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Gerard BakerColumnist

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CommentaryThe Times

For Trump, his first big overseas trip this week was not some opportunity for forging grand alliances but again for making money — for the US and himself.

Now we can see what America First means

Three events this week have shown how Donald Trump views the world: warm alliances are out, cold materialism is in.

Gerard Baker

CommentaryThe Times

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 1: U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to Alabama to give the commencement address at the University of Alabama. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Andrew Harnik / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

Hubristic Trump is due a reality check

After 100 days in which opposition has been non-existent, some of the normal rules of politics will start to apply.

Gerard Baker

CommentaryThe Times

A better way to understand the last 50 years of the papacy - and what may come next - is to grasp that all three of these men were proselytising the same Catholic truths, but in different ways and, crucially, with different emphases.

Secular blowhards just don’t get the papacy

The upcoming conclave is not about liberals versus conservatives but who will best express the timeless Catholic faith.

Gerard Baker

CommentaryThe Wall Street Journal

US President Donald Trump walks by guests as he attends the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. According to the US National Park Service, the egg roll tradition dates back to 1878 when President Rutherford B. Hayes invited children to roll Easter eggs on the White House grounds. Children previously rolled eggs down a hill at the US Capitol in the early 1870s, but a law was passed in 1876 forbidding the Capitol property from being used due to the toll on the lawn. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

Trump’s first 100 days more like Blunderland than Blitzkrieg

The goals of Donald Trump’s second term are ambitious, but so far the execution has been strikingly incompetent. Voters may start to ask: what’s the use of a strong man who can’t do anything right?

Gerard Baker

The Times

At Harvard, America’s richest and most prestigious university, the stakes of this latest intervention by Trump into the civic life of the nation could not be higher.

Trump’s made Harvard look like the underdog

Weakening the ideological control elite universities have over young minds is desirable, but this all-out assault will backfire.

Gerard Baker

commentaryThe Times

After initial ambiguity about how he might try to deal with China, Trump has now hit it with the economic equivalent of a baseball bat.

Trump vs China: The world has entered a perilous new phase

After ambiguity about how he might deal with Beijing, Donald Trump has hit it with the economic equivalent of a baseball bat. This potential cycle of escalation carries huge risks.

Gerard Baker

analysisThe Wall Street Journal

The Trump administration is implementing domestic policies in an unnecessarily damaging way.

Trump is trashing America’s reputation

America’s reputation, burnished over centuries, is the greatest geopolitical brand ever created. But Trump is carrying out history’s greatest exercise in brand destruction.

Gerard Baker

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