Trump’s chaotic revolution has changed the world and America’s place in it

There is nothing in modern times to compare to Donald Trump’s first 100 days as president, which has convulsed, repelled and transfixed the world | WATCH CAMERON STEWART BREAK DOWN TRUMP 2.0

Donald Trump’s first 100 days as president has unfurled a political revolution which has convulsed, repelled and transfixed the world.

There is nothing in modern times to compare it to. Trump Mark II has wielded raw power in a way we have never seen from an American leader at the start of his term. With the backing of Congress and by cowing his own party and his opponents, he has pulled every lever of power available – and some that were not – to seek to transform his country and its standing in the world. There is almost no part of American society which has not felt the blizzard of change from this frenetic president from the day he was sworn in.

From a cultural assault on woke across American society to a frontal attack on institutions such as Harvard University, the judiciary and the Federal Reserve, Trump has pursued his unprecedented agenda without hesitation and often with relish.

On the global stage, his first 100 days have proved to be a disaster. Trump has decoupled America from the wider world with ramifications which will be felt for many years, if not decades. He has treated allies like adversaries, withdrawn America from numerous global institutions and treaties, erected daunting tariff barriers on all US trading partners and slashed US foreign aid and the State Department. The cumulative effect has been to gravely weaken America’s ability to wield soft power at a time when China and Russia are rushing to fill the vacuum.

His international diplomacy has so far failed to yield the peace he promised. With the Ukraine war, he has appeased Russia’s Vladimir Putin to such a degree that he was willing to humiliate Ukraine’s brave wartime leader Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the world in the Oval Office. So far, Trump has proposed a peace deal largely on Russia’s terms, but even then he has failed to win any concessions from Putin which would suggest Putin really wants peace.

In Gaza, Trump unveiled a bizarre plan to move its million-plus residents from the battered enclave and turn it into a tourist resort – a plan o outlandish it has been largely forgotten. Yet Trump’s threat to wreak havoc on Hamas unless it released its remaining hostages has so far amounted to nothing, with no peace deal in sight and no release of the remaining hostages.

Trump’s headline act in his first 100 days, the imposition of sweeping tariffs on the world, America’s friends and its enemies, has also proven a disaster. Trump has surged and retreated on his tariff policy, first levying them on friends such as Canada and Mexico, then retreating when global markets punished him, only to levy them again. Trump’s highly touted “Liberation Day”, when he levied sizeable tariffs on America’s trading partners, caused such chaos on world markets that Trump retreated by pausing the tariff rises and limiting them all to 10 per cent.

With China, Trump reacted with fury to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to retaliate on tariffs, by lifting tariffs on Chinese goods to an unsustainable 145 per cent before signalling he would retreat and negotiate with Xi to strike a far lower rate. This has not yet happened. Throughout this, Trump has ignored warnings by economists and America’s allies that the American people will be the ultimate losers from a tariff policy which will inevitably cause prices to rise. When the Federal Reserve echoed these warnings, Trump’s response was to muse about sacking the Fed’s independent chair Jerome Powell, before backing off. The only effective brake on Trump’s tariff policies has been global markets, which have plunged during his first 100 days, signalling that they fear Trump could force the US, and the world, into a recession.

There have been some small successes, however. Trump’s tougher border regime and rhetoric has resulted in illegal border crossings into the US falling to the lowest monthly totals in 25 years. In Europe the President has sent an overdue message to European nations that they must do more to secure their own defence and security without relying on American dollars and troops, although – in typical Trump fashion – he has done so with such overblown rhetoric that faith in the trans-Atlantic alliance has been shaken.

His supporters have welcomed social reforms to curb the excesses of woke culture, from the banning of trans athletes in women’s sport to the reintroduction of plastic straws. But for allies such as Australia, Trump’s first 100 days have brought no good news. He has levied tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium, as well as 10 per cent tariffs across the board on a longtime ally which has a trade surplus with the US. He failed to recognise the term AUKUS when it was raised in the Oval Office, raising doubts about his administration’s commitment to the nuclear submarine pact. Trump’s brand of politics has become toxic around the world, delivering an unlikely victory to Canada’s centre-left party in elections this week, and helping to cruel Peter Dutton’s electoral prospects here in Australia.

It has been a whirlwind of chaos far in excess of anything Trump’s friends and foes had expected. And there are only three and three quarter years to go.