NYT: Trump celebrates disruption in speech to Congress

Photo: The New York Times

In the days immediately preceding his address to Congress on Tuesday night, President Trump took a chain saw to government agencies, initiated a trade war, cut off arms to Ukraine and sided with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, ‘The New York Times’ notes.

When he briefly turned to the war in Ukraine toward the end of his more than 100-minute speech, it was chiefly to ask the question: “Do you want to keep it going for another five years?”

Mr. Trump has never been one to dwell on policy; in his first term, presented with a series of options on dealing with a complex telecommunications issue, he declared, “This is really boring.”

But given the gravity of Mr. Trump’s recent actions, it was not unreasonable to look to the speech for insight into where his America First instincts are taking the country and the world, as he seeks to scrap portions of the Western-dominated system of laws and rules that have guided states in NATO or the European Union.

He did not talk in any detail about how to take on America’s biggest global challenges — such as handling China’s growing reach and expanding nuclear arsenal or a strategy for peeling the Russians and the Chinese away from each other.

In fact, he barely mentioned America’s two biggest nuclear-armed superpower competitors at all, much less their work together.

Nor did he dwell on his order for a “freeze on all foreign aid,” a step that has had profound human consequences: the inevitable deaths of the world’s poorest, who had been dependent on American food or medicine that was suddenly locked away in warehouses across Africa and the Middle East, or the paralysis of a program to fight AIDS that President George W. Bush says was the crown jewel of his Republican administration.

Mr. Trump appeared to welcome an overture from Zelensky of Ukraine to get back on track with discussions over peace talks and a mineral deal. But Mr. Trump left in place his ban on delivery of further weapons or other major aid to Ukraine.

And on trade, he gave no hint that he would back down on the higher tariffs he imposed on Tuesday on China, Canada and Mexico, and he offered a dizzying array of explanations of what he was doing, including forcing a crackdown on fentanyl, protecting American businesses and punishing adversaries.

While he said Canada and Mexico must do “much more” to curb the flow of drugs, he didn’t give specifics. However, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, earlier suggested the tariffs might be in large part quickly lifted, to prevent them from turning into a tax on American consumers.

But Mr. Trump stuck with his demand for “control” of the Panama Canal, something he is already a step closer to this week with the sale of two of its Chinese ports to an American investment group. He sounded less martial about buying Greenland or taking it by force.

Canada’s exiting prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who now takes seriously Mr. Trump’s jokes about turning the country into the 51st state, said he believed the intent of the tariffs levied on his country was to hollow out the country.

“What he wants is to see is a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.” He added: “That’s never going to happen.”

Perhaps stunned by what Steve Bannon, the MAGA strategist, calls the “muzzle velocity” of action and orders, Democrats have had a difficult time addressing the disconnect between what Mr. Trump talks about and what they see as workers get fired, tariffs put upward pressure on prices and hold times for tax assistance stretch into hours.

… Prominent democrats listening to the Trump’s speech…

Photo: AP