Carney's historic challenge to resist great powers

 

Gordon L. Weil

Does Donald Trump seek to install authoritarian rule or is he merely using the government as his personal property?

The man who has everything may regard the presidency as his opportunity to display what he considers to be his superiority.  Or he may adhere to a philosophy that the time has come to displace inefficient democracy with more central command.

Either way, the result is the same.

He goes unchecked by a Republican Congress, Supreme Court and by governments abroad that believe that appeasing him is a workable foreign policy.   He succeeds so long as his party and the world accede to his demands.

The November elections will tell Americans if the occupation of Minneapolis is the wave of the future and if voting itself can be restricted to ensure authoritarian power.  Voting will be much more than making congressional choices.  If Trump wins, he can provide more of the same.  If he is repudiated, he can be expected to claim the elections were fixed.

The polls report his falling popularity, attributed to a sense of chaos and failure to keep his MAGA promises.  In every policy area, only a minority approves what he has done.  But the GOP overwhelmingly backs him.  This backing is evidence of his having taken over the party, able to brand traditional members as Republicans in Name Only.

The pundits focus in the upcoming elections mainly on swing districts, seats that may be captured as the result of gerrymandering and key Senate races.  His false assertions and distorted historical memory may cost him, but perhaps the voters will forgive much if he continues to slash the government.  Later the experts will decide if the results were a referendum on Trump. 

In international relations, the referendum on Trump seems already to be underway.  If Ukraine must accept a costly peace, it will largely be the result of the withdrawal of U.S. backing, reflecting Trump’s admiration of Putin.  He will also have crossed a worldwide redline in threatening to annex Greenland.

He compounded his decline by his statement that NATO allies, who supported the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11, stayed off the front lines.  That is simply false, and it has enraged America’s closest friends.  But he might say, “they need us; we don’t need them.”  That could prove to be a short-term view.

One advantage that he enjoys in the U.S. is the absence of an appealing and comprehensive competing view.  Not only are the Democrats self-indulgently divided, but they leave the role as their spokesperson to Sen. Chuck Schumer, clearly not up to the job.  They offer little more than opposition to Trump.  What is their alternative?

The world situation changed last week in a single speech at the Davos economic festival.  One person made one statement, a kind of Declaration of Independence, that both made him the star of the assembly and crystalized the alternative to succumbing to Trump, Putin and Xi.  This kind of statement is precisely what is lacking in American domestic policy.

This speech was delivered by Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada.  It is a policy statement about how Canada is responding to Trump (not mentioned by name) and an invitation for other countries to join.   It prescribed the need for “middle” powers to unify and diversify away from dependence on the U.S.

Carney’s speech demonstrated a quality sadly otherwise missing in the world – leadership.

Here I share with readers the full text of the speech.  At the end, I have provided a link to a report that includes the 16-minute video of Carney delivering it.  If you can take the time, I recommend that you read or watch it.

 

The Carney speech (it began in French):

 

I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

The power of the less power starts with honesty.

It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won't.

So, what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer.

Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world unite’. He doesn't believe it, no-one does, but he places a sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persist – not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie”.

The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied – the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.

And this impulse is understandable. A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

But let's be clear eyed about where this leads.

A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.

Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.

Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.

They'll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This room knows this is classic risk management. Risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty can also be shared.

Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum. And the question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality – we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Now Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.

Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security – that assumption is no longer valid. And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland, has termed “value-based realism”.

Or, to put another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic – principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights, and pragmatic and recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.

So, we're engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.

We are calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values, and we're prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given and given the fluidity of the world at the moment, the risks that this poses and the stakes for what comes next.

And we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home.

Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains and business investment. We have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade. We are fast tracking a trillion dollars of investments in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors and beyond. We're doubling our defence spending by the end of this decade, and we're doing so in ways that build our domestic industries.

And we are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We're negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

We're doing something else. To help solve global problems, we're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So, on Ukraine, we're a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.

On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future.

Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering, so we're working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.

Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.

On plurilateral trade, we're championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we're forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we're cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won't ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.

This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It's building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.

In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations.

