In the Middle East is Trump’s real estate obsession with Gaza, which the US does not own.
These are all huge issues. But they are not the main game. The main game is whether Trump can govern – can succeed in governing. That test is staring him right in the face. Even though Trump controls both the House and Senate, he is on the brink of losing it.
Congress must pass two emergency measures or everything comes to a crashing halt. On March 14, the authority granted by Congress to fund the government lapses. The government will shut down unless Congress approves funds to keep everything going through to the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Simultaneously, the US has reached the debt ceiling, now at $31.4 trillion. Congress must raise it. When that ceiling is breached – even independent of whether Congress keeps the government open and functioning – Treasury is unable to pay its bills, and the US provokes a catastrophic default for the first time in its history.
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Both measures require passage by the House and Senate. The Republicans control the House by a margin of three votes. This is not Westminster; every member is a free agent. There is a rump group of about 10 pure Trump MAGA ultra-loyalists who absolutely hate government debt and insist on spending cuts of $US2-5 trillion (the current US budget is $6.75 trillion) to get their votes to keep the government funded. There is no guarantee today that Republicans in the House have the votes to pass these bills.
It is Trump who will take a political hit if the government is closed for an indefinite period and defaults on its debts.
This is only the first battle that will determine if Trump can govern. Trump wants all his legislative agenda: money for border security and immigrant deportations, a huge ramp-up in defence, “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels, money to make permanent the trillions of dollars of Trump’s first-term tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans that expire at the end of this year. Trump’s MAGA base in the House will want additional trillions in offsets for those.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, his nation-changing legislative program – huge reductions in government spending, big tax cuts, conservative values – passed Congress because he worked with the Democrats and won about a quarter of their caucus over to his side. The Reagan revolution was born.
There is no way Trump can keep the government open and raise the debt limit unless there are Democratic votes for both measures. That means that Trump’s draconian spending cuts and executive orders have to be on the bargaining table. But Trump does not want that kind of bargain. He will not reverse any of them. Trump’s political posture is so extreme and radical that there are almost no Democrats for him to work with. He hates compromising with them.
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Trump can have all the trade wars he wants, all the appointments and judges he can muscle through the Senate, deport all the immigrants he wants, all the DEI he wants to snuff out, all the agency coups engineered by Elon (“Time for it to die”) Musk, all his new American imperialism to seize the Panama Canal, Greenland and annex Canada. And he can have a whole new real estate deal – with Vladimir Putin! – over Ukraine.
But if Trump fails in Congress and cannot govern, Trump cannot keep control of the country.
Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.
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