Trump's chickens come home to roost

Trump struggles to see very far, especially when it comes to policy (Source: here)

You have to search long and hard to find a political leader, who is more short-sighted than US President Donald J. Trump. Most of his policies are so myopic that many of them are backfiring spectacularly already.

Trump believes in bullying his way to victory, so his policies tend to be launched with great fanfare and considerable menace. Rarely, however, has he thought about their long-term consequences. His myopia is now starting to catch up with him. His policy chickens are coming home to roost.

In this blog I will provide insightful examples of Trump's myopic policies and illustrate why they are so damaging for Trump, the United States, and, in some cases, even the world. I believe Trump's abuse of office strengthen the case for reform of Western democratic institutions.

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Trump's paedophilia, his abuse of women, the treasonous attempts to overturn democracy, and his eye-watering corruption place him right at the top of the list of America's worst-ever presidents. While in office, Trump has consistently undermined key institutions, such as freedom of the press, rule of law, and human rights. The damage he has inflicted on the fabric of American society is so extensive that the country will require emergency care when he leaves office; Trump's corruption has exposed too many loopholes in the current institutional framework to be able to continue to claim that American democracy is safe.

In this blog I will focus on one of Trump's most damaging character traits, namely his severe political short-sightedness. The effects of Trumpian myopia are only now beginning to receive the attention it deserves among media outlets, political analysts, and voters.

The problem with Trump's political myopia is that it compels him to prioritize immediate and highly visible stunts, whose primary objective is to glorify himself. Due to Trump's singular focus on his own needs, he is neglecting America's national interest. His policies are like a firework, whose initial impact may be startling, but which soon dissipates and leaves nothing behind. Meanwhile, as time passes Trump's failure to defend America's national interest starts to cause real problems.

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I will start by illustrating Trumpian political myopia with reference to a couple of banal stories, which have hit the headlines over the past few weeks, namely Trump's order to paint the Lincoln Reflection Pond and his order to put his name above that of J. F. Kennedy on the wall of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. These are typical Trumpian vanity projects - and they have just blown up in his face.

Trump spent USD 14.7m to paint the bottom and sides of the reflection pond 'American Flag' blue. He claimed the new paint would last a century. However, less than a fortnight later the paint is coming off in large peels and algae has turned the pond as murky green as it was before.

(Source: here)

Why did this happen? Because Trump hired a friend rather than a professional painter to do the job. His friend apparently did not know how to paint pools and he certainly had no idea how to prevent the paint from peeling. The USD 14.7m of tax payers' money spent on the paint job has been completely wasted.

As for the Kennedy Center, Trump just had his name removed from the wall, just a few weeks after it was put there, although the wall remains covered in tarpaulin, so no one actually knows what the wall looks like right now. Trump was too arrogant and too ignorant to check if it was within his powers to decide what goes on the Kennedy Center wall.

These two examples demonstrate why Trump's political myopia is damaging. When he takes decisions solely to generate instant self-gratification without regard to the longer-term consequences, technical issues, or economic constraints, or, indeed the law, then he is gambling with public money, which more often than not ends up being wasted.

Trump's myopia may make him look ridiculous, but sadly it often has far more serious consequences than the Lincoln Pond and the wall of the Kennedy Center. Let us illustrate this with a few other examples of Trumpian myopia, where the costs have been considerably higher.

Trump's war on Iran: Trump went to war with Iran amidst a cacophony of media excitement. He bragged that only he had the guts to do what no other president since 1979 had dared to do. He claimed that he would defeat Iran in a matter of days. His alliance with Israel, he boasted, would seal US-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East for decades to come.

Yet, here we are some forty days later and Trump has just had to sign an extremely humiliating Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in order to end the war. And at Versailles to boot!

The Iran war has been a disaster. Not only did Trump fail to bring Iran to heel, he had to make major financial and sanctions-related concessions to Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has effectively been surrendered to Iranian control and Trump has achieved absolutely nothing at all as far as the nuclear issue is concerned.

Trump's war with Iran will probably cost the Republicans the upcoming midterm election and put Trump on track for impeachment. The US has lost the trust of its erstwhile loyal allies in the Middle East with many of them now (prudently) diversifying their international alliances to include China and Russia.

The big winner of the war was Iran, which has now become a local hegemon with which Iran's Arab neighbours have no choice but to engage in order to guarantee their security. Tragically, the repressive regime in Teheran has been strengthened enormously by the conflict.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Trump's defeat at the hands of the Iranians is as damaging to America's reputation as was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. However, in terms of geopolitical significance it is far, far worse. Posterity will record Trump's Iran war as one of the greatest and most embarrassing failures in US military history.

Incidentally, as I type these words there are signs that the MOU itself may be falling apart, which would be in character; just another example of Trumpian myopia.

