{"id":92429,"date":"2025-08-24T13:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T13:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/92429\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T13:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T13:49:06","slug":"at-home-and-abroad-us-policy-chaos-has-one-constant-trumps-self-interest-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/92429\/","title":{"rendered":"At home and abroad US policy chaos has one constant: Trump\u2019s self-interest | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a language he could understand. Donald Trump<\/a> had lost the 2020 US presidential election, Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin told him last Friday, because it was rigged through mail-in voting.<\/p>\n

Three days later, the president announced that lawyers<\/a> were drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in balloting, a method used by nearly a third of Americans that has not been credibly linked to election fraud.<\/p>\n

That an American president might take advice on how to run elections from a Russian dictator \u2013 who wins sham polls in a landslide while his opponents disappear or die<\/a> \u2013 would have been unimaginable a decade ago.<\/p>\n

But it was not so surprising from Trump, who has made a habit of blurring the boundary between domestic policy grievances and foreign policy goals. He is uniquely vulnerable to manipulation, critics say, because he views national and international affairs through a single prism of self-interest.<\/p>\n

Charlie Sykes<\/a>, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: \u201cIn Donald Trump\u2019s world there\u2019s no significant distinction between what he does internationally and what he is doing domestically because all centers on himself. There\u2019s no ideological through-line or consistency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about what serves his own personal interests. The notion that you would roll out the red carpet for an internationally wanted war criminal 19 months after he murdered [opposition leader] Alexei Navalny would be vomit-inducing in any context. But given Trump\u2019s long history with Vladimir Putin<\/a>, I suppose it should be expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conflation has been on display in Trump\u2019s approach to immigration, with countries such as El Salvador currying favour by imprisoning the victims of mass deportation, and in his claim that trade tariffs will produce a renaissance of domestic manufacturing. Sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba were framed as appeals to domestic constituencies such as Cuban and Venezuelan exile communities in Florida.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s first impeachment<\/a> by the House of Representatives was a result of his effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. But no country has played a more outsized role than Russia. In 2016 Trump asked Russians to hack his rival Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails; this year he baselessly accused Barack Obama of \u201ctreason\u201d, claiming he plotted to sabotage his first presidency by linking him to Russian election meddling.<\/p>\n

Then came last Friday\u2019s much-hyped summit between Trump and Putin<\/a> in Anchorage, Alaska. During a brief press conference, Putin assured the US president that, had he won the 2020 election instead of Biden, the war in Ukraine would never have happened.<\/p>\n

Trump holds the Fifa World Cup Winners Trophy during an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin\/AP<\/p>\n

It was a talking point that Trump has deployed endlessly on last year\u2019s campaign trail and since his return to the White House in January. It has been echoed by rightwing media but studiously avoided by foreign leaders. For it now to be parroted by Putin was evidently the validation that Trump craved.<\/p>\n

Tara Setmayer<\/a>, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: \u201cDonald Trump seems to have an inexplainable affinity for everything Vladimir Putin does and the way in which Russia\u2019s elections are manipulated and not free and fair seems to be something Donald Trump aspires to to maintain power.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Donald Trump<\/a> echoes the sentiments of a murderous dictator, war criminal, enemy of the United States and decides to translate that into domestic American politics, it should raise alarms to everyone as to why he would want to emulate anything Vladimir Putin suggests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s inward-looking obsessions also pose a challenge for visiting heads of state. During the past seven months many have been obliged to sit impassively as he holds court on Democrats, fake news or other local concerns that would normally be reserved for a domestic audience.<\/p>\n

On Monday, with the eyes of the world on the Oval Office, it was the turn of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a>, to sit tight as Trump digressed on the topic of his law and order crackdown in Washington DC, recalling a recent conversation with a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a son who\u2019s a great golfer,\u201d the 79-year-old president rambled. \u201cHe\u2019s on tour and he came in fourth yesterday in the big tournament where Scottie Scheffler<\/a> made the great shot. And he said his son is going to dinner in Washington DC tonight. I said, \u2018Would you allow that to happen a year ago?\u2019 He said, \u2018No way. No way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When a reporter asked Trump about his social media post regarding mail-in ballots, the president acknowledged, \u201cWell, that\u2019s a very off topic,\u201d but could not resist embarking on a long and winding answer that included his vow to terminate mail-in voting and descended into a rant against Democrats: \u201cBecause with men and women\u2019s sports, and with transgender for everybody, and open borders, and all of the horrible things, and now the new thing is, they love crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, the Republican Trump\u2019s encounter with Zelenskyy<\/a> also included criticisms of his Democratic predecessor that were again reminiscent of the campaign trail. \u201cLook, this isn\u2019t my war; this is Joe Biden\u2019s war,\u201d Trump said. \u201cJoe Biden, a corrupt politician, not a smart man \u2013 never was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian leader, who in 2023 heaped praise on Biden for making a surprise visit to Kyiv<\/a>, and last year paid tribute to the 46th president\u2019s \u201cstrong decisions\u201d and \u201cbold steps\u201d in supporting the war effort, remained silent.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, listens as Trump discourses on the dining choices of a friend\u2019s son. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s habit of bad-mouthing his predecessors marks yet another radical break from tradition. Whatever their private thoughts might have been, Ronald Reagan did not publicly denounce Jimmy Carter\u2019s handling of the Iran hostage crisis<\/a> when hosting foreign dignitaries, nor did Barack Obama lambast George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n

Joel Rubin<\/a>, a former assistant deputy secretary of state, commented: \u201cI find it shocking because American presidents historically leave other American presidents alone. They\u2019ll criticise policies but they don\u2019t go for personal taunts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s strength as a country when it comes to foreign policy is our consistency and bipartisan mindset and national patriotism. The denigrating of previous American presidents in front of international audiences is very stark and very different. Trump is doing something that nobody else has done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s default, Rubin added, was to say that Biden was the worst at everything. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like they asked him about Biden. He chose to bring it up. It conveys a deep insecurity about his sense of place and what he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s attempting to demonstrate greatness by continually denigrating others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the British prime minister, Keir Starmer<\/a>, was interviewed and constantly trashing Sunak or Cameron or whatever \u2013 \u2018Oh, those people they did Brexit\u2019 \u2013 it gives off an image as if the country is coming unglued.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a language he could understand. Donald Trump had lost the 2020 US presidential election, Russia\u2019s Vladimir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-92429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}