As Donald Trump celebrates the anniversary of his second inauguration as President of the United States and begins his sixth year in office, his greatest asset is power. He covets absolute power.

The greatest threat to how Trump completes his term is how he wields his power.

Indeed, in the most foolish act in foreign policy in Trump’s presidency, he has threatened punitive tariffs on Denmark and seven other NATO allies in Europe to force the sale of Greenland to the United States. They are outraged. This is a ridiculous ploy that will not deliver Greenland to Trump.

Trump’s escalation in Denmark has already strengthened Vladimir Putin’s iron resolve to get as much of Ukraine as he can. Prospects for ending the war in Ukraine are now near zero.

On top of Trump’s pending tariffs on Europe, if he seizes Greenland, the consequences will shake the world – including Australia. NATO will be terminated. Australia will face an existential question of whether, under those circumstances, it must terminate its alliance with the US.

We can see in a raft of polls at this one-year mark of Trump’s second term that voters across the US are expressing growing disquiet about his management of the economy and the affordability of housing and groceries, the raids by ICE agents as they seize and deport migrants as we saw last week in Minneapolis, and uncertainty about Trump’s foreign adventurism in the Americas and with Iran.

Trump is exercising this power because he can. This will jolt Republicans in Congress to break with Trump on this issue – the first such rift between Trump and his party since his re-election.

Welcome to Trump’s year six.

Following his election victory in 2024, Trump has been faithful to three of four pillars of Trumpism that made his base a movement that has changed America:

To those........

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