Trumpiana: The great Don and his magnificent Goldberg machine!

The wizard of Mar-a-Lago wields tariffs and temper tantrums to put his finger in every pie

Policy wonks were baffled. Perplexed aides were aghast. But watched by fawning courtiers, a smug Commander-in-Chief crafted an ingenious grand strategy a la Rube Goldberg that would bring peace to Ukraine — and get him that blasted Nobel Peace Prize.

First, he would hold a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska. That would bring scared Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky with European leaders in tow scurrying to Washington. Then he would slap 50% punitive tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. That would certainly make Putin meet Zelensky with him there playing honest broker — and voila, there would be peace!

But things didn’t quite work out the way POTUS had plotted. A ‘perplexed’ India wondered what exactly does Donald Trump want from New Delhi that not so long ago “was America’s partner in Asia, and its best counterweight to China,” as the New York Times put it.

Instead of stopping purchase of cheap Russian crude that has gone up from less than one percent of its oil imports at the beginning of the Ukraine war to about one third, India started hobnobbing with Moscow, Beijing and beyond as Trump tariffs kicked in.

Trumpiana: Putin POTUS pow wow — who played whom? (August 16, 2025)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his national security adviser and foreign minister to Moscow to meet Putin. Modi himself is going to China this weekend, his first visit in seven years, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping and Putin.

With “America’s counterweight to China (is) looking for its own counterweight to Trump,” as the Times put it, experts wondered why the Don had chosen to single out India for punishment while sparing even China, the largest importer of Russian oil.

What had turned the Modi-Trump bromance sour upending two decades of growing strategic partnership in just four months. Why was the Don so miffed?

Was it because Modi had refused to give him credit for “solving”  the conflict with Pakistan and avoid a nuclear disaster? Or was it because a proud Modi had declined to call to plead India’s case as the world’s high and mighty had done, experts speculated citing half a dozen real or imagined slights with Nobel playing an outsize role.

But turning logic on its head, his master’s voice Peter Navarro, suggested the Ukraine conflict was essentially “Modi’s war because the road to peace runs, in part, through New Delhi.”

“I’m puzzled. Because Modi is a great leader,” he told Bloomberg in an interview accusing India of serving as a laundromat for Russian oil and helping bankroll Russia’s “war machine to kill more Ukrainians.”

But as a nonchalant Putin unleashed an hours long barrage of missiles and drones in its biggest strike on Kyiv since the Alaska summit, Trump playing reality TV host at a marathon televised cabinet meeting suggested Zelenskyy is “not exactly innocent either.”

Blaming the victim, not the aggressor, he once again ignored his own self-imposed deadlines to punish Putin for rejecting a ceasefire or moving forward toward the promised bilateral meeting with Zelensky.

Again shooting the messenger, days after the Alaska summit, he ordered the firing and security clearance revocation of a top CIA official and Russia expert for crimes unspecified.

READ: Trumpiana: Who stole my Nobel Peace Prize! (August 2, 2025)

And as a federal appeals court sought to blunt the edge of his tariffs by striking down many saying he unlawfully leaned on emergency powers to impose them, a defiant POTUS vowed to seek the “help” of the friendly neighbourhood Supreme Court.

“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!” he declared on Truth Social, finding fault with “a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly” saying “that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end.”

Meanwhile, continuing his power grab at home, Trump citing a discrepancy in two housing loan applications fired a Biden appointee Federal Reserve governor setting up a potential fight with the apex court which has specifically ruled against political interference in the central bank’s affairs.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director too was fired for refusing to accept recommendations for vaccine restrictions. Both have gone to court challenging their removal.

About 180 current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees were also put on leave after protesting the agency’s leadership and direction in an open letter to members of Congress.

But proclaiming he can “do anything I want to do,” Trump after taking over Washington, eyed Chicago next with plans to send in hundreds of homeland security officers and using a naval base as a staging area. “The people are desperate for me to STOP THE CRIME, something the Democrats aren’t capable of doing. STAY TUNED!!!” he posted.

In another whimsical move, Trump administration announced plans to take over the management of Washington’s Union Station, the travel hub for Amtrak and the city’s metro lines.

And in yet another move, Trump signed a fiat to “Make FederalArchitecture Beautiful Again” with classical styles rather than modernist aesthetics for federal buildings.

After acquiring 10% stake in chipmaker Intel, Trump announced plans to do more such deals amid cries of socialism from some. “I PAID ZERO FOR INTEL, IT IS WORTH APPROXIMATELY 11 BILLION DOLLARS. All goes to the USA,” he wrote asking, “Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that? I will make deals like that for our Country all day long.”

Then inserting himself into another controversy over the highway eatery chain Cracker Barrel changing its logo from traditional country imagery to something generic, he asked it to revert and “Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”

And when it did, the White House came out with a meme titled “Go woke, Go broke” replacing its lima-bean shaped emblem with ‘America First’ and Trump

sitting in an old wooden chair leaning against an oil barrel — expressing a not so subtle desire to have the world over the barrel!