U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INITIATIVES TOWARDS NORTH AFRICA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Mediterranean Area is a very important region at the contemporary international relations scene. Since 2001, the United States have established closer relations with North African countries. There are two main goals of the American foreign policy towards Maghreb. The first one of these goals concerning cooperation is searching for the alternative way of supplying the United States by African gas and oil. Such countries as Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria are some of the biggest holders and exporters of these natural minerals. Nowadays, the U.S., the European countries and Russia are in rivalry for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and oil contracts with the African partners. The winner of this competition will keep control of the whole market of minerals, and from the political, economic and strategic point of view will be stronger in the future. The second one is supporting by Maghreb countries the U.S. counter-terrorism military operation “Active Endeavour”.

The aim of this article is to present the main motives, assumptions and dimensions of the US foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China during the Trump presidency. The essence and purposefulness of the slogans, threats and attacks used by Donald Trump. Checking useness of the slogans „America First” and „make America great again” in the 2016 election campaign and while in office; their implications for the most serious structural competitor in the international arena, which is already the People’s Republic of China on many levels. In the author’s opinion, the turn of successive US presidential offices towards the PRC and the Asia-Pacific region in recent years is dictated not only by economic factors, but also by a wide range of collision paths and serves to maintain the position of the US hegemon in the region in the face of the growing power of the PRC. When Trump took office in 2017, he used the Chinese threat as the cornerstone of foreign policy. To illustrate the nature of the involvement of the Trump against PRC the focus was on the dimensions of the analyzed issue: mainly diplomatic and mutual economic relations , especially blast of trade war and less military aspects. Article shows what measures were applied under the so-called the trade war between the US and the PRC and the evolution of the measures used. The continuity of US-China relations by successive presidents was also noted, and it was considered whether the relations are clearly doomed to confrontation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the manifestations of the changes taking place in US foreign policy during the Trump presidency. The hypothesis of the work is that the American turn towards the PRC is inevitable, and it is dictated to a large extent not only by purely economic factors, but this turn serves to maintain the strong position of the US in the region in the face of the growing imperialist tendencies of Chinese power. Analysing the most important affairs allows to identify and understand the main principles of the United States’ actual foreign policy.

The article examines President Donald Trump’s leadership through the lenses of Bernard M. Bass’s model of transformational leadership. It starts with a description of what transformational leadership is and what it consists of. Second, the author takes a look at some of the features of transformational leadership, such as high ethical conduct, arousing team spirit, and inclusion of followers, and applies them to Trump. Finally, the author discusses the results of the analysis and explains why these findings are important and thought-provoking. The peculiar novelty of the study lies in the use of the theory and model of transformational leadership, developed by Bass and formulated on the basis of the science of management and organization. This is one of the innovative elements that distinguish the author’s project from previous works on political leadership.