With the signing of the Middle East peace agreement that ends (at least for now) the Gaza War and returns the remaining hostages of October 7 to Israel, President Donald Trump bestrides the world like a colossus.
This comes a few months after Trump ordered the armed forces to assist Israel in destroying (at least for now) Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Trump’s tariffs have reshaped global trade. NATO members have finally agreed to real burden sharing in the defense of Europe, thanks to Trump’s prodding. (RELATED: Defanging Iran Has Created Opportunity for Mideast Peace )
The Monroe Doctrine has made a comeback with Trump’s policy of hemispheric security. Narco-terrorists from South and Central America are being killed before they can spread their poison in America. The U.S. southern border is effectively sealed, and illegal aliens are being deported in record numbers, thanks to Trump’s policies. America’s big cities, despite resistance from Democratic mayors and governors and federal judges, are being defended against criminals by National Guard forces sent to help the police by Trump. (RELATED: Battleship Was Always a Lot of Fun)
Trump’s triumph is now global.
Few would have believed this was possible four years ago, when Trump was besieged by state and special prosecutors, hounded by civil lawsuits, condemned by the U.S. media, derided as an autocrat and would-be dictator, and whose political obituary had already been written. But Trump refused to surrender and used his considerable resources to fight back against enormous odds. It is the greatest political comeback in U.S. history. But it is much more than that. Trump’s triumph is now global. The world looks to him to resolve wars and crises. World leaders, before making foreign policy decisions, must account for the Trump factor: How will Trump react? What will Trump say? What will Trump do?
More importantly, Trump does not wait to respond to events — he shapes them. Shifting our strategic focus away from peripheral conflicts to great power competition, the Middle East peace agreements (including the Abraham Accords in his first term), the global tariffs, NATO’s burden sharing, the crackdown on narco-terrorists, using the National Guard to combat crime in our cities, shutting down the southern border — these are all Trump’s initiatives. The president is the driving force behind all of them.
Historians and those who make a living observing and writing about world events, if they could overcome their Trump Derangement Syndrome, would see Trump for what he is: the most consequential president of the United States since Ronald Reagan. Reagan, too, was dismissed by them as a lightweight — in Clark Clifford’s words, “an amiable dunce” — even as he was reshaping the globe by defeating Soviet communism and bringing a successful end to the long twilight struggle of the Cold War. They considered Reagan to be dangerous, uninformed, reckless — a B-movie actor playing the role of president and world leader. They consider Trump a greedy businessman, a showman, a fool who is out of his depth as president. Like Reagan, Trump has proved them wrong.
Trump still has two big things to accomplish as president: ending the Ukraine War and effectively deterring China from starting World War III. If he can do both — or even if he lays the groundwork for his successors to accomplish those tasks — he should go down in history as one of our greatest presidents.
Of course, the liberals and progressives who largely decide such things will never give Trump his due, just as they never gave Reagan his due for winning the Cold War and rescuing the United States from the malaise of the Carter presidency. Something tells me that Trump doesn’t care what they think. He will simply move forward to achieve those goals — an unappreciated global colossus who reshaped world politics to benefit America.
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