Trump’s balance sheet: the good, the bad and the very ugly…

So, lucky us. We get Donald Trump twice this year. First, playing golf in Turnberry with Ursula von der Leyen and Keir Starmer rushing up to Scotland to pay homage and then the State visit in September. Umm…

Trump has dominated the headlines since day one of his presidency, hitting the ground running with a highly competent far-right team behind him, introducing some ground-breaking and irreversible domestic and international policies. You might not like him, but as with Farage, he is a transformative politician.

Trump swings into Scotland…

So, how does the balance sheet of Trump’s actions look as we head off for the summer holidays? Well, first the good, as it is the shortest part.

Trump was right to goad and threaten Europe into paying more for its own defence. Previous US presidents have urged this but have then done nothing to force Europe’s hand. There has always been a strong isolationist streak in America, and Trump has played this beautifully to get a 3.5 per cent of GDP defence spending commitment from European countries (ex-Spain). Second, immigration. Illegal immigration across the Mexican border has now fallen by 90 per cent on a month on month basis. Whatever you think of the merits of migration or the way Trump has treated this issue, the scale of illegal border crossings was storing up huge tensions in the US, even amongst many Democrat voters as southern states sent immigrants north to be housed. Obama was actually the toughest US president to curb numbers before Trump. Biden was hopeless. In thrall to his left-wing, he totally failed (as did Harris) to understand the strength of feeling on this issue across a majority of voters. Take note, Starmer.

OK, that’s enough ‘praise’. Now the bad. Tariffs do not work. They will potentially cause huge market inefficiencies and drive up prices. The consequences have yet to be felt. The rates are illogical across countries, although the overall impact might not be as great as earlier predictions indicated. Second, the recent tax bill. It strips Medicaid from 16m Americans whilst shovelling cash to the rich. Shame on the Republican Party who pushed it through, ballooning the deficit in the process. What happened to fiscal conservatism? One senses the next global economic crisis might be driven by a fear of America defaulting on its debt, evidence demonstrated by the current weakness of the US Dollar.

Then the very ugly. There could be an entire book on this. Regardless of policy, it is the morality of leaders and their probity, which provides the bedrock to democracy. Trump simply lies, lies, lies. Perhaps an unsurprising trait in a convicted felon. Americans either don’t notice or don’t care about the State capture blatantly on view, whether it is Trump’s crypto-currency deals, the acceptance of a jet from Qatar or the fact that he, his family and ‘friends’ constantly trade on the broader influence of the presidency to enrich themselves. Next is the undermining of state institutions, the bullying of universities and arts generally in a drive to eradicate ‘political correctness’, the attempt to compromise an independent judicial process. The list goes on, but the ugly is also a fair description of fawning Western leaders who have swallowed their pride to accommodate Trump.

Finally, the lowest of the lows was how President Zelenskyy was treated in the White House in February. This was an iconic moment. Surrounded by individuals who had never fought, been under any military threat, and, in some cases, had dodged the Vietnam draft, it was a shameful episode. JD Vance’s behaviour was on this occasion, even worse than Trump’s. How dare they speak to a fellow president like that, representing a country under existential threat. This spectacle alone should be enough to justify a damning analysis of Trump’s presidency. The one silver lining is that Trump hasn’t had the opportunity to hand Ukraine to Putin and now understands the Russian leader isn’t quite the pal he thought he was.

The future? Who knows, as the Democrats sink to record levels of unpopularity and irrelevance. Will the presidency and federal institutions recover from four years of Trump? Will anyone realise the damage done by ineffectual checks and balances on centralised power? One doubts it. In a few years, which can’t come too soon, Trump’s emperor-like reign will end. But the hangover will be enormous.