Domino Effect in Washington

This week was explosive in Washington. The leader of the world’s most powerful nation abruptly ended a meeting with the opposition on infrastructure investments. The leader of the House of Representatives, the Democrats’ Nancy Pelosi, got only three minutes with Donald Trump before the latter stormed out of the room. He did not like her questions.

The Democrats continue to press and stress the president on the findings of the Robert Mueller report. And Trump continues to deny all accusations of collusion with the Russians before the 2016 election and concealing the traces afterward. The president ran out and met the press in the Rose Garden outside the White House. Under Trump’s podium was a sign with facts on the Mueller investigation, on the number of witnesses, and on the cost and time spent. It seemed well orchestrated, but the episode also reveals that the world’s most powerful man is frustrated.

At the same time, the Democrats are pressing to get Trump to release his tax returns, as presidents have traditionally done. For three years the president has held on to these like a national secret. But this week the judicial vise closed in around Trump with two court decisions. Wednesday, a federal judge in New York rejected the president’s attempt to prevent one of his lenders, Deutsche Bank, from giving Congress access to his records. The aforementioned Pelosi has expressed delight at this legal development. The climate in Washington is ice cold.

What makes this so frightening for global society is that an irritated and frustrated president can focus on irrational things and act in dangerous, irreversible ways. For while the net tightens around him on the home front, the United States as a global superpower finds itself in an escalating trade and rhetoric war with China, and it continues, together with its friends Saudi Arabia and Israel, to support conflict with Iran. The seeming banalities in Washington’s chamber theater can unleash tensions about which the world should be seriously concerned. The pressure is increasing in both conflicts, and the key to resolution lies in Trump’s hands − a president who claims that unpredictability is his strength.