Anne Applebaum on Donald Trump’s global shakedown
Anne Applebaum joins Paul Wells to discuss her Atlantic magazine cover story, “Empire of Grift.” She argues that Donald Trump’s foreign policy now has two engines: ideologues who see the Western Hemisphere as America’s to run, and grifters using U.S. power to enrich themselves and Trump’s circle.
Summary
Introduction. Paul Wells introduces Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer-winning historian and Atlantic staff writer, on her third appearance on the show. The discussion centers on her Atlantic cover story, “Empire of Grift,” about the Trump administration’s foreign policy. Wells frames the topic as two forces working together: a profit motive that benefits people close to the administration, and an ideological mission about America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
The Empire of Grift. Applebaum says the administration’s foreign policy isn’t the isolationism Trump campaigned on. Radical ideologues in the State Department and elsewhere are working to support far-right “civilizational allies” in Europe and Latin America and to reestablish American dominance, rather than American alliances, over North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Around them is a business community that includes crypto, tech, oil and gas, and mining companies, and some of these firms use government power to enrich themselves. What she finds new in American history is how directly this benefits specific people tied to the Trump family, his campaign, his inauguration, or his ballroom. Her summary: “Government power is being used to enrich specific people.” Seen through that lens, she argues, the policies toward Europe, Latin America, and Canada all make sense.
Ideology vs. transaction. Wells notes that when they spoke in August 2025, the scale of the kleptocracy had surprised her most. Applebaum says the ideological element has been there from the start. She cites Russell Vought’s drive to dismantle the “administrative state” and Stephen Miller’s immigration agenda, and she points to white nationalist and Christian nationalist thinking in both domestic and foreign policy. Trump himself has no real ideology, in her view, but many people around him do, and their goals sometimes conflict. The tech camp and the Christian nationalists won’t always want the same things.
New diplomatic channels. The administration relies on businesspeople, tech figures, and influencers as envoys instead of professional diplomats. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are negotiating on Ukraine, and a Brazilian meatpacking businessman who donated to the inauguration helped broker tariff talks between Trump and Lula. European diplomats now look for influencers, CPAC contacts, and business intermediaries to reach Trump, which Applebaum says is foreign to European political culture.
Venezuela. Trump’s “to the victor belong the spoils” remark at the UN didn’t surprise Applebaum, who had just returned from Venezuela. The arrangement there has no American army, and it isn’t a relationship between equals. One source described it to her as “a union of two corrupt oligarchies.” Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, runs the country, and the U.S. has done nothing to help opposition leader María Corina Machado return. Machado’s recent attempts to come back by boat and plane were blocked.
Life in post-regime Venezuela. For ordinary people, the economy hasn’t changed much, and inflation is still very high. Major oil companies are staying out because they want a legitimate, durable government to deal with. There is somewhat more political openness since the brutal 2024 crackdown, but the repressive apparatus is still in place and could be reactivated at any time. Many Venezuelans were glad Maduro was gone and expected real change, and that expectation hasn’t been met. Talks between the government and part of the opposition, which exclude Machado, are ongoing. Marco Rubio has described a phased transition, but no election date has been set. She calls the recent U.S. oil deal a shock because America’s main partner in it is a businessman widely despised in Venezuela and under money-laundering investigation in Switzerland and Spain. Spanish police recently raided his home near Madrid.
The Trump doctrine. Asked about “whataboutism,” given the U.S. record in Latin America with the Dominican Republic customs control and United Fruit, Applebaum grants that ugly precedents exist. She argues that the scale is different and that for decades the U.S. had respected the sovereignty of nations in the hemisphere, so this is a clear step backward. On the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, she says ideology and profit feed each other. The approach is also short-term: it takes advantage of the moment and doesn’t worry about what happens in two or four years. That could backfire on big U.S. companies.
Greenland. Denmark did prepare for a possible U.S. military move early this year. It sent troops, other European countries joined, and Danish forces were ready to blow up runways, since aircraft can only land in Greenland at airports. Applebaum thinks this readiness may be why Trump backed off. U.S. companies with apparently mixed motives remain active there, including an investor pushing an impractical data center project and courting a populist pro-independence party. A new deal among Denmark, Greenland, and the U.S. adds modest language to the 1951 defense treaty, including provisions barring Russian and Chinese bases or major investments. Applebaum says those changes could have been negotiated normally, without the fear the episode caused. The diplomatic crisis is over, but the anxiety, the business interests, and Trump’s annexation memes continue.
Interference in Canada. With Alberta’s secession referendum about three weeks away, Applebaum describes what researchers Marcus Kolga of DisinfoWatch and Taylor Owen of McGill told her. MAGA-aligned podcasts have given sustained attention to Canada and Alberta separatism over the past year, where before the topic would come up and fade within a day. The motives may include using Canada as a political target, finding new audiences, and ideological alignment with the “51st state” idea. Alongside this, Trump has called Canada the 51st state, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has speculated on a podcast about Alberta sovereignty, and White House officials have met with Alberta separatists. She says no previous administration would have done that.
Impact on Canadian unity. Applebaum says Alberta separatism has deep local roots and she isn’t claiming American interference drives the referendum. There is no top-down strategy, she explains. Trump sets the tone, and podcasters, White House officials, and others act on it for their own reasons. Bessent’s comments matter because they widen what’s considered thinkable. Given what happened in Venezuela, she says Canadians would be wrong not to take this seriously.
Mark Carney. Applebaum sees Carney as an important international figure. Because Canada isn’t dependent on U.S. troops the way Europe is, he can speak more bluntly about building new alliances and infrastructure that don’t run through the United States, such as undersea cables, joint research, and alternatives to U.S. technology. He received a standing ovation at the European Parliament. Europeans are hedging in similar ways, with the EU–India and EU–Mercosur agreements as examples, but Carney articulates it most clearly.
The future of the alliance. Trump’s foreign policy is unpopular in the U.S., Applebaum notes, including the Iran war, the conflicts with allies, and especially the conflict with Canada. A future president could reverse course, and she calls the current approach “a kind of superpower suicide.” Still, she says it would be a mistake to count on a return to how things were. She quotes the French foreign minister’s line that French security can’t depend on 40,000 voters in Wisconsin. Imperialist and far-right ideas are now part of American politics and won’t disappear, so hedging is the sensible response.
