He said what now?

For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men

I’m not sure what its official name is. But there’s a management technique (not followed by anyone I know, of course…) that is basically “be the biggest a-hole in the room and people will have to deal with you”.

If you are the most obnoxious person in the room, in the meeting, in the negotiation, then everyone else around you has to deal with your a-holery first, and they end up dancing to your tune.

We saw that play out for four years from January 2017 to January 2021, and now we’re seeing it start again.

How do you deal with Mexico’s lax border controls? Squeeze them by their economic cojones with threats of punitive tariffs until they send 10,000 troops to guard the border. Canada might be a different story though. I can’t see the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney – rumoured but not confirmed as Justin Trudeau’s successor – capitulating to Trump on, well, anything, really.

The choice of the first premier invited in for talks with the new President is always telling. The fact that it is Benjamin Netanyahu, and that Trump is now talking about wanting the USA to ‘own’ the Gaza Strip and redevelop it into the Riviera of the Middle East tells us a lot.  He’s said that neighbouring Arab nations could take in displaced Palestinians from Gaza. It didn’t work when Israel wanted to do that, so why would you think, Mr President, that it will work because you suggest it? Unsurprisingly, those Palestinians for whom Gaza is home would like to remain there, rebuild their lives there. Also unsurprisingly, neighbouring Arab nations, which did open their borders to take refugees from the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, are not that keen on them staying. Maybe they’ll build a wall.

Of course, it might be that Trump is thinking from a purely practical point of view, that it would be easier to rebuild Gaza from scratch if there weren’t all those people there. Move them out, rebuild and move them back in again – simples. The cynic in me, however, thinks it’s more about money. ‘Rivera of Gaza’- sounds expensive doesn’t it? I suspect that the people of Gaza who’ve been displaced aren’t bothered about living in the fancy Rivera apartment block. They just want to go home.

Then we have Ukraine.  President Putin made himself the biggest a-hole in Eastern Europe, acted upon it, and the Ukrainian people are still suffering three years later. Before he was elected for the second time, Trump said he would be able to solve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Presumably the fact that he hasn’t yet done so is that he hasn’t worked out which bits of Ukraine he wants to take over and rebuild.

It may be that it is all just hot air, political posturing, and a lot of you-know-what waving at the start of his term of office. And, if like me, you’ve got the most horrible mental image now I’ve written that, allow me to replace it with this one. Yes, I’m rooting for England this weekend, but, oh my, this guy…