Like every president before him, Donald Trump believes he can make a difference in the world, but his feeling of personal omnipotence is arguably more pronounced than that of his immediate predecessors.
Unfortunately for the 47th president, things are going wrong. Some international leaders are more difficult to coerce than tech magnates, but Trump may be able to get them to toe the line by threatening to use government authority to influence places like courts and Harvard University.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is refusing to budge from his refusal to support US efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, continues to disregard and embarrass him. Trump is now being portrayed by Russian media as the unflappable tough guy who never backs down from a fight.
The president also believed that he could control China by starting a trade war with Xi Jinping, the country’s leader. However, his understanding of Chinese politics was flawed. Bowing down to a US president is something an authoritarian in Beijing would never do. Now that China has failed to implement promises made to de-escalate the trade war, US officials are expressing their frustration with the country.
Trump retreated from his trade fight with the EU, just as he did with China. Robert Armstrong, a writer for the Financial Times, further infuriated Trump when he came up with the acronym TACO, which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
No one doubted that Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu would see eye to eye. Indeed, during his initial tenure, he extended nearly all of his demands to the prime minister of Israel. However, as Trump attempts to mediate peace in the Middle East, he is discovering that, similar to Putin’s situation in Ukraine, Netanyahu’s political career depends on extending the Gaza battle. Israeli intentions to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities militarily during the Islamic Republic’s strategic vulnerability are being thwarted by Trump’s determination to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran.
In contrast to the shorter-lived, more transactional goals of American presidents, powerful leaders are pursuing national interests that exist in parallel realities and on various historical and actual timeframes. The majority of people aren’t swayed by selfish, one-on-one pleas. The White House is losing its allure following Trump’s efforts to embarrass South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
While campaigning last year, Trump often claimed that his “very good relationship” with either Putin or Xi would somehow resolve the seemingly intractable geopolitical and economic issues between world powers.
He’s hardly the first US president to have such a fantasy. The infamous “got a sense of his soul” moment occurred when President Bush memorably met the dictator’s eyes in the Kremlin. Russia was a deteriorating regional power that President Obama despised. Obama reportedly called Putin the “bored kid in the back of the classroom.” The bored kid’s annexation of Crimea was a bad move.
On a broader note, every president of this century has behaved as if he were a man of destiny. Bush was adamant about avoiding playing the role of global policeman when he became office. However, he became precisely that after the events of September 11, 2001. The United States won the wars he began in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they eventually lost the peace talks. As for his second term objective, democratizing the Arab world, it was a bust.
As part of his efforts to make atonement for the worldwide fight on terror, Obama traveled to Egypt to congratulate Muslims on “a new beginning.” In his early years as president, there was a palpable belief that his magnetic personality and extraordinary history could magically transform the country.
The moment Trump was removed from office, Joe Biden said, “America is back” and traveled the world conveying this message. His foolish choice to seek reelection four years later contributed to the eradication of America, or at least its internationalist post-WWII form. At that point, Trump had returned.
Despite the fact that the United States became the most powerful nation in history because to its alliances and its influence over global commerce, Trump’s “America First” populism is based on the idea that the country has been taken advantage of for decades. He is currently wasting this heritage and destroying US soft power, which is the ability to convince, with his aggressive behavior while seeming to be a strongman who everyone must obey.
The tariff threats, US territorial expansion warnings in Canada and Greenland, and evisceration of global humanitarian aid programs during the first four months of Trump’s presidency demonstrate that the world community has a voice as well. There appears to be a consensus among world leaders that Trump is not as strong as he believes, that there is no consequence for going against his orders, or that opposition is necessary due to internal issues in China, Russia, Israel, Europe, and Canada.