What it's doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture, on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.

Argue, the middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.

But I'd also say that great powers, great powers can afford for now to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.

But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what's offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.

This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.

We shouldn't allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong, if we choose to wield them together – which brings me back to Havel.

What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?

First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.

It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction, but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.

It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored. It means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion – that's building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government's immediate priority.

And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence, it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

So Canada. Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world's largest and most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital, talent… we also have a government with immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but.. A partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

And we have something else. We have a recognition of what's happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power.

But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.

That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us. Thank you very much.

 

Link to report with video or copy this:  https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2222202/read-mark-carneys-full-speech-on-middle-powers-navigating-a-rapidly-changing-world

 

 

 

 

 

Trump's assault on sovereignty -- Greenland and Minnesota

Gordon L. Weil

“Your home is your castle.”

“Keep out of my space.”

Both are everyday expressions of a key legal principle at the center of current conflicts.  It is a concept that Greenland and Minnesota have in common.

It is sovereignty.

The standard legal dictionary has long defined it: “The supreme, absolute and uncontrollable power by which any independent state is governed.”

Now, President Trump seeks to violate the sovereignty of nations and U.S. states.  Greenland is a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.  Trump threatens to overrule Danish sovereignty, raising the possible use of force.   He threatens military control of Minneapolis, Minnesota’s largest city, and launches legal moves against the state’s governor.

In the U.S., the people are sovereign.  They have given the power to state governments to act for their civic benefit.  The states exercise sovereignty.  They have agreed to cede some, but not all, of their sovereign power to the federal government.  This was accomplished by the Constitution, adopted in a series of state conventions by “We, the People.”

The result is shared sovereignty.  The federal government exercises some of the people’s powers as do the 50 states.  In legal terms, that arrangement is called a compact and that’s what the Constitution creates.

Throughout American history, especially after the Civil War, many sovereign powers have been shifted from the states to the federal government.  This transfer often takes place through Supreme Court orders, especially when the Court’s majority favors a strong central government.

The shift of sovereignty has been driven by the need for the U.S., as a great world power, to have all the tools necessary to project that power and influence.  It also results from the need for uniform laws governing the entire country to ensure the rights of all and the development of a national economy.

There now appears to be little, if anything, left of state sovereignty.  The federal government can act wherever and however the president pleases.

With the assertion of presidential power to deploy military force to exercise control within states, the shift has almost become total.  Shared sovereignty is dying.  Presidents want to increase their power, often at the expense of states.  Trump’s extreme actions have either received Supreme Court approval or it has simply stood aside.

The Court set itself up to ensure laws and actions conform to the Constitution.  Unchallenged in this role, it acts as a legislature that backs the president.  Congress recedes, mainly because the president’s own party puts loyalty to him ahead of loyalty to the Constitution.  The country suffers.

However extreme Trump’s policy toward Minnesota and other states, his claims for foreign territory are stunning.  He wants Canada as the 51st state.  He wants Greenland and openly discusses taking it from Denmark.  Canadians and Greenlanders do not want U.S. rule.  But he regards the sovereignty of others as disposable, especially when he dislikes their leaders.

His moves have probably destroyed the NATO alliance.  Other members recognize that American forces won’t defend them in case of a Russian attack.  They see him threatening a NATO member and promising to raise U.S. tariffs on products of countries opposing his involuntary acquisition of Greenland.  He does not consult with U.S. allies.

His outsider view has correctly spotlighted the inadequate military effort of other NATO countries and the alliance’s lack of an Arctic defense capability.  But his solution would impose U.S. dominance instead of proposing a joint strategy.  That deeply worries the Europeans.

Above all, Trump seeks to replace the rules-based order that developed to prevent the resurgence of Nazi-style aggression.  Instead, he favors control exercised only by the most powerful nations.  He sees multilateralism as an unjustified limit on America pursuing its own objectives, no matter the effect on others.

Western nations have sought to protect sovereignty while promoting joint action.  Each country would recognize the right of each nation to its sovereignty within secure and recognized borders.  That made respect for the territorial integrity of each country the guarantee of sovereignty.

Trump’s demands at home and abroad have inspired disbelief.  They affront widely held, historic understandings that had been accepted as reliable and permanent.  His policy stems from his personal and often contradictory views that meet little effective opposition.  Leading a willing government, Trump has brought change and toppled conventions.

Trump is not discouraged by the growing loss of respect for the U.S. in the world.  In relying excessively on American economic and military backing, other countries accepted U.S. world leadership.  As they are now forced to react to MAGA-like demands on them, the U.S. is losing power and influence.

Trump’s neo-isolationism cannot be explained as America Alone.  It is America First, using its power to force American citizens and foreign nations alike to accept his ego-driven definition of that principle. 

What comes next?

  

The Rape of Greenland

 

Gordon L. Weil

The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides three words associated with the verb “to rape” – violate, assault, force.

President Trump has launched an assault on Denmark’s Greenland, intending to violate Danish sovereignty and Greenland’s autonomy, using force if necessary.  While his proposal may lack the sexual connotation of rape, it is the political equivalent. 

Denmark and Greenland are not submitting to Trump’s unwanted advances, and their friends are coming to their aid.

There are eight Arctic nations:  U.S., Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.  The first seven have joined others in NATO, mainly to defend against the eighth.  The NATO 7 are rightly concerned about Russia’s expected attempt to control the Arctic Sea, seeking military domination and economic exploitation of the area.

Trump sees Greenland, Denmark’s sparsely populated semi-autonomous territory, as a target for Russia and perhaps even China.  He imagines, without evidence, that their vessels are now circling an almost defenseless island.  He focuses exclusively on the threat to the U.S, ignoring the other six NATO allies.

The irony is that Greenland has become accessible to Russia because the Arctic ice is melting as global warming increases.  Trump claims that global warming (a.k.a. climate change) is a “hoax.” 

The NATO 7 agree that the region’s defense must be sharply increased.   While the Russian economy, far smaller than California’s, is obviously strapped by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his ambition seems limitless.  Over time, Russia is likely to exploit its Arctic location to threaten NATO members.

The situation calls for joint planning and action by NATO.  The alliance needs a coordinated strategy for protecting their territories from the north and to then quickly create necessary military installations.   These facilities should provide for both on-site defense and leverage to put pressure on Russia.

But NATO has been slow to act, perhaps reflecting the weakness of its new Secretary-General. It has recently begun moving, obviously in reaction to Trump’s claims.  He believes that the alliance is meaningless and heavily depends on the U.S.   That means he can go it alone without regard to his alliance partners.

The U.S. has had military facilities in Greenland since World War II.  Though its operations are at a single location, it formerly had bases across the island and retains the right to bring them back to life.  Denmark would approve under the terms of a 1951 agreement, and the U.S. would control the defense of Greenland.

Given the American desire to diversify the sources of so-called “rare earths” and other minerals away from China, Greenland offers attractive alternatives.  Greenlanders say they would welcome U.S. investment to develop its increasingly valuable resources.

But that’s not enough for Trump.  He demands that the U.S. must become the sovereign owner of Greenland, even if it must be wrenched away from Denmark and opposed by Greenland, which prefers its relationship with Denmark, giving it the right to move toward independence.

In a New York Times interview, Trump was asked about his demand for ownership when the U.S. already had all he wanted.  Why?  “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty,” he said. 

“Psychologically important to you or to the United States?” he was asked.

“Psychologically important for me.  Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far, I’ve been right about everything,” he replied.

Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio vigorously pursue the acquisition of Greenland, because it is “psychologically important” to President Trump.  He counts on a loyal Republican Congress backing him, because he has “been right about everything.”

After a high-level meeting in Washington last week, the Greenlandic Foreign Minister addressed the media in her own language.  She highlighted the existence of her non-American culture.  That matters.

As an American territory, Greenland would lose its autonomy and be subject to a federal executive agency.  Its culture could be ignored and its majority non-white population might encounter discrimination.  The fate of the Greenlanders seems not to matter to Trump, though it is of prime importance.

There may be a reason beyond national security that whets Trump’s appetite for Greenland.  Though it is smaller than it appears on most maps, its acquisition would be the largest addition to American territory ever.  It would be larger than the Louisiana Purchase.

In the Nineteenth Century, the U.S. pursued its “Manifest Destiny” to obtain what became the continental 48 states.  To “Make America Great Again,” Trump could renew that policy, just as he seeks to revive the Monroe Doctrine.  He may hope to burnish his legacy by adding Greenland.

But his hope may be in vain.  How many people remember President James Monroe or James K. Polk, the president who fulfilled Manifest Destiny?

Misguided attack on Powell puts dollar in danger

 

Gordon L. Weil

Trump administration agencies often fall in line with the president’s wishes, even without a specific request from him.   He can then claim that he was unaware of their moves.   This is happening now.

Trump doesn’t like Fed chair Jerome Powell.  The president wants low interest rates and believes that, as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Powell can lower interest rates.   He can’t.  Besides, the Fed leader believes that rates deal with economic conditions and not politics. Trump wants Powell out as soon as possible.

Facing the November congressional elections, Trump seeks a booming economy, which he believes would result from lower interest rates.  The sooner, the better.  The problem for him is that the Fed has not found sound economic reasons to slash rates.  Lower rates could cause inflation, which would harm average people.

In his arsenal of tools to dislodge Powell, Trump might consider legal action.  But Powell has given him no grounds to go to court and, even if he does, Trump would not necessarily get the lower rates he seeks.

The U.S. Attorney in D.C., a former Trump supporter on Fox, has used a grand jury to issue subpoenas that could lead to a Powell indictment.  The simple opening of a judicial proceeding could give Trump a pretext to try to remove him from the Fed Board “for cause.”

The issue hardly passes the straight-face test.  Powell is being investigated for testifying falsely before Congress about the renewal of the Fed’s headquarters.  Like many other capital projects, it has been subject to cost overruns.   The U.S. Attorney charged that the Fed failed to provide her office with full information when requested.

Powell had testified that the buildings had not been “seriously” renewed for many years.  A GOP committee member pointed to some work done decades ago to charge him with lying.  Beyond that, the Republicans focused on some ornate elements of the original plan, which Powell explained had been dropped as shown on the revised plans sent to Congress.

Despite Powell’s detailed written submissions, the investigation seems to be focused on the deleted improvements.  The U.S. Attorney says it’s her job to make sure that taxpayers’ money is carefully spent.

If the case is pursued, it would extend past the end in May of Powell’s term as chair.  A grand jury might not indict him, given the trivial charges and absence of evidence.   The purpose of the investigation may be less about punishing him than harassment, possibly inducing him to quit.  But he can remain a Fed governor, after his term as chair ends.

Trump and his Justice Department are obviously wrong on Powell.

First, there’s no substance to the charge. The Fed has made building plans available as they are modified, so the U.S. Attorney’s charge about not getting all the documents may assume the existence of unseen documents and be a fishing expedition.  If she has what she wants and Powell did not lie, the investigation should go away.  Harassment accomplished.

Second, no taxpayer money is involved.  The Fed is not funded with tax dollars, but makes money through market operations to support its monetary policy decisions.  Its funding comes from banks across the country.  When the Fed earns more than its costs, it makes payments to the Treasury.  Its only effect for the taxpayers is a net benefit.

Third, Powell as Fed chair does not make interest rates decisions.  They are made by a 12-member committee composed of the seven Fed Board governors and five heads of regional Federal Reserve banks, who are not presidential appointees.  When the committee sets rates, each member votes independently.   Powell seeks broad agreement, but he does not dictate.

Fourth, the impact of rate decisions is mostly limited to the near-term.  The rates, charged by the Fed for funds borrowed by banks, can adjust the money supply several times a year.  The Fed does not set mortgage or credit card rates.  Trump also believes lowering short-term rates will reduce interest on the high federal debt, which is mostly long-term.  Fed actions have little effect.

Beyond putting pressure on Powell to quit, Trump has also tried to fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor who disagrees with him on rates.  A Trump ally has charged her with cheating on a personal mortgage application.  The mere allegation should not support dismissal “for cause.”   She has taken her case to the Supreme Court and remains on the Board.

The U.S. dollar is regarded as the standard of the world, thanks largely to the Fed maintaining its value based on its independent view of economic conditions, just as Congress intended.  A strong dollar protects the American economy, boosts U.S. economic power and ensures international stability. 

But the dollar is now seriously threatened by Trump’s misguided bid for Fed control.

Pushback on Trump's power

Gordon L. Weil

When President Trump was asked about any limits on his powers in world affairs, he replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

His view that he makes his own rules also applies to his authority in domestic affairs.  He has ignored the Constitution and laws.  His first year in office has shown his remarkable ability to do almost whatever he wanted without anybody being able to limit his moves.

In international affairs, American military and economic power discourage other nations from opposing him.  Most countries have accepted his unilateral actions, but he faced unexpected opposition.  China and Canada pushed back on his tariff policy, concluding that appeasement would not work.  Opposing his claim to Greenland, Europe has strongly backed Denmark.

In domestic affairs, Trump intimidated House and Senate GOP majorities by threatening to support primary challengers to disloyal Republicans.  His strategy worked, allowing him to get his way politically.  The thin red line held.  The Democrats could do nothing more than flail.  When he overrode Congress, the Supreme Court usually approved.

Signs are now emerging that his absolute power is limited.

His standing in public opinion polls has slipped.  A majority of the public is dissatisfied in all policy areas and in his overall performance.   Buoyed by good 2025 election results, the Democrats have begun to hope those sentiments would bring 2026 election victories, gaining them a congressional check on his actions.

Recently, his virtually total hold on congressional Republicans has begun to weaken.   House GOP representatives openly charge they are ignored.  A few Republicans have decided not to seek reelection. 

One probable reason for these signs of diminished loyalty is despair over Congress having lost most of its powers.  It is often bypassed or taken for granted.  And, some of his most loyal backers worry openly that he is abandoning basic MAGA isolationist commitments by sending American forces into conflicts involving Iran, Syria, Yemen and Venezuela.

MAGA loyalty verges on being a political cult, where anything Trump decides is deemed to be necessary and appropriate.  But its is now being challenged by some of its most loyal followers.   They align increasingly with traditional, conservative Republicans, who are not Trump backers.

The Democrats gained from resisting cuts to the Affordable Care Act, even though the result was a government shutdown.  Millions of Americans were placed in jeopardy by the GOP policy and are suffering from the end of the subsidies.  They are forced to pay budget-breaking premiums or lose coverage altogether.   

Some Republicans sought to adopt a short extension, allowing time for dealing with ACA reform, but the House was kept out of session, making any negotiations impossible.  Some members faced constituent anger.   They found that Trump & Co. put this government cost-cutting ahead of real human needs. 

This month, the dam broke.  Overcoming the obstinacy from GOP legislative leaders who followed Trump’s wishes, eleven House Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to extend the ACA subsidies.  The political reality of voter discontent pushed them to break ranks.  This was a major split with the president.

Previously, Congress had passed two bills unanimously.  One would bring a fresh water conduit to a part of Colorado. The other aided the Miccosukee Indian tribe in Florida and enhanced the environment.  Trump vetoed both bills.

He demands that the Democratic governor of Colorado pardon an MAGA-oriented election clerk convicted by a jury of tampering with voting machines, but the governor refuses.  Thus, the veto.   The tribe opposes the nearby Alligator Alcatraz for immigrants, which he favors.  Thus, the veto. 

It takes two-thirds of the House to override a veto and, in both cases, some Republicans lined up with Democrats.  But the result fell short of the required number as most GOP House members flipped their position to support the president.  Still, the defections showed that Trump’s absolute control is slipping.

The third event came after the Venezuela incursion.  The Senate voted that taking further Trump action there could be subject to a congressional override.  Though the resolution won’t become law and would not be used if it passed, five GOP senators were willing to break with a furious president. 

Maine Sen. Susan Collins was one of the five, and Trump said she should never again be elected to office.   Does he want her to face a MAGA primary challenger?  Does he want his loyalists to sit out the election?   Either way, he could be helping the Democrats pick up the seat. 

All this pushback happened in the one week of the new year.  For the first time in his second term, he was seriously and repeatedly challenged by his own party members.  He was not forced to change any policy, but he has now faced open GOP congressional concern with his being left to rule, checked only by his own “morality.”  

Trump seeks 'sphere of influence'

 

Gordon L. Weil

Make America Great Again assumes that the country had a golden past.

President Trump wants to recover it.  

The world’s major powers once dominated regions and other countries that fell within their so-called “sphere of influence.”   In those areas, the major power, its influence usually determined by the size of its economy and its military, called the shots.  That was their golden age.

Now, Trump seems to accept the world being divided among three great powers, each with its sphere of influence.  China, Russia and the U.S. would dominate.  The American sphere would encompass the entire Western Hemisphere, from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to Greenland and from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

The U.S. area would be run under the newly created “Donroe Doctrine.”   President James Monroe warned of the use of American power to prevent further European colonization of Latin America.  Trump would extend his doctrine to allow U.S. power to be deployed throughout the hemisphere in the pursuit of economic and military advantage.

By understanding this policy, Trump’s moves on Venezuela, Greenland and Canada are explained.  The policy is unconstrained to the point that he can aspire to have his northern neighbors be absorbed by the U.S.  His minions imply that the country has the power to take what it wants.

In the case of Venezuela, America soldiers were deployed into the country, seized people and transported them to an American courtroom.  In the wake of this incursion, Trump made clear his intention to control Venezuela policy, and particularly its oil industry.

In fact, it worked so well that President Trump believes he has the “option” of using military force to seize Greenland, a sparsely populated Danish territory, and make it part of the U.S.  That might violate the law, but that wouldn’t matter. 

Who would enforce the law and either stop Trump or punish him and the U.S.?  Neither Venezuela nor Denmark has the power to block him.  What about the UN or Congress?

The UN Security Council met urgently to discuss the Venezuela situation, but no vote was taken on the American action.   If there had been a vote, the UN Charter might have provided a way to deny the U.S. its Council vote and hence, its veto.

It took no action because China and Russia, whose representatives spoke harshly about the U.S., don’t want an open conflict that could flare into real war.  Other Council members are either intimidated by the U.S. or dependent on it or both.

Trump used his status as commander-in-chief of the military to move into Venezuela.  He considers his military command gives him virtually unlimited authority to act.  With Congress having ceded many of its powers to the president, it does not employ the power of the purse.  It does not claim its right to declare war.  Impeachment alone would not deter him.  

The Supreme Court has usually endorsed his expansive view of the presidency.  It would normally leave a judgment up to Congress.  And some issues, like the kidnapping of the self-anointed president and his wife and their special status might fall outside of the scope of the case.

Trump’s asserts national security concerns, but he lacks evidence.   In Venezuela, he repeatedly has shown that his prime interest is oil.  In Greenland, he wants access for military bases and to minerals.

Trump’s actions are consistent with traditional American policy.  While people may find notions of democracy and neutrality in the country’s founding documents, the U.S. has long practiced “gunboat diplomacy” – the pursuit by force of American foreign policy objectives relating to smaller nations, especially in this hemisphere.

His sphere of influence policy encounters opposition in Europe, but countries there still decline to make the economic sacrifices needed to build their own defense, and he pays little attention to them.  To him, the EU is a threat to the U.S.

If there are downsides, they could come from the long-term consequences of his actions.  Trump looks for short-term results that would ensure he gets the credit.  Whatever his successes, animosity and even enmity has grown in neighboring countries in the hemisphere.  They could turn toward America’s rivals.

More desirable but less likely would be the recovery of Congress and the restoration of institutional checks on the president.  The legislative branch has abdicated its responsibilities, putting the institution itself in jeopardy.   Its integrity is threatened by members pushing partisanship ahead of preserving Congress. 

The UN’s leading members have given up on it.  The UN Charter is a treaty under international law, but is routinely ignored.  It might still be made to work instead allowing it to recede further as an irrelevant anachronism.

