‘Neoroyalism’ and what it says about Trump

Professors and pundits have invoked great-power politics and ruthless realism, as well as previous presidents and authoritarian strongmen. But there is a new theory gaining attention. It argues that Trump’s reign most closely resembles that of 16th-century royal families like the Tudors and the Hapsburgs.

A key feature of this “neoroyalist” approach is that global economic policymaking is based on personal, family and business ties rather than national interest, competitive advantage, shared prosperity or long-term growth.

Forget James Monroe, Klemens von Metternich or Niccolo Machiavelli. Think Henry VIII and Emperor Charles V.

The term neoroyalism to describe Trump was coined by two political scientists, Abraham L. Newman at Georgetown and Stacie Goddard at Wellesley College.

In the United States, “foreign policy has become a tool to channel money and status to Mr. Trump and his closest associates,” the two explained in a recent opinion essay in The New York Times. “Rather than compete with rivals, Mr. Trump is willing to collude with them in order to advance his court’s parochial interests.”

The royalist reference has resonated because it captures the president’s imperious style of governing, his policy reversals and his contempt for long-standing international rules — not to mention his admiration for the British monarchy.

The theory has much in common with the kind of crony capitalism practiced by authoritarians like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Both describe a system built around a clique of business and political elites who use economic policy for personal gain.

Filipe Campante, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, argues that Trump’s approach is bad for the economy.

Policymaking is “no longer about being more competitive in the marketplace, but about connections,” Campante said.

The winners are “not necessarily the people who would have the best ideas or the best projects,” he said, a situation that impairs “growth and productivity and prosperity.”

Those who are not part of the president’s coterie, or who oppose him, are threatened with punishment and exclusion from government contracts, regulatory approvals and other bounty.

After Elon Musk started criticizing the president last spring, Trump threatened to cut government ties with Musk’s vast business empire.

“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Policy decisions driven primarily by personal profit or pique undermine growth. The Nobel in economic science in 2024 was awarded for research that showed how concentrating power, resources and opportunities in the hands of a small political elite limits development and prosperity.

A recent case is the unusual deal to establish a U.S. version of TikTok, the social media app created by the Chinese company ByteDance. A law prompted by national security concerns and backed by Republicans and Democrats had required TikTok to shed its Chinese ownership or shut down.

But the new arrangement, blessed by the administration, allows the platform, on which Trump has more than 16 million followers, to keep operating in the United States.

The biggest investors in the new TikTok entity include allies and business partners of the president’s family or his inner circle: Software giant Oracle, co-founded by Larry Ellison, a close Trump supporter; MGX, an Emirati investment firm that has done a deal with the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company; and Silver Lake, which has teamed up with the private equity firm founded by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Deals allowing Nvidia to sell chips to China, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and extending military guarantees to Qatar, also fit the neoroyalist pattern.

This personalist economic policy extends beyond business. Trump acknowledged that he had raised Switzerland’s tariff to 39% from 30% because its former president Karin Keller-Sutter “just rubbed me the wrong way.”

He said he had imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil because the government refused to halt the prosecution of his political ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was found guilty of plotting a coup.

Self-interested policymaking creates uncertainty and hampers investments as rules that govern decisions and contracts are scrambled.

And it makes it more difficult to get things done.

Traditional channels of communication with foreign powers have often been ineffective because so much decision-making power resides with the president’s clique.

Instead of bureaucracies, there is a royal entourage, Newman of Georgetown said.

When Trump was considering whether to officially join the presidential race in 2015, he started a men’s cologne brand called Empire. Because, he explained, “every man has his own empire to build.”

Trump’s financial empire and those of his closest allies are thriving. So far, his family empire is estimated to have made at least $1.4 billion.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.