WASHINGTON: Donald Trump still has a month until he becomes US president but he has already displayed his unique capacity to sow confusion and steal headlines with remarks belittling Canada, intimidating the media and torpedoing a budget deal in Congress.
“We’re going to see more chaos in Trump’s second term than his first,” said Todd Belt, political science professor at George Washington University. “I think what has happened this week is a good indication of what is to come.”
He added that a Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents sweeping immunity for official acts will give Trump “more of an opportunity to act on his worst impulses.”
The Republican has stolen the limelight from outgoing President Joe Biden, who has largely disappeared from public view in his final weeks in office.
On Monday, Trump gave his first news conference since winning the November 5 election, talking to journalists for more than an hour about various topics – and savouring the attention.
“Everyone wants to be my friend,” he said when commenting on the visits of various billionaire tech CEOs and other leaders to his Florida residence, which he will leave on January 20 for the White House.
He told reporters that he wanted to “straighten out” the press — something his team has pursued through lawsuits that observers and rights groups worry are signs of escalating censorship tactics.
While commenting on a wide gamut of issues, Trump has also shown that he has not changed in his predilection towards delivering vague, sometimes contradictory, messages.
Take vaccines, for example. The Republican said that he is a “big believer” in the polio vaccine, but also sowed doubt over a widely debunked link between vaccination and autism.
“There’s something wrong. And we’re going to try finding that,” Trump said, noting a rise in autism cases in the United States that experts say is due to changes to diagnostic criteria, increased awareness and better screening.
Trump’s first term in office was marked by sensational announcements, spectacular dismissals, constant reversals and diplomatic turmoil.
Decision makers and analysts faced a dilemma: do you take everything Trump says at face value, or do you ignore the words of the leader of the world’s most powerful nation?
Four years on and the problem remains, as shown by Trump’s teasing remarks about Canada on Wednesday, when he said it would be “a great idea” for it to become the 51st US state.
The ongoing confusion caused by the Republican leader is already a headache for journalists, diplomats, politicians and financial players.
“We just don’t know really very much at all about the actual policy,” Jerome Powell, head of the US central bank, said on Thursday.
“We don’t know what will be tariffed, from what countries, for how long, in what size. We don’t know whether there’ll be retaliatory tariffs.”
The Fed this week raised its inflation forecasts and decided to slow the pace of its rate cuts next year, causing the stock market to slump.
Trump’s second term promises to be all the more turbulent as he is, for the time being, flanked by another unpredictable personality: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
The head of SpaceX, Tesla and X has shown his intention to weigh in on political debate, inviting himself into the Congressional budget discussions this week.
In an authorised biography of Musk, author Walter Isaacson defines the entrepreneur’s approach to building rockets as follows: “Take risks. Learn by blowing things up.
Revise. Repeat.”
