Daily Times

What a week! In two fell swoops, President Donald Trump managed to alienate Mexico with his ‘build a wall promise’ and offend much of the Arab-Muslim world with an ill-considered executive order to ban temporarily visitors from seven Arab countries in the Middle East, one of which — Iraq — is our ally where nearly ten thousand American military personnel are engaged battling the Islamic State.Then, to put the literal cherry on the top, the president summarily fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for failing to direct the Justice Department to carry out that executive order about which neither she nor her agency had been consulted in advance, and which clearly had illegal or unconstitutional aspects including preventing permanent US residents from those seven states from re-entering the Unite States.

Wow! And regarding this halt in accepting refugees or others from these seven states as an attempt to prevent Islamist terrorists from entering the US, consider two other aspects. Of all the citizens killed by “terrorists” in the US since 9/11, the overwhelming majority of assailants were US born. And second, despite that the bulk of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, neither was on the list. Nor were Afghanistan and Pakistan, Osama bin Laden’s principal residences, covered — yet.

Clearly, the 45th president has transferred the unconventional and often bizarre aspects of his campaign into how he intends to govern the nation. The new chief executive entered office with the lowest popularity rating of any president since records have been kept. His inaugural address was a repeat of his campaign promises put on steroids.

Making America great again, putting “America First,” buying American and employing Americans were the repeated refrains of his populist pep talk. Clearly, President Trump is honouring his campaign promises. But his first full day in office, consumed with bitter complaints and tantrums about “phoney press” reports diminishing the size of public attendance at his inauguration, was the worst of any president since William Henry Harrison who contracted pneumonia and died several weeks later.

In a rapid-fire series of executive orders and often contradictory statements from the White House, President Trump cancelled the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact, rolled back Obamacare, ordered a wallon the Mexican border built, and floated and then waffled over re-establishing CIA secret detention sites and even waterboarding for terrorists in stark violation of the law. The president again declared that Mexico would pay for this wall.

After the president of Mexico had cancelled his scheduled visit to Washington, Mr Trump said, “The president and myself agreed to defer the meeting.” Then, in retaliation, the White House threatened to impose a 20 percent tax on all Mexican imports to America. Unsurprisingly, a firestorm of protests exploded in Mexico.

The Trump team seems to have forgotten the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 that exacerbated and extended the Great Depression. Whether this spatewill escalate to a trade war is uncertain. However, Mexico’s more extreme and highly anti-American left wing has gained political ground. If this trend continues, the prospect of a hostile government across the Rio Grande is not unimaginable. Provoking this crisis less than a week in office is quite an achievement. Wags are asking if General John J. Pershing should be exhumed to lead a second punitive expedition south of the border.

While the spin was good, the meeting Friday with British Prime Minister Theresa May did not clarify how the “special relationship” might endure post-Brexit. The promise of bilateral trade treaty cannot be legally undertaken until Britain leaves the European Union. That divorce will not occur until 2019. And whether the British public and Parliament are prepared to accept Trump’s word for the long term is not a given.

Optimists cloakhope in the assumption that the grave duties of the presidency will force responsibility on Mr Trump’s actions and temper his ukases with common sense. The risks for the Republican Party are huge but marginal when it comes to the future of nature. The president won election partly on guaranteeing the creation of millions of jobs and annual economic growth of four or five percent. The president and Republican Congress must deliver on the now sacred pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare with a better plan. If the GOP fails on either account, expect a political tsunami equivalent to the Republican shutdown of the government in 1995 that produced Democratic control of Congress and Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996.

Presidents always have endured rough sledging in the first year or so in office. Jack Kennedy presided over the Bay of Pigs disaster and then the summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Geneva that thoroughly rattled the young president. Bill Clinton created a health care debacle when Mrs Clinton failed to develop a viable plan. And George W. Bush was hit with 9/11. Sadly, no president has or is likely to escape the force of history.

Donald Trump is acting as if he is the master of the universe. In a rare and scathing telephone interview, his chief strategist Stephen Bannon labelled the media “the opposition,” declaring “it should keep its mouth shut and listen for a while.” Thus far, no one in the president’s inner circle has assumed the role of “no man” telling the president when he is wrong or chiding him over missteps. Congress has not had sufficient time to impose its will or influence on the president. With only four secretaries approved, cabinet government has not had a chance to be put into practice.

The president’s very brief tenure is obviously a ludicrously short period over which to evaluate how well or badly any leader is doing. If this were a football game, the opposition would be several touchdowns ahead in the first seconds of the game. Unfortunately, governing is not a game, football or otherwise.

The writer is a Senior Advisor at Washington D.C.’s Atlantic Council. His next book due out this year is Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Wars It Starts that argues failure to know and to understand the circumstances in which force is used guarantees failure. Follow the writer on Twitter@brainsbasedstr1