There is some small comfort in the promises Trump failed to keep in his first week
There is some small comfort in the promises Trump failed to keep in his first week
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Editorial: The president has shown that he will be hard for America’s allies to handle in his second term – but there has been the odd surprising sign of sense. In his first working week in the Oval Office, Donald Trump has announced his return with all the drama to be expected of the noisy disruptor.
He pardoned 1,500 people who took part in the attack on Congress four years ago, including many convicted of violence against the police. He sought to cancel the automatic right to citizenship for those born in the US. He has suspended the admission of refugees. He has ordered troops to the southern border. He has scrapped all public sector diversity posts and initiatives.
He hired a sports stadium and filled it with cheering supporters who watched as he signed executive orders doing all this and more. He has withdrawn the US from the World Health Organisation. He has repudiated – again – the Paris climate agreement. He has renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He has changed the name of the highest mountain in the US, Denali, back to Mount McKinley.
He has dismayed some of America’s allies, including Canada, with his wild talk about it becoming the 51st state of the Union, and Denmark, with his renewed insistence on buying Greenland. Compared with such neo-imperialist delusions, the retread-president’s snub of Sir Keir Starmer, who is yet to receive a phone call from the White House, is a minor thing. But the British prime minister is also in the uncomfortable position of reading – including in The Independent – about some of the humiliations the 47th president is said to have in store. Sources close to Mr Trump say that he does not think the planned handover of the Chagos Islands, including the US base of Diego Garcia, to Mauritius, is a good deal. They also claim that the president is minded to reject Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US.
