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President Donald Trump had a very bad weekend.

In the most crushing blow, his favorite European leader, the pro-Putin, anti-Zelensky exemplar of “illiberal democracy,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—whose reelection Trump had strongly endorsed—lost his bid to stay in power by a stunning landslide margin.

Only slightly less embarrassing, the much-touted peace negotiations with Iran—the first direct talks between U.S. and Iranian leaders in almost 50 years—ended in failure, dramatizing Trump’s failure to convert a massive wave of U.S. military power (hitting more than 13,000 Iranian targets in five weeks of airstrikes) into a political victory.

Finally, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has tried more than any other Western leader to maintain good relations with the American president, said he was “fed up” with the fact that energy prices dip and soar “because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.” In an op-ed for the Guardian last week, Starmer wrote: “Britain’s national interest is best served by de-escalation, diplomacy, and the swift reopening of the strait of Hormuz.”

Starmer isn’t alone. Americans’ “consumer sentiment” hit a low point, too.

As the weekend ended, seemingly angered by Iran’s defiance and flustered by his deepening isolation, Trump ordered a blockade of Iran’s ports in and out of the Strait of Hormuz—which, besides being an act of war under international law (thus effectively ending the April 8 ceasefire), will only exacerbate the global economic hardships that have resulted from the war.

Like many of his remarks and actions since the war began, this one—shutting down the strait in order to pressure Iran to open it up—makes no sense.

Orbán lost his bid for reelection after 16 years in power mainly because of a crumbling economy combined with the corruption of his cronies. But his defeat will have consequences across Europe and perhaps beyond. Orbán, an open admirer and ally of Putin and Trump, impeded and sometimes outright........

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