I don’t know how you can see this any other way. He’s not using it as leverage for something else. There’s no “ask” to avoid it. He just wants it and says he’s going to have it.
I think he’s calculated that Europe isn’t going to fight for it so the best case for this is that we will blow up our alliances over it including NATO, Australia, Japan, South Korea — all of them — but he’s more than fine with that. They may stay superficially cordial, perhaps even hoping that when the lunatic is finally gone something can be put back together. But there will be no trust going forward if he does this.
The worst case scenario is war. I don’t think it will actually happen. But imagine what will go through the minds of Canadians if it does.
This is the America First I always believed it was. He is a domineering sociopath and always wanted to find a way to demonstrate that America is number one. He got stuck with the isolationist, peacenik role because he ran against Bush and Obama and the Iraq war in 2016. Sure he believes that the U.S. shouldn’t be paying for anything that benefits the rest of the world. But that’s because he believes the rest of the world should be paying America for “protecting” them … from America. He is essentially a cowardly bully so he respects Russia and China for their “strength” and accepts the love from any other country whose leaders lick his boots.
The territorial expansion he’s talking about these days is a new wrinkle which I suspect is borne of his encroaching dementia. This is about his fantasy legacy as a conqueror. And I would guess that most of the people around him don’t think he’s serious. But there are obviously a few who do, both on the economic and the military side. Since they are all sworn loyalists, in the end I think they’ll go along as, sadly, will the GOP Congress. And this is one thing where the courts really do have no jurisdiction.