Trump's threat to invade Greenland: To Trump and his buddies, the plan to annex Greenland must have seemed like a total no-brainer. After all, how would the tiny Danish army possibly pose a challenge to the mighty US military in a territory as large as Greenland?

Trump decided to rely on this argument and largely to ignore possible diplomatic complications when he announced his Greenland plan. To sweeten it, however, Trump arrogantly offered Greenlanders money and a hospital ship in the belief this would split Danes and Greenlanders over the issue.

Everyone now knows that Trump's assessment was completely wrong. Trump had not done his homework and just a few weeks after his first pledge to 'take' Greenland, Trump was forced into a humiliating climbdown at the Davos Summit (see here). It turned out that Europe was ready to stand united with Denmark. Several European nations even pledged to put boots on the ground to deter a US invasion. Like all bullies, Trump shrank the moment he was challenged. The prospect of American soldiers fighting NATO allies in Greenland was too much for him.

Trump could easily have avoided this humiliation if he had just bothered to examine recent European history. Europe is often divided, it is true, but Europe also has a strong track record of pulling together, when things get really serious. We last saw this during the 2011-2012 European Debt Crisis, when Mario Draghi's "ECB will do whatever it takes" statement came to symbolise Europe's willingness to act decisively in the face of existential threats.

Trump's misguided Greenland adventure has had significant costs for the world, for the US, and for Trump himself. The rift in NATO has strengthened Russia, who is now regarded by Europeans as an actual ally of the United States. This has also hurt the US, which has replaced its strongest, most reliable, and longest-standing allies with a fascist war-mongering commodity tyrant, who, I am sure, will turn his back on Trump and the US at the drop of a hat.

If there is any poetic justice, it is this: Trump himself has now caught major flak from his stupid Greenland threat. Trump has been left all alone holding the Iran baby, because after Greenland no European nation wanted to join his war.

Actions have consequences.

Trade Wars: Trump won the presidency by hoodwinking the American public into believing that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Due to Trump's promises, many American voters felt warm and fuzzy at the prospect of a little trade war or two, but the warm fuzzy feeling soon proved temporary, a bit like peeing in your pants to keep warm; the pleasure does not last long and soon you regret that you did it in the first place.

Protectionism has proven catastrophic for US agriculture and large sections of US industry. Tariffs pushed up the US inflation rate, forcing the Fed to raise rates and strengthening the Dollar, which only widened the US trade deficit further. Needless to say, Trump's approval ratings collapsed.

Yet, all this was predictable. If Trump had wanted to use them, he would have had access to excellent economic advisors. They would have told him that tariffs are paid by importers, not exporters. They would have told him that because the US runs a large trade deficit with the rest of the world tariffs will end up hurting Americans. He would have been told that China would end up racking up the largest trade surplus in its history, since Chinese exports would find their way into America's over-stimulated markets via third countries regardless of tariffs.

The real reason Trump introduced tariffs was that he wanted a new source of revenue to finance tax cuts for the rich. His arrogance and short-sightedness led him to believe the American public would never understand what was going on. But they do; even the most economically illiterate Americans now know that tariffs are bad news.

Dodgy DOGE: Do you remember when Trump triumphantly launched Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in order to cut USD 2.0trn in Federal spending? Well, Musk's cuts never materialised. DOGE, too, turned out to be a poorly thought-out and costly concept.

One of DOGE's first interventions was to lay off large numbers of staff at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This undermined IRS's ability to collect taxes so much that the government experienced a major revenue shortfall. Musk also tore up thousands of government contracts without any appreciation of the fact that unilaterally breaking contracts triggers costly compensation claims. When the dust finally settled, DOGE had increased rather than reduced the Federal deficit.

But DOGE's activities had far more serious ramifications too. More than 770,000 American children were deprived of critical emergency food aid. The closure of USAID and its long-standing public health, HIV, and vaccination programmes in poor countries has cost at least 793,900 people their lives of which most were children. Nor is the killing over; Lancet, a well-reputed medical journal, predicts another 14 million deaths of all ages will happen by 2030, including more than 4 million children younger than age 5 years.

There are hundreds of similar stories and they will keep coming. Just this week, it emerged that the US government will have to spend more than USD 1bn to bring a screwworm outbreak under control, because DOGE had closed the government's screwworm monitoring programme in order to save a measly USD 15m.

Energy and environment: From the onset, the Trump Administration was clear about its intention to double down on fossil fuels and cut back on renewable energy. Trump went on to shut several high-profile renewable energy schemes, including a number of off-shore wind farms.

It is obviously moronic to shut down renewable energy projects in the middle of a fossil-fuel fuelled climate crisis. What is even more idiotic is to do so without checking if the projects have a right to compensation. Reuters reported this week that the Trump Administration has to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars to scrap already-entered-into leases on off-shore wind farms.

What takes the biscuit, however, is that Trump then went on to start the war with Iran, which pushed oil prices well into pain territory and made every other country in the world turn to renewable energy. The United States is now at serious risk of falling far behind in sustainable energy technology, including solar and batteries, which America will ultimately have to return to anyway as the climate crisis worsens.

