Inside Trump's parting gift to America

One of U.S. President Donald Trump's closest foreign allies suffered a humiliating defeat when, on Sunday, April 12, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was voted out of office. Center-right Péter Magyar, leader of Hungary's Tisza party, enjoyed a landslide victory and will be the country's new prime minister.

Orbán remained an enthusiastic cheerleader for Trump and the MAGA movement at a time when the U.S. president is alienating longtime U.S. allies — from Canada to Denmark to Spain — while carrying out a chaotic war against Iran. Magyar's victory was a major loss not only for Orbán's Fidesz party, but also, for Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance (both of whom aggressively campaigned for Orbán).

In an article published on April 15, The New Republic's Jonathan Guyer warns that the United States, under the second Trump Administration, finds itself at war while losing friends left and right.

"Trump's foreign policy has long been misunderstood because of its inherent incoherence," Guyer explains. "He came to power in 2016 by telling Americans what they wanted to hear. He had little interest in laying out a grand strategy or a bigger worldview beyond his promise to 'Make America Great Again,' itself a slogan in which voters could hear what they wanted…. The president's more recent turn to militarism has led to immense changes in U.S. statecraft. In the first months of his second term, he enlisted Elon Musk and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency to dismantle America's soft-power infrastructure — notably, the humanitarian and development arm USAID, but also, government-funded think tanks, media organizations, and other Cold War legacy programs. "

Guyer continues, "In Trump's world, soft power apparently has little value. At the same time, Trump has dismantled the global alliance system. He has slowly chipped away at NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), built a 'Board of Peace' to counter the United Nations, and levied tariffs in contradiction of the global economic order….. The president's tendency to jump from conflict to conflict has made it difficult to understand where one war ends and another begins. But Iran and Venezuela are part of the same war — and that war is at the center of America's foreign policy under Trump."

Guyer wraps up his article by quoting the late singer Country Joe McDonald's 1969 single, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," an anti-Vietnam War protest song, and its famous lyrics, "And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?/Don't ask me, I don't give a damn/Next stop is Vietnam…. Whoopie! We're all gonna die!"

"In early March, when the United States was already in Iran and Venezuela, Country Joe passed away in Berkeley, California, at the age of 84," Guyer writes. "Next stop is Cuba? Whoopee! We're all gonna die."

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