Politics > Geopolitics

Trump’s Hostile Takeover of the World?

The man is always negotiating.

J.B. Shurk | April 15, 2026

Eminently quotable writer James Howard Kunstler sized up President Trump’s play in Iran a couple months back by concluding, “The art of the deal is not for sissies.”  That line aptly describes Trump’s whole presidency, doesn’t it?  

Trump makes moves that scare people.  Even his friends and allies require an occasional pause to digest exactly what he may or may not be planning.  When he threatened to “end” Iran’s civilization, did the president mean that literally?  Or was that his way of maximizing the size of the stick he held in his hands, while Pakistan played peacemaker with a ceasefire carrot?  Only time will tell.  

It does feel as if more Americans have come to accept that they must take a “wait and see” approach with the most unorthodox president of their lifetimes.  One of the few real American journalists writing today, Salena Zito, described Trump astutely back in September 2016 when she observed, “The press takes him literally but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously but not literally.”  Her insight — as succinct as it is clever — remains part of our cultural wisdom to this day.  

While CNN and MS-NOW-(What’s Its Name?) suggested to their dwindling audiences that Trump was about to drop nuclear bombs on Iran last week (a country about seven times larger than the United Kingdom), most Americans with common sense understood the president to be putting maximum rhetorical pressure on the surviving members of Iran’s Islamic terrorist regime.  

On the other hand, sometimes President Trump sends in Delta Force operators to black-bag narco-terrorist dictators in the middle of the night (How badly do you think Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro wishes he could go back and choose wealthy exile over solitary confinement in an American prison?).  A good poker player can’t bluff all the time.  Sometimes the cards have to back a confident bet.  

When it comes to handling adversaries of any kind, Trump enjoys keeping everybody guessing.  It makes him unpredictable.  His........

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