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The Chaos Begins Early – A Sign of What’s to Come [1]

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Date: 2025-01-09

On December 4, 2024, I wrote a piece looking at some of Donald Trump’s potential cabinet and other government job picks, A Confederacy of Clowns, Cons, and Chaos, and I closed with a prediction that after January 2025, we will see chaos and plenty of it. Little did I know at the time I wrote that piece just how right I was, or that the agent of the chaos would be none other than Donald J. Trump himself. On the other hand, after Trump 45, I kind of expected Trump 47 to be a disruptor. I just thought he might wait until after January 20 to start throwing bricks through windows.

The past couple of weeks, just over ten days out from inauguration, I’m coming to realize that I was overly optimistic and oh so wrong. Trump has disrupted the country and a large swath of the world before even taking the oath of office.

Here’s a partial list of the stink bombs that the soon-to-be head of state has lobbed in December and January alone.

With the Los Angeles, California area suffering from catastrophic wildfires—that started in residential areas, not state or federal forests—Trump blamed California’s governor personally for not following his advice to ‘sweep the underbrush to keep the forest floors clean, going so far as to call him ‘Newscum,’ and then insulted the smelt, a freshwater food fish that Trump calls ‘worthless,’ yet again demonstrating his total lack of empathy and his ignorance of the world in general, and the impact of climate change in particular.

It's not just here at home that the Chaos Creator in Chief has caused disruption and dismay, however. He’s been insulting and threatening close neighbors and traditional allies left and right.

Canada, our neighbor to the north, is not amused by Trump’s constant harangue about Canada becoming the 51st state, or his threats to impose across the board tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States. He doesn’t seem to have considered that Canada might retaliate which could tank both country’s economies, or how such an act would impact the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA), which was signed during his first term in office.

Some of his most inane statements have been directed at our neighbor to the south. In addition to the same tariff threat aimed at Canada, he’s upset the Mexicans with the threat to rename the Gulf of Mexica the ‘Gulf of America.’ Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was not amused, and responded by going on TV and displaying a 17th-century world map that showed large parts of the United States as ‘America Mexicana,’ and reminding Trump that the Gulf of Mexico has been known by that name since 1607, well over a century before there was a United States. And just an ‘oh by the way,’ to which of the many geographic entities of North and South America would the Gulf of America refer to? Would someone give our president-elect a geography and world history lesson, please?

But, let’s move on to Panama, shall we. The Panama Canal, built by the United States in 1914 and controlled by the U.S. until the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties transferred them to the government of Panama, is now on Trump’s shopping list along with Canada, and he refuses to rule out the use of force to take it back. It seems, though, he’s not consulted his military advisors or Congress on just how he might use force to take back something that is a part of another sovereign country, or just how he would overturn a treaty that has been ratified by the U.S. Congress. Some of his lackeys, especially in the House of Representatives, have kissed up to him by indicating their support, but that’s not as full-throated as some of the media has indicated. The draft legislation authorizes him to begin negotiating with Panama for the ‘reacquisition,’ which, based on statements by Panama’s president, is dead in the water before it even sets sail. In a December 22, 2024, video posted on social media, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, stated that, “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama’s and will remain so. The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable.” Take that Mr. soon-to-be president.

Finally, just so our friends who are at a greater distance don’t feel left out, Trump has teed up a potential diplomatic spat with Denmark by saying that the U.S. must have Greenland to enhance our national security. He even sent his eldest, Don, Jr., to Greenland to ‘show the Trump flag.’ The U.S. once offered to buy Greenland from Denmark back in the 1940s, but the Danes, who have had control of the world’s largest island—which is mostly ice and has a population of less than 60,000—for about 300 years, said no. One would think that would be that, but one would have failed to reckon with a man who is ignorant of history and geography, who is ego-driven and lacking in empathy, and who has no earthly idea that diplomatic relations can’t be managed like his shady real estate deals.

Deliberately provoking or threatening people, while questionable, might work for a while in business, especially if you’re involved in a one-off deal where if you win you don’t have to worry about how your opposite number feels about you. But, in international relations, pissing off a nation today can splash on your shoes tomorrow, and when you do these outrageous things in public, you’re performing for a much larger audience than one. You’re sending disturbing signals to the rest of the world, and that can come back to haunt you in totally unrelated circumstances.

I feel sorry for the diplomats who will have to spend the next four years cleaning up messes in remote corners of the globe caused by an undisciplined, infantile personality who seems incapable of realizing that the damage caused by his chaotic behavior far outweighs whatever short-term gain or immediate personal satisfaction he might get from it.

Batten down the hatches, folks. There are rough seas ahead.

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