The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The world spent 16 years watching China dominate rare earths and went with the bold strategy of doing basically nothing. Then Beijing squeezed exports and Donald Trump discovered that his big, beautiful trade war could be shut down by… erbium. So now we have a panicked scramble for supply chains because the U.S. outsourced an entire strategic industry to China and is shocked to learn that might have consequences.

Enter the Trump administration with a plan that sounds less like industrial policy and more like a defense contractor wish list. The Pentagon has become the largest investor in MP Minerals, and Trump proudly announced a $12bn critical minerals reserve—a sort of Strategic Dirt Reserve—while officials brag about a “Manhattan Project” for rare earths. Some experts point out that this might just be a state-crafted monopoly wrapped in a flag and handed to a few well-connected firms, but why worry about that when there are billions to spray around?

Meanwhile, Washington and Beijing are racing each other to carve up South Africa, Greenland, and especially Brazil for new mining, with the Amazon rainforest helpfully positioned as collateral damage. Innovation in recycling and extracting from mining waste is mentioned, mostly as green window dressing while everyone revs up the bulldozers. The U.S. also launched a 54-country “critical minerals coalition,” because nothing says stable planning like hitching your industrial future to an administration that threatens to invade Greenland between golf rounds.

Europe, having watched Trump weaponize tariffs like a toddler with a chainsaw, is politely declining to bet its entire supply chain on Mar-a-Lago’s foreign policy desk. The EU is trying to build its own processing capacity and cut dependence by 2030, but experts worry it’s moving too slowly. Which is fair: when the White House is run by a guy who can tank your telecom sector by picking a fight with erbium, “too slow” suddenly feels very optimistic.

The Pentagon has been told to put away the live ammo and break out the laptops: Trump ordered a major U.S.–South Korea military exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, cut in half and downgraded to computer simulations or canceled drills. Publicly, the Pentagon insists there will be "no degradation" to U.S. training, which is exactly the kind of thing you say when there is obviously a degradation to U.S. training.

This isn’t strategy, it’s therapy. Trump is trying to "rekindle" talks with his favorite pen pal, Kim Jong-un, while simultaneously punishing South Korea for the unforgivable crime of not joining his Iran war adventure. So a decades-long alliance and the deterrence posture for the entire Asia-Pacific get used as a mood ring for one guy’s tantrums and dictator crush. America First apparently means allies last, and North Korea’s wishlist somewhere near the top.

South Korea, doing the diplomatic equivalent of smiling through gritted teeth, says they’ll "discuss and implement" ways to somehow maintain a combined defense posture after Washington just took a chainsaw to the exercises that sustain it. The message to every other ally is clear: your security guarantees are only as stable as Trump’s feelings on any given Sunday.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has apparently joined the elite club of world leaders who can’t tell the difference between a real Trump official and someone LARPing as one on their phone. Burnham traded a handful of messages with a person posing as Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s de facto chief of staff, before someone noticed that maybe international diplomacy via mystery SMS isn’t a great national security protocol.

Downing Street is hiding behind the classic magic words — "we do not comment on national security matters" — which is a polite way of saying, "yes, this is embarrassing." Officials insist there were "no messages of significance" and that everything was "quickly reported" once it started to smell like a scam, which is exactly what you’d say if the prime minister just got punked by whoever currently has access to Trumpworld’s contact list.

This all traces back to Susie Wiles’ phone, which the FBI has been poking at since last year after an impersonator used her contacts to message US senators, governors, and business bigwigs. Wiles, a key Trump ally already targeted by an Iranian cyber espionage unit in 2024, is apparently running a one-woman demonstration of why giving these people power again is like handing your nuclear codes to the guy who still falls for "Your package is waiting" texts.

And because the Anglosphere loves a sequel, this follows former UK PM David Cameron getting duped by a fake Petro Poroshenko in 2024. The Foreign Office even pre-emptively released the details so they couldn’t be "manipulated" — a phrase that now doubles as a mission statement for anyone who manages to steal a Trump lieutenant’s phone and scroll through the global rolodex of Very Important But Apparently Extremely Gullible People.

Donald Trump hopped on Truth Social to announce that the US will "substantially reduce" joint military exercises with South Korea, because nothing says strong national security like weakening your most important Asian alliance to impress a hereditary dictator you once exchanged love notes with. The drills, scheduled to start Monday, are now apparently too "costly" and "hostile" toward Trump's favorite pen pal, Kim Jong Un.

Instead of talking to the Pentagon or, say, South Korea, Trump framed it as a customer service issue: America pays "as usual!" and Seoul had the nerve to decline to join his Iran "denuclearisation" cosplay, so he's now adjusting the U.S. defense posture like he's canceling a gym membership. Real presidents use joint exercises to deter nuclear-armed regimes; Trump uses them as a loyalty punch card and bargaining chip in his ongoing effort to convert U.S. foreign policy into a one-man reality show.

American foreign policy norms with North Korea were already on life support after his photo-op summit tours, but this is a fresh step: rewarding Pyongyang by dialing down allied readiness, while scolding South Korea in public for insufficient participation in his Iran fan fiction. The message to allies is clear: mutual defense treaties are now subject to the vibes of Trump's latest social media post and how many compliments he’s getting from dictators this week.

