Our Note: the Thucydides Trap focuses on 2 countries that eventually end up going to war - that the Thucydides Trap does not take into account is the role of an empire playing two nations against each other… The MSM and Liberal narrative focused primarily on the Thucydides Trap and ignored the role of the empire, thus giving a means to have continuous wars. Trump has stopped that dead in its tracks.
Susan Kokinda analyzes President Trump’s May 14 post responding to Xi Jinping’s remarks about the “Thucydides Trap,” arguing media coverage framed the U.S. as declining while Trump asserted America’s renewed strength.
She says the summit’s real significance was Trump bringing an unprecedented delegation of top U.S. CEOs into the bilateral meeting and including the Defense Secretary, breaking a post-1972 pattern.
Kokinda highlights Trump raising denuclearization directly with Xi and rejecting war-driven “geopolitical trigger points,” including on Taiwan, emphasizing avoiding a distant war.
She contends the Thucydides Trap concept popularized by Graham Allison is British-influenced “fake history” that obscures imperial manipulation, and claims Trump is dismantling that paradigm by reviving the American System - tariffs, manufacturing, and energy independence.
00:00 The Saturday Wrap-Up - Intro - May 16, 2026
02:43 The Real Power Trump Brought to Beijing
09:56 Inside the British Cookbook
