Donald Trump is a weak president. His threats to trade and other recent actions are weakening the United States more than they are strengthening it.
On Monday, the front page of the Journal (of Montreal) summed up the current policy of the American president in one word: “stupid.” The stupidity is in acting without regard for the consequences of one’s actions.
The imprudent actions of the man whose supporters and apologists see him as a master strategist risk undermining the U.S. whether or not he carries out his threats.
A Weak President
Whatever Trump says, his tariff threats are illegal. The authority for tariff policy rests with Congress and Trump concocted a security crisis to justify acting unilaterally.
For an American president, real strength lies in the ability to mobilize the support of solid majorities in Congress to support their policies. The current man in the White House doesn’t have the ability to do that.
Trump remains historically unpopular for a newly inaugurated president and is incapable of mobilizing the two chambers of Congress behind the majority of the initiatives he has arbitrarily ordered since Jan. 20.
Trump is looking to fashion himself as a tough guy by multiplying threats — especially against relatively harmless allies. But, in doing so, he is weakening his country.
A Weakened US
As the founders wrote in the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, the United States’ continued standing in the world rests largely on the confidence America’s partners can place in its commitments.
With the frontal attacks on the two main trading partners of the U.S. just a few years after a renegotiating their trade agreement, Trump is signaling that agreements made by the U.S. are worth little more than the paper they are printed on.
Suspending his threatened tariffs when Justin Trudeau and his Mexican counterpart reminded the American president of measures already in place do nothing to improve the credibility of this paper tiger.
The cavalier withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization, along with Trump’s willingness to rip up the Panama Canal Treaty and take possession of Greenland, only add to the impression that the U.S. is not a trustworthy partner.
The order to shutter the United States Agency for International Development — an action that is illegal because doing so requires congressional approval — will have the same effect. If these initiatives are indeed canceled, what good would it do to resist China’s siren song and remain within the American sphere of influence?
From Bad to Worse
Under Trump 2.0, the international credibility of the U.S. faces the strong risk of taking a lengthy nose dive, which augurs badly for the rest of the world.
Domestic politics are faring no better, where federal workforce purges and the dismantling of the judicial apparatus may have lasting, harmful effects.
Trump is promising to restore America to greatness, but the strength he is looking to project is only an illusion. When the you life the smokescreen, you will see only the decline of a country long considered to be the indispensable pillar of the world order.
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