What does NRC think | Trump has turned the US into a vehicle for self -enrichment in three months

And again President Donald Trump turned to the world in a packed room in the White House on Monday. This time it was to be « Fantastic Handelsdeal » with China to celebrate and sign that a ‘historical’ decree The price of drugs in the US must lower tens of percent. And even now he was surrounded by a selection from his cabinet (this time, among others, former television doctor ‘Oz’ and Minister of Health Robert Kennedy), who exhausts himself in loft expressions to the president. Narcissism at its best.

The whipped media moment cannot disguise that Trump is currently in no time in a policy. His campaign debits about a quick end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have yielded nothing so far. His ‘Liberation Day’ to make ‘America rich again’ (the import duties of 2 April) crashed hard on economic reality and disappeared into the fridge. Instead, all kinds of countries have been negotiating for weeks. And the two ‘deals’ that Trump managed to close so far (With the UK And China) are not chords but at most encourage conditions under which a process of negotiations could begin.

How different is that behind the scenes of the Oval Office. There, Trump and his loved ones have worked hard in recent weeks on a much less open agenda: that of shameless self -enrichment. This week it suddenly became visible when it turned out that Trump, who visits Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates these days, A whole plane gift had received from Qatar. To replace the very old government Air Force OnePresident explained without hesitation. A super cool deal, because why pay more for a device if it is also free?

The answer to this question is (the appearance of) corruption, and that is just not the answer that Trump wants to hear. Because what does Qatar want back for this gift? Nobody knows. The example of the Boeing is not on its own. Trump started its own inauguration on the day of his inauguration memecoinThe $ Trump, and uses it as a means to rake in money. Whoever buys the most of it wins a dinner with the president. His sons Donald Junior and Eric have for Billions of private real estate contracts closed on three continents and bring A crypto company to the stock exchange. And then there are the media and law firms who transfer millions to the president to prevent legal prosecution or to remain in the grace of the White House anyway.

A long time ago, politics and money were entered into an unfortunate commitment in the United States. Campaigns to become president cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which must be raised by donors. And they want something in return. That is not reserved for the Republicans under Trump, but unfortunately standing practice.

But Trump 2.0 stretches these practices far beyond the boundaries of the legally permissible. The cynical thing is that he has more than any other president for him, due to the pronunciation of the Supreme Court last year that presidents gave immunity for literally all their official acts. If everything is allowed, nothing is forbidden.

What remains is surprise about how quickly a properly functioning rule of law can slip into this level. Let that be a lesson: established democracies are also vulnerable to brutal autocrats.

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