratic regime to replace Democracy.
They have already started carrying it out now.
MAGA has turned racism and white supremacism, which is no longer a taboo to talk about, into a weapon. It has been so effective that it sent a political novice to the White House on his first run. It almost sent him back there after four years of clumsiness and ineptitude. That same weapon was exhibited openly, fiercely, and explosively on January 6, 2021, but somehow the Democratic defenders, the American Democrats did not see it, or did but did not know how to create an antidote.

Using, discreetly and implicitly of course, the old threat of Chinese “yellow fever” invasion, or more aptly in the current atmosphere, tsunami, MAGA has successfully marshaled the white community and subdued any white resistance to its march. Reasonable, compassionate, and upstanding Republicans all have got in line behind MAGA.

If you have any doubt that an all-out war has been going on between the U.S. and China, look at the Dow Jones Index and the Hang Seng Index on February 6, 2020: 29,379.77 and 27,493.70 respectively, and on February 5, 2025: 44,873.28 for the American and 20,957.09 for the Chinese.

Perhaps, Democracy is not universal but selective, and American society has never been truly democratic. Justice, a sine qua non element of Democracy, has often been denied to non-white citizens.
Whether the Democracy Ship is sailing into the sunset, or the ship has always been the same but now the paint is peeled to reveal the true brand on the hull: White Nation or White Supremacy, we all are in a journey fraught with danger.