Trump represents clash of civilizations ideology: Analyst

US President Donald Trump represents a “clash of civilizations” ideology that pits the Judeo-Christian heritage of West against the atheistic secularism of Europe, the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the non-Christian Confucianist based ideology of China and the East, says an American political analyst.

“This ideology has been forcefully advocated by Trump’s erstwhile advisor Steve Bannon,” said Dennis Etler, a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. “While Bannon is no longer in the White House as Trump’s primary political adviser, his ideology serves as the basis for Trump’s policies as evidenced by his actions both at home and abroad.”

“Trump’s rapprochement with Russia is not meant to realize “peace in our times” but is a cynical ploy to try and disrupt the de facto Russo-Chinese alliance,” Etler told Press TV on Wednesday.

“In order to forge a Christian alliance between a fundamentalist Christian US and an Orthodox Christian Russia against the heathen Chinese, Trump has to degrade both NATO and the EU which were set up as a geopolitical counterweight to the Eurasian Russian Empire, no matter what ideological guise it operates under,” he added.

EU, US relations sinking further after divisive Trump tour

After a week of the worst barrage of insults yet from Trump, the European Union is looking westward toward the White House less and less.

Making it worse, Trump spent Monday cozying up to EU adversary Vladimir Putin in an extraordinary chummy summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki. Key EU leaders were in the far east in Japan and China looking for the trust, friendship and cooperation they could no longer get from a century-old ally.

There have been other signs of the growing European detachment from the White House, especially after Trump pulled out of the global climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal the EU brokered.

Separately, tensions between the EU and the United States have been rising in recent months after Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports coming from the EU and other US allies.

Washington has also imposed 25 percent duties on $50 billion of imports from China in the first in a possible series of increases that Trump says could affect up to $550 billion of Chinese goods.

“So far, Trump has upset the US geopolitical applecart unlike any previous US president. But is there reason behind the apparent madness? There are two threads that explain all of Trump’s rhetoric and actions. One is a total commitment to the Zionist state of Israel and the other is an apocalyptic vision of China as an existential threat to Western civilization,” Etler said.

“He has belittled his NATO and EU allies while praising Russian president Putin, he has lauded Chinese president Xi Jinping while waging an unrelenting trade war against China and challenging China in her own backyard in Taiwan and the South China Sea,” he noted.

“He has blown hot and cold over denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, at first threatening North Korea with “fire and fury,” disparagingly calling Kim Jung-un “rocket man,” while now calling for patience in talks with the North and adulating Kim as a perspicacious leader. At the same time Trump wages a trade war against former friends and allies, doubles down on sanctions against Iran and does the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Etler said.

“His service to Zionism mandates his scuttling of the Iranian nuclear deal,  while his attempt to woe North Korea is meant to potentially drive a wedge between it and its powerful neighbor China, much as US actions in the South China Sea are meant to drive a wedge between Vietnam and China.”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk