“Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.”
In recent weeks, a number of commentators have expressed surprise at Trumps’ intelligence and charm. It’s as if discovering this suddenly makes him a good person, not an idiot who doesn’t understand what he’s doing.
History is littered with bad people, perhaps evil people, who were both charming and intelligent, many of them could be described as charismatic, too.
Other commentators have been critical of comparing Trump to Hitler, but, in my opinion, the comparison is valid. Trump is the most repressive leader I can remember in what might be described as developed democratic country. Overseas, he seems intent on expanding the US sphere of influence, taking over countries as suits his purpose.
“I don’t need international law”, he told the New York Times, saying that the only constraint to his power as president is “my own morality, my own mind.”
He did concede that “I do” in regards to whether his administration needed to adhere to international law, but said: “It depends on what your definition of international law is.”
He has already taken over Venezuela, supposedly to stop narco-terrorism, although he was quick to seize control of their oil assets. Clearly the latter was the prime motivator for his aggression.
Furthermore, he is still casting his eye over Greenland, expressing a desire for “ownership”, which suggests something more than just defense concerns. The real goal is the country’s mineral wealth, and access to new trade routes as the ice continues to melt.
He has said: “Ownership is very important. Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
His intent is clear, “one way or the other, we are going to have Greenland.”
He is hiding behind excuses such as: “If we don’t take Greenland, Russia or China will, and I’m not letting that happen”, and “Russian and Chinese “destroyers and submarines all over the place.”
Both statements are untrue. Jess Berthelsen, the chair of SIK, Greenland’s national trade union confederation, said people in the territory did not recognize these allegations: “We can’t see it, we can’t recognize it and we can’t understand it.”
Trump clearly see’s Nato as a mere irritation, and, whilst a hostile takeover would be against international law, and in-breach of Nato’s terms, even collectively the other Nato members are powerless to enforce them. As he said: “If it affects Nato, it affects Nato. But you know, they need us much more than we need them.”
As for the poor Greenlanders, their opinion matters as little as that of Czechoslovaks in 1938. The islanders have repeatedly expressed their refusal to be part of the US, with 85% of the population rejecting the idea, according to a 2025 poll.
‘Trump is the most repressive leader I can remember in what might be described as developed democratic country’
In addition, the leaders of five political parties in the Greenlandic parliament, including the island’s PM, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, have issued a united statement, saying: “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danish, we want to be Greenlanders. The future of Greenland must be decided by Greenlanders.”
Stressing the desire of the people of Greenland, a former Danish colony, to have self-determination, they said: “No other country can meddle in this. We must decide our country’s future ourselves – without pressure to make a hasty decision, without procrastination, and without interference from other countries.”
Trump, it would appear, intends to manage any European response to his uninvited aggression by imposing more tariffs…..yawn, they are blunt instruments that hurt the US economy as much as anyone else.
Clearly, he is becoming quite vexed by Europe not selling-out Greenland, and his response to the Norwegian government was more than a little unhinged: “ “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” instead he would “think about what is good and proper” for the US.
At this point comparisons between Hitler, Munich, Czechoslovakia and the current situation with Trumps’ America diverge.
In 1938, the likes of Britian and France could have stood against Nazi Germany, especially with the support of the League of Nations, they chose not to because they preferred appeasement. Today, we don’t have that choice, we don’t have the military power to stop Trump.
In addition, if the European powers, and I include the UK here, and too objectionable, Trump is likely to withdraw his support for Ukraine leaving them dangerously vulnerable to an ever more aggressive Russia.
Whilst this is of concern there needs to be a reality check as to what US support for Ukraine actually means. Since being re-elected, Trump has publicly humiliated the Ukrainian president, and whilst he has talked tough on Russia, he rolled-out the red carpet for Putin, and allowed him to coauthor a proposed peace plan. The reality is simple; Putin does not want to stop the war, and Trump has no intention of pressuring him to do so. As such, European leaders concerns around criticising Trumps’ for fear of further exposing Ukraine appear delusional.
In some ways, kicking the can down the road might postpone the day when the US cuts them adrift, and delay his decision to blow up Nato by annexing Danish territory.
Whilst Starmer has sought to realign us with Europe post-Brexit, it has all been rather wishy-washy. He continually talks up the value of closer economic ties to the EU, but there is always the caveat that nothing agreed in Brussels should compromise relations with Washington.
“I am never going to choose between the US and Europe.”
‘Whilst Starmer has sought to realign us with Europe post-Brexit, it has all been rather wishy-washy’
Starmer also has to manage the impact of Farage / Reform in his dealings with Europe. There are already reports that EU diplomats are considering a “‘Farage clause’” in any Brexit “reset” negotiations. This which would require the UK to provide financial assurances that it would cover the costs of reinstating border infrastructure if a future government withdrew from a new trade agreement.
Although this applies to trade, you can understand European’s concern, especially given Farage’s relationship with Trump.
Part of our problem is the ongoing reluctance to accept that our old role as the Atlantic bridge at the centre of the western alliance, is no more. Trump has no respect for compromises, and the world is being rearranged into regional and continental blocs.
A former adviser to previous PM’s , Prof Bew of King’s College London, sees trump incursion into Venezuela as confirming three things; the increased willingness of the US to use executive power for swift military action; America’s desire to control oil, gas and minerals; and, the creation of areas of influence, suggesting that along with the US, China and Russia would be given freer rein in other regions.
Americas’ intention to grab oil and what other resources he deems necessary, are plainly laid out his recently published National Security Strategy (“NSS”).
Turning to Trump’s domestic policies, he is continuing his quest to destroy the power of independent bodies there to act as a check and balance on a president, and imprisoning immigrants.
Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) enforcers have the makings of his own Gestapo, continually threatening menace citizens with their arbitrary, state-backed violence.
In Minneapolis, there was the fatal shooting of US resident Renee Nicole Good, by an ICE agent. Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Good was “harassing and impeding law enforcement operations”. Trump and his officials urged Americans to disbelieve video footage of the incident, insisting that Good was a “domestic terrorist” bent on using her car as a weapon, to kill ICE agents, not get away from them.
The clampdown in Minnesota is part of Trump’s fixation with Somali residents, who he called “garbage”, after right-wing media outlets focused attention on high-profile social services fraud cases involving them.
‘The clampdown in Minnesota is part of Trump’s fixation with Somali residents, who he called “garbage”’
Now, ICE agents are swarming the Twin Cities, going door to door at businesses and stopping people in their vehicles in immigrant-heavy parts of Minneapolis and the surrounding environs.
Elsewhere, ICE agents shot two people outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon.
Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, said at a news conference: “We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past. We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts. Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences. As mayor, I call on ICE to end all operations in Portland until a full investigation can be completed.”
Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, also called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave the city, saying: “ICE has done nothing but inject terror, chaos, and cruelty into our communities,” Dexter said. “Trump’s immigration machine is using violence to control our communities – straight out of the authorities.”
ICE’s actions and the fear they cause are starting to impact the economy will also feel the impact of ICE. Workers are not turning-up out of fear that they too, might be sat on a roof in subzero temperatures trying to avoid them.
Torres DeSantiago manages the Immigrant Defense Network, a group that monitors ICE activity and responds to community needs after someone is taken, summed-up the situation succinctly: “This is not normal everyday behavior where we see a woman be dragged on her face on the concrete floor, or be pepper-sprayed or shot [by] rubber bullets, or [where] I’ve seen a disabled individual be violently pushed to the ground, and see families be ripped apart, or see a standoff that happens on the top of the roof in negative-degree weather. And what are we supposed to do? Just continue sipping our coffee like nothing happened?
Turning to the economy, one of Trumps’ big election pledges was dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. Recently, he has tried to downplay this, but, as the problem refuses to go away, he is now trying to deflect the blame onto the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. His tactic is a justice department led criminal investigation into Powell over a $2.5bn renovation of the Fed’s HQ, and into his testimony about the project to the Senate banking committee in June last year.
Powell responded, insisting that he had been threatened with criminal charges because the Fed had set interest rates “based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”
Trump’s actions are a clear threat to the independence and credibility of America’s central bank.
A number of former government officials, along with former Fed chairs Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, agreed with Powell, saying. “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly”.
Added to this, is a letter of support for many of the world’s central banks, including the ECB and BIS.
Despite this, Trump will, almost certainly install his own person in the Fed, giving him de facto power over the setting of interest rates, a situation that will have massive implications for the dollar, US debt, the economy, and particularly inflation risks.
Inflation is already an on-going problem for the administration, and has been exacerbated by his own tariffs, which effectively import supply-side inflation.
There has been no help for those struggling. Instead, he has cuts taxes for the rich. There has been nothing on housing supply, childcare, healthcare costs or wages. Indeed most of their actions are worsening affordability, notably deferring action even though millions face a sharp rise in their health insurance bills. His sudden interest in capping credit card interest and housing interventions are pure opportunism.
Affordability is, for the majority a reality; rising grocery bill diminish already fragile household finances. It is estimated that his tariffs, allied to weaker than expected wage gains and elevated prices, have resulted in an estimated 3% hit to median household spending power. Thomas Edsall in the New York Times reckoned the average American household lost about $2,250 in spending power in 2025.
‘There has been no help for those struggling. Instead, he has cuts taxes for the rich’
This is being reflected in polls, with nearly every aspect of Trump’s first year in power negative, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with a majority of Americans saying he is focused on the wrong priorities and doing too little to address cost of living.
- 58%, calls the first year of Trump’s term a failure.
- Those polled said their priority was the economy, favoured by a nearly two-to-one margin.
- Just over 40% expect the economy to be good a year from now, down from 56% just before Trump was sworn in last January.
- 55% majority say his policies have made the economy worse, with just 32% saying they’ve made an improvement. 64%, say he hasn’t gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods. Even within the GOP, about 50% say that he should be doing more, including 42% among Republicans and Republican-leaners who describe themselves as part of the MAGA movement.
Trump has chased headlines, governing with soundbites; promising to ban institutional investors from buying more single-family homes isn’t supported by any legislation, no enforcement mechanism, no challenge to the tax privileges and regulatory carve-outs that fuel real-estate consolidation.
Trump appears only interested in benefitting rentiers; settling antitrust cases, throttling funding for consumer protections and giving real-estate tax breaks. He trades in symbolic hostility toward corporate excess while promoting policies that entrench it.
The chart below highlights how, as of January 1, 2026, the collective net worth of America’s top 12 billionaires surpassed $2.7 trillion. Their combined wealth has more than quadrupled, up from $608 billion on March 18, 2020, according to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Forbes real-time billionaire data.
Soaring stockmarkets have served to benefit only the few, the rentiers in society. More relevant measure for MAGA supporters are unemployment, inflation, and the Gini which measure inequality.
The table below shows how, since Reagan became president in 1980 inequality has increased. There is a slight dip in the Biden years before it pick’s up again under Trump.
Note: an index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality.
The burgeoning wealth of a tiny minority affects every aspect of policy. Trump’s seizure of Venezuela’s oil wealth wasn’t to benefit the US poor. His priority was shown with “big, beautiful bill”, which robbed the poor to benefit the rich. His interest in Greenland is no different, seize the minerals, and make trade easier for rentiers and his tech buddies.
In terms of consumer spending, the top 10% account for almost half of all spending, focusing on investments, owned housing, and luxury goods, while lower-income groups spend more on essentials like rent, food, and utilities.
Research shows that higher inequality, regardless of absolute levels of wealth, is associated with higher crime, worse public health, higher addiction, lower educational attainment, worse status anxiety (leading to higher consumption of positional goods), worse pollution and destruction, and a host of other ills.
In addition, it creates a class of global predators, exploiting the rest financially – and in other ways. It creates an ethos that no longer recognizes our common humanity, Musk believes that, “the fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy”.
Polling across 36 nations by the Pew Research Center found that:
- 84% see economic equality as a big problem,
- 86% see the political influence of the rich as a major cause of it.
- In 33 of these nations, a majority believe their country’s economic system needs either “major changes” or “complete reform”.
There are differing estimates for the percentage of tax paid by US billionaires. A 2021 White House study and investigations by ProPublica found that when using a comprehensive definition of “income” that includes the growth in value of unsold assets (unrealized capital gains), the 400 wealthiest families paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2% between 2010 and 2018. Some billionaires paid a “true tax rate” as low as 3.4% on their wealth growth during this period.
For comparison, the U.S. population as a whole paid an average effective tax rate of approximately 30.2% for the 2018-2020 period.
‘Trump has been aided by cowardly, compliant congressional Republicans and a pliant majority on the supreme court’
In summary, Trump is probably the most powerful person in the world, simply because he is the US president, the leader of, currently, the world’s richest, most powerful country.
Trump has been aided by cowardly, compliant congressional Republicans and a pliant majority on the supreme court, allowing him to be the least accountable president in history.
Trump shoulders both a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous opportunity. He has the power to be a force for positive change, or to simply be a bully taking what he wants, whenever he wants, from whomever he wants.
Whilst I was stop shy of calling him evil, I will use the term “bad person”.
“You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you..”
Notes:
- The Sudetenland was a border region of Czechoslovakia, historically inhabited by ethnic Germans, which became a major point of contention leading to WWII; Hitler demanded its annexation to, culminating in the 1938 Munich Agreement, where Britain, France, Germany, and Italy ceded the territory to Germany, a policy of appeasement that ultimately failed as Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia months later.
A new column has arisen from the ashes of “I’m So Bored With the USA”. “The Times They Are A Changin’”, is an apt title that reflects where the world is today.
Initially, there will be ad hoc articles as subjects stimulate my interest. However, I suspect we will settle back into more ongoing commentary.
We start with a double bill, examining US policy at home and abroad, followed-up by considering how this impacts Europe and the UK, and how they might respond.
What we are seeing is what I predicted. At home the US seems set to crash into totalitarianism, even if the pools show voters discontent, will they maintain the democratic rights to halt this?
Immigrants are continually scapegoated, perhaps as a means to deflect from the failure to deal with the cost-of-living by favouring the rich
Overseas, you just cannot say “he wouldn’t do that”; anything seems possible.
Europe and the EU are firmly in his sights. Not to be invaded but by installing hard-right governments to his liking
I have continually said that Europe doesn’t need to fall-out with, or go to war with America, but it must learn to live without America.
Lyrically, we start with Bowie’s “Life on Mars”, and end with the oh so apt “You’re so Vain”, by Carly Simon
Enjoy!
Philip
@coldwarsteve
Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.
Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s
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