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Make America Weak: Trump & Rubio’s Diplomatic Trainwreck [1]

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Date: 2025-04-25

Everything with Trump is a lie, including his signature mantra—Make America Great Again. First, there is no “again”: nothing in his second term restores past greatness. Second, there is no “great”—we are left with Make America… fill in the blank with another adjective. Unfortunately, all the words that fit are negative:

Make America

**weak, poor, and reviled.

**stupid, unstable, and isolated.

**corrupted, vulnerable, and traumatized.

**divided, debased, and despised,

**humiliated, marginalized, and hated.

These aren’t exhaustive, but they reflect what Trump is doing to America. This is his retribution—punishing the entire country, MAGA faithful and critics alike, because he lost in 2020. That unhealed narcissistic wound drives him daily.

In place of diplomacy, Trump offers aggression, imperialism, belligerence, intransigence, brinkmanship, militarism, tariffs, and cowardice. His ambassadorial appointments—felon Charles Kushner to France, inexperienced Herschel Walker to the Bahamas, and Kimberly Guilfoyle (who once trashed Greece on Fox News) to Athens—insult both host nations and America’s credibility.

True diplomacy should negotiate peace. The “Art of the Deal Trump” said that he would settle the war between Russia and Ukraine on Day One or earlier. It has been months since then. Trump has given Putin everything he wanted, and he has abandoned Ukraine completely. That is not negotiation; it is capitulation driven by cowardice. Ukraine cannot accept the deal that Trump has created.

When Kyiv came under renewed attack, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5,000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE.” (Source: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5374877/russia-kyiv-attacks-ukraine-zelenskyy-putin-trump) Putin, amused, likely quipped, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Trump? Weak. Putin? Unfazed. Rumor has it that Trump plans to bail out of peace talks at 100 days—blaming Ukraine when his flimsy “deal” unravels.

Trump’s diplomacy includes tariffs, which will likely take America into a recession with the possibility of inflation resulting in stagflation. His gambit with China, raising tariffs to 145%, has put him in a corner that he can’t get out of. China won’t negotiate or even talk until Trump backs down. American diplomacy has become one blunder after another.

What happens when a leader who believes that he is strong is actually very weak—like Trump? Nothing good. His fragile ego and insecurity are a disastrous combination. With Trump, America gets bluster instead of competence, image in place of substance, impulsive flip-flopping over a steady hand, fear rather than courage, and retribution instead of binding the wounds of a divided country.

What kind of diplomacy abandons all of one’s allies, threatens imperialistic acquisitions, and uses tariffs as economic warfare globally—and expects success? If Trump wasn’t disastrous enough, enter Marco Rubio. In terms of Trump’s nominees, Rubio as Secretary of State seemed the best of the worst. He generated a level of faith and confidence, yet now he disappoints at every turn.

Once a champion of USAID and student exchanges, Rubio now front-lines a 15% cut to State Department funding (with whispers of 50% cuts and 75% slashed foreign aid) that could shutter dozens of embassies—especially in Trump’s “shithole” countries in Africa. (Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/22/trump-rubio-state-department-reorganization/)

Rubio’s soft-power betrayal didn’t stop there: he watched foreign assistance freeze and Elon Musk dismantle USAID, then began “leading” the “nothing” that remained. Although courts have reversed some rollbacks, meaningful restoration seems unlikely. This undermined his previous commitment. In a 2020 letter, Rubio urged the Biden administration to prioritize USAID’s funding as a key tool to “counter the Chinese Communist Party’s expanding global influence.” (Source: https://news.wttw.com/2025/02/05/marco-rubio-s-years-strong-support-usaid-stand-contrast-his-sudden-criticism-aid-agency?)

Another form of soft power involves educating international students. For the 2023/2024 academic year, the U.S. had 1,126,690 international students, a record. Instead of welcoming international students, over 1,818 students from 270 institutions have had their F-1 or J-1 visas revoked as of April 23, 2025. This diplomacy is called Trump’s “Ideological Deportation Policy” (Source: https://thepienews.com/data-trumps-student-visa-revocations-in-numbers/), but it is facilitated by Rubio’s singular power to deport international students. Poof. You’re gone.

But gone for what reason? Well, for Rubio, citing the INA’s “Foreign Policy” removal ground (8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C)), an alien can be deported for “expected beliefs, statements, or associations” that “are otherwise lawful” if the Secretary of State personally certifies that the alien’s presence or activities would “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” (Source: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25894225-dhs-documents-mahmoud-khalil/#document/p1) Rubio has anointed himself as the “thought police” per Orwell’s book, “1984,” in his fight against antisemitism, which includes any pro-Palestinian sentiment. While few students are contesting Rubio’s determination, hopefully, the students who are will succeed in the courts in reversing him for his assault on free speech and assembly. His motivation seems to be to look tough to curry favor with Trump, yet he is as weak as his master.

This, combined with Trump’s drastic cuts in federal dollars for research at U.S. universities, has resulted in an international student enrollment decline of 11.33% between March 2024 and March 2025. (Source: https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities-report/sevis-data-shows-declining-number-international#) And that is just the beginning of the brain drain.

Rubio has made other missteps. On February 2, 2025, Rubio met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino. After the visit, the State Department announced that “U.S. government vessels can now transit the Panama Canal without fees, saving millions of dollars a year.” (Source: https://orinocotribune.com/marco-rubio-fails-to-meet-expectations-in-diplomatic-debut/) The only problem was Mulino denied that he ever agreed to that and questioned why Rubio would spread such a falsehood.

This trip took him to Guatemala, where Rubio celebrated negotiating an agreement with Guatemala involving accepting deportees. The only problem was that Guatemala has been doing that for years—another pretend accomplishment. Where’s a water bottle when you need it?

What we’re witnessing is not diplomacy but a grotesque parody: the dismantling of institutions, the weaponization of trade, the erosion of America’s moral authority, and the abandonment of allies. Trump and Rubio have traded true statecraft for spectacle, leaving America isolated, weakened, and the world’s laughing stock.

If America is to reclaim its strength and standing, it must restore competent governance, uphold the rule of law, and rebuild genuine diplomatic bridges—before it’s too late.

Day 95: days left to January 20, 2029:1,366 days

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