Good morning. President Trump is late to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. His plane turned around last night because of an electrical issue, and he is now expected to land about three hours behind schedule to give a speech. (Follow the latest updates here.) He’ll arrive to a diplomatic uproar over Greenland. Yesterday, Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, offered stark remarks about the end of an American-led world order and received a standing ovation. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, wore aviator sunglasses and said France would not capitulate to Trump’s bullying. Trump’s fight with allies coincides with the first anniversary of the beginning of his second term. I’d like to start there.
Trump 2.0The past year has arguably been the most disruptive and consequential period for the United States government in many of our lifetimes. That is the story of 2025, Jonathan Swan said on “The Daily” recently: “Donald Trump aggressively asserting power and largely succeeding.” During his first 365 days back in office, Trump did not simply smash norms and ignore laws meant to ensure the balance of power in the government. He placed punishing tariffs on dozens of countries (friends and foes alike), undermined the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Department of Justice, cut funding to universities and slashed the federal work force. He dropped out of the Paris Climate Agreement, opened nearly a million square miles of ocean floor to drilling and tried to stop new wind power projects. He sent the National Guard into some American cities to police the citizenry. He sent ICE and the Border Patrol into others to round up immigrants. He had more than 100 people killed who he said were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean. He removed Venezuela’s leader from office and said the United States would take that country’s oil. He threatened to grab Greenland by force. (That’s the big stuff. There are dozens of surprising smaller changes, too.) And he did much of it, Luke Broadwater reported, from the glittery stage of the Oval Office, where he often played host to “a veritable reality show with a revolving cast of world leaders.” Testing limitsTrump uses executive power in ways that it has not been used before. He believes, my colleague Charlie Savage wrote, “that presidents have absolute power over executive branch decision-making — even if Congress has enacted laws giving some independent discretion to officials at departments or agencies.” Charlie’s kinetic Venn diagram explains his attempts to expand his power into numerous categories.
When Trump calls for criminal investigations of his enemies, for instance, he both weaponizes the government and insists on greater executive control of the Justice Department. Sometimes he calls for powers that have traditionally resided with Congress — the mass firing of civil servants, say, or the dismissal of members of agencies that are meant to be independent of the executive branch. Other times, he calls upon the military without consulting the legislators, as when he bombed Iran or removed Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela. He steps on congressional toes with immigration, too, using a law meant for wartime to deport people without due process. He has moved to end birthright citizenship, though it’s guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Some of these attempts sit with the courts, but most have proceeded while his opposition squawks. For Jonathan, again speaking on “The Daily,” that suggests things won’t go back to the way they were before. “We’re in an environment where there’s not a huge constituency for a restorationist president, for people to say, ‘Oh, actually, I really hope the next president will voluntarily restrain themselves and exercise prudence and respect the balance of powers,’” he said. Economic effectsBen Casselman, our chief economics reporter, has also used the past to think about the future. “Much more so than in his first four years in office,” he wrote yesterday, “Mr. Trump has begun his second term with what amounts to an all-out assault” on institutions and policies “that have long been seen by leaders of both major political parties as the foundations of American economic strength.” Economists across the political spectrum warned that Trump “is setting the country on a path that will, in the long run, leave the economy less dynamic, the financial system less stable and Americans less prosperous in the decades ahead,” Ben wrote. Click the video below to watch Ben discuss Trump’s economic promises.
On languageThe Times examined Trump’s use of the words he said in public last year, comparing them with the ones he used in 2017, the first year of his first term. He’s speaking more, often without a script, and the words are very different. Two details from their analysis: First, Trump’s interest in international affairs has grown. Last term, for example, Trump mentioned foreign countries 2,881 times. This term, enmeshed in trade wars and closing in on Venezuela, he mentioned them 8,410 times. Second, his focus has changed. In the first term, he spoke a lot about jobs — as well as “collusion” and “leaks.” This term, he’s been talking about tariffs, inflation and A.I. That’s a lot of change. And remember, he renamed Denali, the Gulf of Mexico and the Department of Defense, too. Let’s see what this year brings. Related: Trump marked the anniversary with a speech lasting an hour and 45 minutes. “God is very proud,” he said.
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Europe has a financial weapon that could hurt the U.S. It’s time to use it, Henry J. Farrell writes. Here’s a column by Thomas Friedman on Trump’s me-first governing style. The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year.
A refuge lost: An arson attack destroyed a Tree of Life display at Beth Israel, the oldest synagogue in Mississippi. But it didn’t crack the kinship that members feel with one another — or with the broader faith community that has stepped in to help. From the National Archives: Nearly a dozen 18th-century documents will travel to eight cities across the U.S., aboard a jet called the Freedom Plane, to honor the 250th anniversary of American independence. Your pick: The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about right-wing commentators’ use of the acronym AWFUL to describe some liberal women.
∞— That is the size of the theoretical pancake two mathematicians recently sought to cut into as many pieces as possible, using very strange-looking knives. (Infinity is not a true number, of course, but I hope you’ll forgive the stretch so I can bring you both the cool symbol for it and this unusual and fascinating story.) |
