Sam Freedman: “The problem with writing about Donald Trump is that one can expend an enormous amount of energy trying to explain moves he doesn’t understand himself.”
[…]
“While other states find Trump hard to deal with, they have figured out that the best way to deal with him is through a combination of flattery, pretend compliance and waiting him out. As he neither cares about outcomes nor can pay attention to anything for more than a few weeks, he can be effectively managed this way. To justify his focus on Madman Theory, Boys goes out of his way to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, at great cost to his broader argument. In the discussion of tariffs, he accepts that the president’s decision to impose them on Canada was “in part, to stem the flow of fentanyl across the northern border” – even though this is an obvious nonsense. Less than 1 per cent of illicit fentanyl arriving in the US comes via Canada.”
[…]
“While Trump is president, there won’t be coherence in US foreign policy, beyond the occasional reassertion of his long-standing bugbears. The world will keep trying to work around him, probably successfully. The bigger question is what happens next.”