But everybody keeps their heads down.   That leaves Trump, violating laws and treaties, to remake the world as he wishes.

Constitution crashes under Trump amendments

 

Gordon L. Weil

Before the return of Donald Trump to the White House, I wrote a series of columns entitled “Fix It.”  They suggested ways of repairing the damage to historic practices that had their origins in the Constitution Framers’ shared understandings about the government they were creating.

I avoided proposing formal constitutional amendments, sharing a widely held concern that the process, especially a national convention, would expose the founding document to radical change.  They could modify or remove some of the constraints on government and endanger the Bill of Rights.

Without a formal amendment process, much of this has happened in a single year of Trump’s second term.  Widely accepted understandings about constitutional limits, guiding all branches of the federal government, were summarily swept away.

The political world has drastically changed since 1787, when the Constitution was drafted.  While its terms were sufficiently general to allow adaptation over time, they have also permitted significant departures from their intent and subsequent practice.   Key elements of the constitutional system have crashed.

The central innovation of American government was checks and balances.  Emerging from the arbitrary rule of the British king and his compliant parliament, the Framers designed a system that denied power to any one person, but distributed it over three independent and interlocking branches. 

Each would be subject to checks by the others and power would be balanced among them.  National policy would be embodied in laws passed by Congress.  The president would execute the laws, exercising discretion only within prescribed limits.  The Supreme Court would ensure that the other branches respected their legal limits, including those set in the Constitution.

The Framers assumed that each branch would accept checks and balances.  The three institutions would each receive more loyalty than that accorded to political “factions.”  The interests of individual states would be respected.   Political perspectives might shift over time to reflect the popular will, but only gradually.

The American government began abandoning that model after the 1994 congressional elections, as I have previously noted.  The Republican Party initiated discipline closer to the British parliamentary tradition than the Framers’ plan. 

Republican discipline reached its ultimate point in 2025, with the Republican president using unlimited powers affirmed by the Supreme Court dominated by his followers and enjoying his party’s virtually absolute congressional support.  Checks and balances, the unique American system, was abandoned, perhaps forever.

Commenting on the system now imposed on the country, a federal judge recently found the focus: “The Founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances. Defendants [the Trump administration], however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one.”

Impeachment may be the only constitutional check apparently still available under the disrupted balance of power.  Trump worries that a Democratic House majority could vote his third impeachment.  But the chances for conviction by the Senate are virtually nonexistent.

If the historic system is to be restored, the Constitution must be rescued.   Key changes can be made without amendments.  But, because we have seen constitutional provisions ignored by a willful regime, stronger protective barriers must be formally erected.  This might create a new originalism, though not the usual cynical distortion of original intent by obvious partisans.

Candidates should seek federal office on explicit platforms to restore checks and balances.  Unless there is greater independent, nonpartisan leadership by federal politicians on these central concerns, the changes of 2025 will have turned the United States away from limited government to authoritarian rule. 

The calendar must be the tool of limited government.  The Constitution should require that every law must have a sunset, requiring readoption after a designated period.  No longer would a president be able to misuse outdated laws for unintended purposes.

Similarly, public control of government would be enhanced by the imposition of term limits.  “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Without term limits, members of the House and Senate, and judges come to exercise absolute power.   Their focus changes from pursuing the public good to enjoying the intoxication of unfettered rule.

The unelected Supreme Court should retain its independence, but no longer should a five-person majority impose its interpretations on a nation of more the 330 million people.  Rulings on constitutionality should be reversible by Congress.

The Court’s misguided determination that unlimited campaign spending is free speech should be constitutionally quashed.   Congressional redistricting, which today makes a mockery of democracy, should be returned to the original intent, linking it to the census every ten years.

A president and Congress could achieve some of these goals, but legislative change might prove to be temporary.  The country could experience the federal government reversing itself in arbitrary and unpredictable ways after each election.

These proposals for constitutional change may seem hopelessly idealistic, coming from “one crying in the wilderness.”   Improbable, yes, but no more than the sweeping and unexpected constitutional change that has taken place in less than a year. 

How? Now is the time for the Constitution to become an election issue.