Trump surprisingly tentative a year into office

US President Donald Trump in his interview with the London-headquartered news agency, Reuters, stayed true to his character, when he dismissed questions of concern over the prosecution of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and the warning of J P Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and the pushback’ by some Republican Senators about the impact on the economy. He replied in his characteristic nonchalant tone, “I don’t care” and dismissed the Reuters/Ipsos poll about public opinion against his stance as “fake”.

He deflected a question of people’s unhappiness over rising prices and said that the American economy was the strongest “in history”. But he soon took a different tack and explained his position: “A lot of times, you can’t convince a voter. You have to just do what’s right. And then a lot of things I did were not really politically popular. They turned out to be when it worked out so well.”

Though he was generally dismissive about criticism of his policies, he showed a rare sense of realism about difficulties and challenges on taking decisions. He is also surprisingly clear-eyed about the prospects for the Republicans in the mid-term Congressional and Senate elections in November, and he is almost reconciled to the outcome which he knows will go against the Republicans, who could lose their majority in both the houses. Trump admitted in the interview, “It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms.” But he finds no fault in his thinking and in his policies, He believes that he has accomplished so much, that there is no need for elections to test it out.

On the foreign policy front, especially his peace-making efforts in Gaza and in Ukraine, referring to the hurdle in the peace deal in Gaza which required the disarming of Hamas, he admitted that it was a difficult proposition. He said that he was not sure whether they would disarm or not. He said, “They were born with a gun in the hand...So, we’re gonna have to find out whether or not we’re gonna be able to get it done.” He is not asserting any more that what he wants to get done will get done.

He now admits that one cannot assume that things will turn out as one wants them to. Similarly, on the Ukraine issue he says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready for a peace, but there is a hurdle. And the hurdle he admits is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump is not any more saying that Zelensky will do what he tells him to do, or he will force Zelensky to do what he wants to be done. He understands that the hurdle in the Ukrainian peace process cannot be removed or wished away.

It would appear that a year into his second presidential term, Trump has become a little mellowed, though the word mellowed is something that does not go at all with his personality. The interview shows that there is a wee bit decrease in his bluff and bluster, that he seems to recognize the act that the world is a tough proposition and that he cannot have his way.

It is however unlikely that he would change his brusque and peremptory style of functioning. There is no doubt whatsoever that he would be tentative in his conclusions. While referring to the situation in Iran, he said that one has to play it by the ear from day to day. This is a vastly different tone of a few days earlier when he talked of bombing Iran if the government in Tehran continued to shoot the protesters. Now he knows that there is not much he can do, and that he cannot even be sure of the information he is getting from Iran about the situation there.