The guest seat in US President Donald Trump’s Oval Office has been dubbed the “hot seat,” and it gets hotter if the host sees a chance to turn up the heat.
It is also not true that Trump is always transactional. I agree with US political analyst Ian Bremmer when he says that Trump weighs up everyone he deals with. If the guest is strong and their country carries economic and political weight, he will go into transactional deal-making mode. But he will take a different approach if the guest’s country is weak and they are driven to him by need, or if he smells an opportunity to take advantage of them and wring from them what he can.
Conscious of being at the helm of the world’s largest economy, its most powerful military, and its most modern technological base, Trump focuses his energy, intensified if he is before the cameras for a live broadcast, and uses the skills he honed during his erstwhile career in reality TV to manipulate his guest.
In his Trumpish way, he can be affable and warm to the occupant of the hot seat, as he was recently with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Or he can be entirely the opposite, as occurred during last week’s bizarre spectacle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Whatever transpires between Trump and his guest, it will all be capturable in the very words with which the president himself concluded his meeting with the Ukrainian president last week. “Alright, I think we’ve seen enough,” Trump said. “This is going to be great television. I will say that.”
That was a remark by someone who knows exactly what they are doing, in this case in a world removed from usual diplomatic norms and conventional political engagements. During their meeting with Zelensky last week, Trump and his Vice-President J D Vance orchestrated a melodrama of emotional exchanges, taking turns at cajoling, mocking, threatening, and scolding their interlocutor and reminding him of American munificence and his duty to respond with expressions of gratitude.
Zelensky struggled to parry the thrusts and to push back, using a language that was not his own and on a playing field that was not of his choosing. In the background, the cameras kept on rolling, catching the horrified expressions of the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington, driven almost to tears by the political bloodbath unfolding before her.
Not that the drama lacked comedy, as with the scene of a journalist wearing a stylish blue suit unleashing a fusillade of questions about Zelensky’s attire:
Journalist: Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office and you refuse to wear a suit. I just want to see if – do you own a suit?
Zelensky: Problem?
Journalist: A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the deputy in this office.
Zelensky: I will wear a costume after this war will finish… Maybe something like yours… Maybe something better… Maybe something cheaper.
Trump is notoriously impatient for results, whether on matters at home or abroad. In his mind, he is on a mission to “Make America Great Again,” and fate has spared him from conspiracies, lawsuits, scandals, and assassination attempts so that he may fulfil it.
Now nearing his 80th birthday, Trump must sense that the end is near both for him and for his vision. In less than two years, he could lose the majority support he has in Congress. Every passing day is one day gone before his current and (constitutionally stipulated) final term is over.
Amid the flurry to get things done, a faction in his inner circle feels that state institutions are getting in the way. That team consists of the tech oligarchy led by billionaire Elon Musk, who is tasked with streamlining and purging the US government bureaucracy. Musk holds no official government position. But this is a trivial detail, according to the Trump administration’s well-trained mouthpieces, for nothing should hamper the “revolution of change.”
The veteran Harvard economist Dani Rodrik is among those who foresee an impending showdown between the tech oligarchs and another faction that helped carry Trump back to the White House: the “America First” populists.
Both factions are bent on locking horns with the conventional institutions of the state, whether deep or shallow, but the populists dream of reviving American industrial glory while the techies dream of a future ruled by AI applications. Fearing that AI will eventually shunt them aside, the populists are racing to rally the US masses behind their cause. The two sides also differ in their attitudes to immigration. The tech oligarchy has a more selective approach to immigration, whereas the populists want to get rid of foreigners regardless of market needs.
Many US presidents have had a flare for managing the rivals and political adversaries in their administrations, harnessing their energies and diverse talents towards the nation’s greater good. The 19th-century Republican president Abraham Lincoln was particularly famous for leading a “team of rivals” as explained in famous book by Doris Goodwin.
But there is a vast difference between Lincoln and Trump in their characters, sense of purpose, aims, and the state of the country during their terms. What cemented Lincoln’s place as the greatest US president was his struggle to preserve the union and to abolish slavery. That period and the subsequent rise of US power are probably the eras that most inspire the nostalgia for past glories and the yearning to revive them in the country today. But how can former glory be restored in a world where the morning begins with an episode from a political circus, stirring a media storm throughout the day, only for the evening to bring an economic rollercoaster driven by impulsive decisions?
What is the rationale behind such decisions? Nothing but playing to the populist gallery with executive orders for the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants and others for arbitrary tariff hikes, heedless of the inflationary impact of such measures. Then, to top it off, come the abrupt cuts in US international aid programmes, sacrificing their economic and political returns for the US.
As a result of the political tumult and economic turmoil that is going on in Washington today, the world is at a loss and is scrambling to find ways to fill the political vacuum and shield itself from mounting crises.
This article also appears in Arabic in Wednesday’s edition of Asharq Al-Awsat.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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