Donald Trump, The Go-It-Alone President

Rarely has our country faced as many issues across as many fields as we do today. Ask the average American, or look at the opinion polls, and you'll find grave concern over our economic future, world peace, and our personal finances. It's a collection of worries that happens rarely.

And yet, it has happened before. Perhaps the most troublesome time was nearly a century ago, a period of economic depression and the looming World War. Early in the 20th Century, America was emerging as a great international power, and as such, we were learning the lessons of international politics. America's first attempt to institutionalize this interplay among countries, the League of Nations, failed, but after World War II, its successor, the United Nations, would remain.

Both the League of Nations and the United Nations were born out of times of high stress, conflict, and destruction. The League after World War I, the UN after World War II. The lesson that we learned back then was that the United States could not go it alone. We must work within an international framework of sovereign countries if we expect to live in peace and prosperity.

It's a message that has not resonated with President Trump. He has chosen to "go it alone" in international diplomacy, directing our country's foreign affairs from a late-night post on Truth Social, rather than using any of the existing modes of diplomacy. Thus, Trump has chosen to have almost all US international negotiations handled by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his social buddy, Steve Witkoff, rather than by his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. It's a remarkable breach of protocol, but much more a reduction in expertise, training, and professionalism.

Trump's cavalier approach to global politics leads us down a path of missteps and miscalculations that have been detrimental to America's interests each time. It's a miscalculation that inevitably rests on the arrogance of "we know best" and the failure to recognize that sovereign countries do not have to follow American policies simply because we say so.

Tariffs

Liberation Day was the first stunning example of Trump's attempt to conform the world to his way of doing business. Less than three months into his second term, on April 2, 2025, President Trump presented 190 nations with their new tariffs. All goods sold to the United States would now be taxed (according to the February 20 Supreme Court Decision) at various rates depending upon the President's inclination that day. (I'll leave for another discussion the fact that it is the American consumer who pays the majority of that tax.)

After the President issued his tariff proclamation, a vociferous public debate ensued: were these tariffs a tax? Who paid the tariffs? Would tariffs cause inflation? And on and on.

Each question centered on what effect Tariffs would have upon this country, totally missing the most important calculation, the one we still face. The question that we should ask, and the one the Trump Administration fails to ask, is what effect will tariffs have on our trading partners? Partners who are sovereign independent countries, not dependent upon the United States. Partners who are fully capable of going their own way.

Each of our trading partners may, at their leisure, decide how to react to Trump's Tariffs. China has been our most visible and important trading partner, and it has decided to limit or exclude certain rare earth metals from sale to the United States. Rare earths that we cannot source anywhere else. Rate earths that are essential in our production of certain advanced weapons used in both the Ukraine and Iran Wars. It's no coincidence; it is a subtle but impactful reaction to America's new trade policy, exemplified by tariffs.

China's move to other markets and its deemphasizing of America are all part of this broader reaction to America's new, and, from their perspective, hostile, trade policy.

All of this follows exactly the course of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of the 1930s, the last time America attempted to place tariffs on the rest of the world. It's not the tariffs per se, or the revenue they may or may not generate, that's critically important. It is the reaction of our trading partners. What happens OUTSIDE our borders that matters. In the 30s those Smoot Hawley Tariffs resulted in counter-tariffs, as our sovereign partners decided to fight back tit for tat.

We are yet to see the full impact of the international community on Trump's Liberation Day Tariffs. China has already begun pushing back against Trump's aggressive policies, and Europe is growing increasingly unhappy with this Administration.

And don't forget: the Supreme Court's February 20 decision just struck down the legal framework Trump was using at the time. When the Supreme Court ruled against him, he just floated another legal construct to impose a 10% global tariff. The Tariff battles are far from over.

IRAN

This same unwillingness to recognize the sovereignty of other nations, which exists in Trump's Tariff Policy, is also apparent in the Iran Peace Negotiations, as it was in the Ukraine Negotiations. Again, the President has called upon two individuals, with backgrounds in Real Estate and Finance, Kurchner and Witkoff, to conduct these negotiations. There is no indication that these two negotiators have extensive backgrounds in Iran-US historical relations, the various nuclear disarmament treaties, or, especially, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) agreed upon in July, 2015, which included Iran, America, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Under normal circumstances, this prior agreement, the JCPOA, would be the foundation upon which any new agreement would be built. But not in this case; after all, according to the President, the JCPOA was agreed to under another President from another political party, and therefore any agreement was not acceptable to President Trump. Incomprehensible. Apparently, Trump would rather see additional American lives lost than accept a "Democrat" Treaty.

We are living at a time when the repercussions of Trump's policies will begin to impact our lives. According to the Tax Foundation, Trump's Tariffs are expected to cost the average American household $1,300 this year (2026). While the price of gasoline, thanks to the Iran War, hit $4.11 this month, according to the Automobile Association of America (AAA). That's a 30%+ rise in gas so far.

Both of these issues, tariffs and the price of gasoline, come directly from Trump's policies: Liberation Day and his undeclared war on Iran.

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