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And then there is all the rest: I could write at length about Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which, cut taxes for people with more money than they can spend in multiple life times without the slightest consideration of the long-term consequences of rising inequality and rising public debt.

I could also elaborate on Trump's cuts to funding of US universities and scientific institutions, which is now pose a serious threat to America's erstwhile status as the world's pre-eminent R&D hub.

I could explain why Trump's deliberate effort not to regulate monopolies is killing small business dynamism in America and reducing the welfare of American consumers and may even trigger a financial crash in the not-so-distant future.

And I could explain how Trump's interference in the business of the Federal Reserve reduces trust in the US as a destination for investment and how his politicisation of the US Supreme Court is turning the United States into something akin to a banana republic. I could also remind you how Trump's destruction of the operational independence of the Department of Justice has been key contributor to the Trump Administration's rampant corruption.

And so on and so forth.

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As I noted earlier, the problem with myopic policies is that, at best, they have no lasting impact, but at worst they can lead to major crises. In fairness to Trump, most political leaders disappoint. It is extremely rare for political leaders in Western democracies to deliver meaningful improvements during their time in office.

Take President Barack Obama, for example. Obama was not corrupt and he believed in strengthening rather than undermining institutions. Still, Obama only racked up two achievements during eight years in the White House, namely the killing of Osama Bin-Laden and passing a deeply flawed healthcare reform ('Obama Care'). As a general rule, the best you can hope for in leaders in Western democracies is that don't screw up too much during their time in power.

Nor is Trump the only US president to have been myopic, wasteful, and corrupt. Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, took bribes from private oil companies, while his Veterans Bureau chief, Charles R. Forbes, embezzled millions. Nixon wiretapped the Democratic National Committee headquarters and ordered Federal Agencies (FBI, CIA, and IRS) to cover up the crime. Grant turned a blind eye to distillers and federal agents, who were free to defraud the US government of millions in liquor tax revenues. Buchanan's administration was condemned for widespread bribery and corruption, and the Reagan administration sold weapons illegally to Iran in order to covertly fund anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Still, these quite serious crimes look like misdemeanours in comparison to the felonies being committed by Trump. Trump is, in my humble opinion, the most corrupt, criminal, and wasteful president America has ever had.

Trump carried out more than USD 1.6bn worth of business with clear conflicts of interest in his first term, and became the first US president to be criminally indicted and convicted on felony charges.

In his second term, Trump has taken cronyism to never-before-seen levels. Protected by a Supreme Court ruling from 2024, which says that he cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in office Trump is now stealing ad nauseum. Juicy government contracts and favourable regulatory rulings are being dished out to anyone willing to line the pockets of the president and his family. US tax payers are being forced to pay to refurbish a new presidential jet, which Trump has arranged will be his own free of charge after he leaves office.

Trump has also blackmailed the IRS into paying him USD 1.8bn in tax payers money after threatening the IRS with a USD 10bn lawsuit for allegedly leaking information to the press about his tax affairs. Incidentally, a couple of months ago Trump appointed his close friend, Todd Blanche, to the post of Attorney General. Blanche immediately waived all Trump's pending tax liabilities and placed a bar on future investigations of his tax affairs not just by the IRS but also by any “other agencies or departments”. Trump has, in effect, been granted a licence to commit unlimited tax fraud.

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Thankfully, Trump will be gone a few years from now, but the flaws in the American institutional framework that his actions have exposed will not. Trump has shown us that US democracy (and Western democracies in general) grant far too much leeway to elected officials to lie, steal, and abuse power. Election promises are far too easily broken and the sole power of voters to put a cross on a ballot paper every few years is simply not enough to keep politicians from committing massive breaches of trust, crimes, and other moral failures.

For too long, we have accepted these problems as unavoidable cost of democracy. The need for compromise, they say, means that politicians can never be expected to deliver what they promise in full.

I do not buy this excuse. We should not settle for a political system, which deliver political corruption, inefficiency, and abuse of power on the scale we see in the United States today.

The real reason why politicians lie and steal and abuse power is that they can. The one positive thing we should take away from the Trump experience is a recognition that political reform in Western democracies is now clearly overdue.

Remember that the rules of Western democracy have barely changed since they were first introduced in the Netherlands in the late 1500s. The enormous wiggle room we still afford to our politicians - and which they exploit to the hilt - is a legacy of Feudalism, when no one dared to demand better of those in power.

We no longer live in feudal times. It is within our power with just a few, powerful reforms to transform Western democracies into far more effective institutions that actually deliver what politicians put on their ballots. The single most important reform we can do is to make election promises legally binding, with big fines or prison sentences for politicians, who fail to deliver and banker-sized bonuses for politicians, who do what they promise. To read more about my political reform ideas, see here and here.

The End