Trump Leads America Boldy Into Decline
Not a month old, the second Trump presidency is barreling toward the decline that big-mouth leaders have been sending their countries for centuries. Theodore Roosevelt warned of such dangers.
Speaking at the 1901 Minnesota State Fair, he famously shared the African proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
Roosevelt elaborated: "If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble." For a nation, he added, "It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples."
Trump's threat of a 25% tariff against Colombia if it didn't start accepting planeloads of deported Colombians did work. But rather than take quiet satisfaction, he had to make a high school-level jab against Colombia's leader, calling him "very unpopular amongst his people." (An earlier White House statement on the planned sanctions ignorantly misspelled Colombia as "Columbia.'" That's the university, not the country. Also the Hollywood filmmaker.)
China is another matter. Trump has backed off on the big-stick approach toward China. He's now threatening tariffs of 10%, marked down from his earlier 60%. But can China be intimidated by a smaller stick from a blowhard? A stick of any size constitutes a challenge to China's self-esteem, something China has in quantity, and its own quest for global dominance.
About which, China has developed an AI model called DeepSeek that's almost as good as its American competitors' while using inferior AI chips. It costs a lot less and consumes less energy. That triggered a rout on Wall Street, hitting investors, not to mention Trump's beloved technology oligarchs, in the gut.
Americans now have a recovering (we hope) alcoholic in charge of the nation's defense. Even if Pete Hegseth were a beacon of sobriety, he utterly lacked the qualifications for that job. He was, however, a photogenic talking head on Fox.
On his first day at Defense, Hegseth announced big plans to ban transgender people from the military. Why Americans should feel safer knowing that people who identify with a gender other than the one they were born with can't serve in the military is unclear.
Israel, Australia, Canada and Germany let transgender soldiers operate openly without concerns for military readiness. In this country, female-born Shane Ortega served in the Marines before transitioning to male identity. He then transferred to the Army and flew countless helicopter missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in his second presidential term, Trump has failed his promised follow-through on lowering the price of groceries. On the contrary, egg prices are setting new records. They are up nearly 37% from this time last year, and are expected to go higher still. Kind of makes you miss the more affordable grocery carts of the Biden era.
Lumber prices have risen 35% from five years ago. Trump's threat to slap a 25% tariff on Canada, a major supplier, isn't going to make wood products more affordable. One feels for the disaster-struck people of North Carolina and California who need lumber to rebuild.
But since the construction industry depends so heavily on workers whom Trump vows to rapidly deport, there may not be enough people left to do the rebuilding. At the very least, the cost of employing them would go way up.
As for shaking his shrunken stick at China, Trump has become one of the "obnoxious" individuals Theodore Roosevelt warned against. One "who is always loudly boasting" and "absolutely contemptible" for not being prepared to back up his words.
In other business, Trump's attacks on electric vehicles are helping Chinese competitors eat our domestic carmakers' lunch on EV production and future sales. That depressing topic is for another day.
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Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
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