Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: It's all out of his depth

Donald Trump may be a shallow person (e.g., clearly obsessed with gold and glitz, naming everything after himself, pouts and perennially claims to be the victim, jokes about having sex with his daughter), but nowhere is he less able to make coherent conversation or decent decisions than in international politics, according to University of Limerick political scientist Scott Fitzsimmons (2022), in his examination of Trump's personality as it affected his processes or lack of processes in navigating international relations, agreements, and foreign policy decisions. 

Fitzsimmons parsed Trump's simplistic refusal to participate in trade agreements (pulling the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership), environmental stewardship (ending US participation in the Paris Accords), and nuclear weapons agreements both new and long-standing (no other US president blew up so many highly effective constraints on possession, proliferation, and prevention of nuclear war and nuclear arsenals, including many tough and effective deals that included Russia and including the complex and highly effective Iran nuclear deal). Fitzsimmons concluded: 

"Although Donald Trump’s foreign policy behavior is often characterized as erratic and unpredictable, he was remarkably consistent in his hostility toward international agreements. The president withdrew or threatened to withdraw the United States from several agreements and consistently characterized agreements as ‘horrible deals’ that ‘cheat’ his country" (p. 40).

Others have noted that his pattern seems to be that no deal ever made by any US president other than Trump deserved to continue to exist. Trump has been using the stick of tariffs to not only punish other countries, showing his overreliance on simplistic single tools rather than any actual ability to negotiate complex win-win outcomes; indeed, his sole tool of zero-sum approaches, absolutely adversarial and endlessly seeking dominance, has reached its zenith in some ways as the European Union and NATO seemingly capitulated to every one of Trump's whims, likely with the hope of outlasting Trump until the US can regain its senses and stability. 

While boasting relentlessly about his brilliance at deal-making, he first unraveled the Iran deal that took many countries years to finesse into existence, and then, out of some grandiose need to use huge explosive weapons, just bombed Iran's most protected uranium enrichment facilities. His childlike need to bomb a nation that was not capable at that point of building even one nuclear weapon was underscored by his sudden thanks to Iran for letting him know that they would strike a US base in the Middle East in response, and to actually say that he gave them permission to do that military strike. Trump's instant rage at anyone questioning him in any way may be preventing mainstream media from pondering what Trump and the Republicans might do or say if a Democratic president had given permission to another nation to blast a US military base.

References

Fitzsimmons, S. (2022). Personality and adherence to international agreements: The case of President Donald Trump. International Relations, 36(1), 40–60. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/0047117820965656