It's been a month since the Trump tornado began to shake the world. The shock from his sweeping declarations and authoritarian decrees has barely subsided, yet the geopolitical damage is already real. The president of the United States didn't stop the war in Ukraine "in 24 hours" as he had promised, but it took him only a few days to dismantle the transatlantic relationship by adopting Vladimir Putin's narrative on the conflict.
The four weeks since his inauguration have generated powerful momentum. The world is divided between astonishment and fascination. Whether driven by ideological calculation, intellectual snobbery or sheer naiveté, some have become unwitting enablers of the prevailing neo-imperialism, debating the supposed efficiency of the American administration. Yet beyond the giddy appraisals, the question of actual results is rarely addressed.
It's obviously not a question of drawing up a balance sheet for such a short period but of trying to look beyond slogans, appearances and frenetic agitation. Admittedly, Donald Trump's record is already remarkable: He has managed to betray the Ukrainians, humiliate the Europeans, deny the Palestinians their rights, try to hold his trading partners to ransom, play into China's hands by passing Beijing off as a moderate interlocutor open to multilateralism, plunge millions of recipients of international aid into distress and paralyze hundreds of thousands of American civil servants. But what about his economic policy and his efforts to make the US more prosperous?
The threat of inflation
Let's start with inflation, which largely contributed to his victory. Rightly or wrongly, Joe Biden was seen as fully responsible for it. But today, rising prices are resisting, and if the phenomenon persists, it's the new president who will be held accountable.
"Under my plan, incomes will skyrocket, inflation will vanish completely," said Trump as a candidate. Since his election, gasoline has become more expensive and mortgages are approaching 7%. Food, insurance, transport, haircuts: everything is going up. At this stage, the Trump administration cannot objectively be held responsible, but the thundering declarations on tariffs are beginning to brew.
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