The scarier option is that this ain't subservience, he's doing this because he likes enough of what's happening that he wants it to continue.

This could all be the world's shittiest up jumped RTO, creating world misery to make everyone desperate for any jobs at all. Let a couple hundred million people starve and suffer, destroy prosperity, bring everything down a couple notches, and watch how the world wraps itself around this new axis of power.

Maybe he too salutes what's happening, believes in the chainsaw.