As his plans fall apart, Trump rages and blusters through the night

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There was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when an announcement by the President of the United States carried some weight.

For the President to make a public declaration, it could safely be assumed, dozens if not hundreds of people would have been at work for days, weeks or months – hammering out details, finalising negotiations, and making it happen.

Times have changed. Never was that made clearer than on Monday. On Sunday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that “Project Freedom” – a plan to free ships trapped by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a “Goodwill” and “humanitarian” gesture – “will begin Monday morning, Middle East time”.

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Ever since US and Israeli forces attacked Iran in March, the Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed to maritime traffic – risking catastrophic shortages of fuel, fertiliser and other vital supplies across the world. Trump has been battling to reopen the Strait ever since, so far with minimal success.

This latest effort to reframe getting traffic moving as a humanitarian project briefly cheered global oil markets, but any hopes the presidential announcement might have some substance to it were soon dashed. Iran warned that any “American interference” would be seen as a “violation of the ceasefire”, and as Monday morning dawned, there were few signs of movement. One ship even reported being fired upon as it tried to traverse the Strait on Sunday.

Trump is the leader of the most powerful country in the world. He has unprecedented power over his political party, which controls both chambers of Congress. The Supreme Court has granted him immunity to almost all legal consequences. There are, in theory, almost no barriers between Trump and whatever he wants to achieve.

Operation Earnest Will (1987-1988) was the largest U.S. naval convoy operation since WWII, initiated to protect Kuwaiti tankers reflagged as American ships during the Iran-Iraq Tanker War. It aimed to counter Iranian attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz by escorting the reflagged tankers with warships and air support from the US Navy. Despite the escort operation, reflagged ships were vulnerable and the reflagged tanker Sea Isle City was attacked by an Iranian missile on October 16, 1987. (Photo by Barry Iverson/Getty Images)
Operation Earnest Will in 1987, the largest US naval convoy operation since the Second World War, aimed to counter Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz by escorting reflagged tankers – but the vulnerable vessels were attacked (Photo: Barry Iverson/Getty Images)

The reality is very different. Trump wants to build a ballroom, but is in such a rush that his plans are tangled up in legal challenges – leading him to bring it up at almost every opportunity, even claiming it is somehow essential to America’s national security.

He is trying to reshape Europe in his image, but ends up having tantrums at its political leaders instead – now even threatening to withdraw US troops from Germany during an ongoing Russian invasion of a European country. He has passed almost no legislation, instead raging impotently about the filibuster – the rule requiring 60 of 100 senators to back it. He was elected promising to reduce inflation and boost the economy – and is achieving the opposite.

Trump is looking less like the most powerful man in the world, and more like an incompetent children’s TV villain. In nineties Warner Bros cartoon Pinky and the Brain, the mice would come up with a new plan to take over the world every night, and each night they would end up back in the cage as failures, one of them fuming with rage.

The leader of the free world is increasingly falling into that pattern. He comes up with a new, barely thought through plan to fix one of his messes – such as claiming that leading ships through the Strait of Hormuz is about humanitarian relief instead of restarting global shipping – and hopes this time it will magically resolve things, without any of the difficult negotiation work.

President Donald Trump closes his eyes while listening in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Trump, pictured with his eyes closed in the Oval Office last month, appears increasingly tired and disengaged (Photo: AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

When that fails, he spends the night raging online instead of sleeping. In recent days, that has involved posting racist stereotypes about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and reposting memes showing him “holding all the cards” in a game of Uno – which you win by holding none of the cards. He complains about Democrats, gives critical reviews of TV hosts he doesn’t like, and rages and blusters through the night.

Perhaps this is why Trump so often seems tired and disengaged through the day, often visibly on the edge of nodding off even in public events and photoshoots. That might just be due to his advanced age – President Trump turns 80 next year – but his irregular sleep pattern cannot be helping anything.

Restraint, discipline and patience have never been foremost among Trump’s virtues, but his lack of impulse control is coming to define his second presidential term. Trump seems to be trying to rule his country – and manage complex international disputes – by loudly demanding what he wants, over and over again, then growing increasingly fractious when that doesn’t work.

In the first days of his presidency, Trump scored enough victories to make this pattern possible to ignore. He managed to shut down departments he didn’t like, appoint extremists to his Cabinet and introduce tariffs on a whim.

But that early momentum is gone. The midterms are coming, and Trump is on track to lose control of the House, and maybe the Senate too. After that, he’s a lame duck, counting down the days until his presidency ends. If Trump feels angry and impotent now, he’s going to hate what’s to come.

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