Incompetence, Crises, Incompetence: The Trump Administration’s Vicious Cycle
When the EU and Canada draw closer, or the Fed raises interest rates instead of cutting them, the president lashes out with wild, irrational threats.
How does the U.S. president, accustomed to getting his way, handle opposition? His behavior on just one day provides an answer: not well. When things do not go as Donald Trump wants, he drifts further from reality and lashes out wildly, usually just with words.
Take the growing ties between the European Union and Canada, which Trump himself spurred on with his fantasies of annexation and his tariff war against the United States’ peaceful northern neighbor. Whether Canada will actually become an associate member of the EU, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday, remains uncertain. Nor does anyone know what such a status would mean in practice. It is unlikely to bring much beyond some easing of trade and investment rules and closer cooperation on technology and research. Canada’s participation in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest is the only sure thing.
The geopolitical message matters more than the proposal itself: It is a rebuke to Trump and his aggressive policies. His response could bring the trans-Atlantic partners still closer. He is threatening the EU with even higher tariffs and a complete halt to trade. Such a halt would be impossible to carry out, and even preparing for one would throw the U.S. economy into severe turmoil, but Trump seems unconcerned. He is simply looking for another way to escalate and vent his anger.
Anger at the Fed
The idea of halting trade seems to have lodged itself in Trump’s mind recently and he now trots it out at every opportunity. That same evening, the Federal Reserve did not cut interest rates to 1%, as he has demanded of its new chair, Kevin Warsh. Instead, faced with high inflation, it raised them to nearly 4%. Trump responded with an even more dramatic declaration: The U.S. could stop trading with every country with which it runs a trade deficit and make $1.5 trillion in the process.
What Trump posted on Truth Social is economic nonsense. None of it will happen, just as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s promise three weeks ago to “economically strangle” Iran led to no concrete measures. Since then, it is actually Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen that have been choking off the world’s oil supply.
Emboldening America’s Enemies
The Trump administration’s incompetence keeps creating new crises, large and small, to which the White House responds with still more incompetence. This vicious cycle weakens America’s power and standing while strengthening its real enemies in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.
What will happen if Republicans lose control of Congress in the midterm elections and Trump faces even more opposition at home? It hardly bears thinking about.
How does the U.S. president, accustomed to getting his way, handle opposition? His behavior on just one day provides an answer: not well. When things do not go as Donald Trump wants, he drifts further from reality and lashes out wildly, usually just with words.
Take the growing ties between the European Union and Canada, which Trump himself spurred on with his fantasies of annexation and his tariff war against the United States’ peaceful northern neighbor. Whether Canada will actually become an associate member of the EU, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday, remains uncertain. Nor does anyone know what such a status would mean in practice. It is unlikely to bring much beyond some easing of trade and investment rules and closer cooperation on technology and research. Canada’s participation in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest is the only sure thing.
The geopolitical message matters more than the proposal itself: It is a rebuke to Trump and his aggressive policies. His response could bring the trans-Atlantic partners still closer. He is threatening the EU with even higher tariffs and a complete halt to trade. Such a halt would be impossible to carry out, and even preparing for one would throw the U.S. economy into severe turmoil, but Trump seems unconcerned. He is simply looking for another way to escalate and vent his anger.
Anger at the Fed
The idea of halting trade seems to have lodged itself in Trump’s mind recently and he now trots it out at every opportunity. That same evening, the Federal Reserve did not cut interest rates to 1%, as he has demanded of its new chair, Kevin Warsh. Instead, faced with high inflation, it raised them to nearly 4%. Trump responded with an even more dramatic declaration: The U.S. could stop trading with every country with which it runs a trade deficit and make $1.5 trillion in the process.
What Trump posted on Truth Social is economic nonsense. None of it will happen, just as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s promise three weeks ago to “economically strangle” Iran led to no concrete measures. Since then, it is actually Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen that have been choking off the world’s oil supply.
Emboldening America’s Enemies
The Trump administration’s incompetence keeps creating new crises, large and small, to which the White House responds with still more incompetence. This vicious cycle weakens America’s power and standing while strengthening its real enemies in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.
What will happen if Republicans lose control of Congress in the midterm elections and Trump faces even more opposition at home? It hardly bears thinking about.