After nearly a decade of ranting about "digital" aircraft carrier catapults like they personally canceled The Apprentice, Donald Trump has finally weaponized his neurosis into policy. He signed a "national security" memo ordering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to rip out the electromagnetic launch system on the future USS Doris Miller and go back to steam and hydraulics, because the voices in his head (and one alleged "catapulter") told him it’s better. The ship is already two years behind schedule, but why not add a few billion more and a redesign nightmare to really honor the troops.

This saga traces back to 2017, when Trump first told Time magazine his now-legendary "What is digital?" story, where he bravely stood up to an unnamed Navy officer and physics itself. He has repeated this tale almost every year since — to sailors, to donors, to CPAC, to Tucker Carlson, to anyone within range of a hot mic. Now that he’s back in office, the bit has graduated from rambling anecdote to binding defense directive, because nothing says healthy civil-military relationship like the president personally dictating carrier launch systems based on a vibes check.

Actual experts, such as General Atomics and basically the entire Navy engineering community, are politely screaming into pillows about "significant cost, schedule, and integration risks" after Trump ordered them to tear out a half-completed, fully integrated system and replace it with 20th-century plumbing. Senator Mark Kelly — former Navy pilot, astronaut, and aeronautical engineer — summed it up by suggesting Trump stick to what he knows: "ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit." Meanwhile, as Trump plays steampunk cosplay with the world’s most expensive warship, the USS Abraham Lincoln’s crew is stuck on a record-breaking deployment tied to the Iran war and facing a mental health crisis. The sailors get burnout and trauma; Trump gets a new toy to complain about on stage.

Donald Trump jumped on Truth Social to announce that former Marine Robert Gilman, reportedly in life‑threatening condition after Russian abuse, has been released "very much on a Humanitarian Basis" after his chats with Vladimir Putin. No prisoner swap, he insists, as if that clears up the nagging question of what exactly the Kremlin extracted from their favorite ex-president who still talks about Putin like a prom date who might text back any minute.

Gilman’s family says he was harassed, forced into 16‑hour exercise sessions, drugged with psychotropics, and left so broken he needed a feeding tube. Russia calls that a prison term; Trump calls it a chance for a victory lap. While his sister thanks Trump for "saving" her brother, Senator Ed Markey and advocates like Eric Lebson quietly did the unglamorous work of pushing for his release — you know, the part that doesn’t fit neatly into a Truth Social post about personal greatness.

The Kremlin gets to torture an American Marine into a catatonic state, then play magnanimous by handing him over to Trump for a made‑for‑cable redemption arc. Trump gets to pose as the guy who can pick up the phone and get favors from Putin, while at least five other Americans remain stuck in Russia with serious medical issues and no Truth Social cameo. Diplomacy as hostage reality TV is absolutely a normal way for a supposedly pro‑military leader to treat US citizens as bargaining chips in his ongoing fan fiction about being the only man who can talk to the czar.

Trump has reportedly signed off on a 30-year nuclear cooperation deal that would let Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, because if there’s one regime you want flirting with the bomb, it’s the one that can’t tolerate a tweet about Jamal Khashoggi. The agreement would involve US firms helping build out the kingdom’s nuclear program and potentially a Saudi enrichment facility, all while not including the IAEA’s more intrusive “additional protocol” inspections. So yes, we’re handing centrifuge capability to Mohammed bin Salman and then politely agreeing not to look too closely.

This diplomatic tire fire is being prepped for Congress, where lawmakers who can still spell “non-proliferation” are expected to object to giving a monarchy with a casual attitude toward human rights a nuclear starter kit. Meanwhile, the US and Israel are at war with Iran, supposedly to stop Tehran from doing exactly what we’re now helping Riyadh get ready to do. Non-proliferation experts are screaming into the void that any Saudi centrifuges are a short hop from a weapons program, and MBS has already said he’ll chase the bomb if Iran gets one. Add in Saudi Arabia’s mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan and you’ve got a region-wide nuclear Jenga tower, with Trump happily yanking out the bottom blocks for a quick geopolitical photo op.

For extra farce, the UAE previously signed a “gold standard” 123 agreement with the US that explicitly gave up enrichment, proving that regional allies can, in fact, have nuclear power without getting a weapons-ready pathway. Trump looked at that model of restraint and said: what if, instead, we did the opposite with the crown prince who buys our weapons, hosts our pageants, and loves our hotels? American foreign policy is now a choose-your-own-proliferation adventure.

Donald Trump is heading to a high-stakes NATO summit in Turkey while every allied capital plays the same game: Is he going to defend Europe, or audition for a job on Russian state TV? The official agenda is unity and deterrence; the unofficial agenda is everyone quietly gaming out what happens if the guy who keeps calling NATO a bad real-estate deal decides to treat Article 5 like a gym membership he forgot to cancel.

Allies are reportedly anxious about his "commitment" to the alliance, which is a polite diplomatic way of saying, "we’ve seen the rallies where he threatens to let Russia do ‘whatever the hell they want’ to countries that don’t pay up." So while NATO leaders talk about collective defense, Trump is expected to talk about invoices, imaginary arrears, and how he alone can fix an alliance he clearly doesn’t understand and openly resents.

The result: Putin gets a free morale boost, authoritarian regimes get another signal that Western security guarantees are now subject to the mood swings of a guy live-tweeting cable news, and U.S. credibility gets treated like another Trump casino: leveraged, hollowed out, and left for someone else to clean up. American leadership has rarely looked this much like a timeshare presentation with nukes.