Trump’s Gaza Formula: Hostages, Bombs & the 20-Point Gamble: A Turning Point in the Global Order

Once again, world politics is confronted by the radical issues of diplomacy, coercion, sovereignty, and the power of the liberal international order with the reemergence of Donald Trump into world politics in the year 2025. The cornerstone of these debates is the so-called Gaza Formula of Trump, the 20-point ultimatum of no doubt, that would be foisted on Hamas and that would aid in solving the present crisis in Gaza, a mix of conditional peace, strategic disarmament, and externally controlled reconstruction. This paper critically analyzes the Gaza Formula as a political tool and as a geopolitical phenomenon, and discusses what the Formula entails for the Middle East Peace Process, US foreign policy, and the dynamic of world power. The paradigm used in the paper is one of a multidisciplinary approach and how the approach of Trump reflects new forms of coercive diplomacy, in general, the predisposition to the breakdown of rules-based order in a multi-polarizing world that is increasingly grappling with a fundamental set of issues about legitimacy, sovereignty and the future of conflict management in a more multi-polar world.