U.S. President Donald Trump stands in front of a painting of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
President Donald Trump is a great admirer of Theodore Roosevelt. He may have just pulled a TR.
Immediately after being re-elected in 1904, the 26th president announced that he would step down at the end of his term. “Under no circumstances,” he said, “will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.”
The Roosevelt vow was a tactical error, instantly transforming him into a lame duck.
The analogous danger for Mr. Trump arises from his decision to postpone a trip to Beijing because of the Iran war. The meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, originally scheduled for next week, has been pushed to May 14 and 15, and the delay may send an unintended message to Iran’s theocratic leaders: Hold on for seven more weeks and you’ll be fine.
Another historical precedent comes from Winston Churchill. After he briefed a secret session of the House of Commons on June 20, 1940, two days before the besieged French reached an armistice agreement with Nazi Germany, the British leader wrote in his notes: “If we get through the next three months, we get through the next three years.”
Trump’s rescheduled China trip to go ahead in May
Mr. Trump may have signalled to Tehran that if Iran survives until mid-May, it can survive indefinitely.
Now for the caveats that follow every historical antecedent. The British did survive. And Roosevelt eventually recanted his never-again view when he won another nomination, this time from the Progressive Party he essentially invented.
It is also worth remembering that, despite ceding some power by being a lame duck, Roosevelt had a successful 1905-1909 term, winning the Nobel Peace Prize that has eluded Mr. Trump, visiting the Panama Canal construction site that he had set in motion, and signing important conservation and regulatory measures.
A final caveat: Mr. Trump, despite his affection for doctrines (Monroe Doctrine, “Donroe Doctrine”), is not exactly a doctrinaire. He is perfectly capable of changing his mind. (See: wars, no more. Also: nation-building, no more.)
Opinion: Trump’s first mistake was starting the war. His next mistake may be to let Iran win
Mr. Trump is surrounded by political challenges that are not quite crises but that have the potential to metastasize into serious threats.
One is symbolized by what just happened not far from the doors of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., a customarily Republican state-legislative district. There, Democrat Emily Gregory defeated a Trump-endorsed candidate.
In the 2018 midterms, Mr. Trump’s first while in the White House, only 55 per cent of the congressional candidates the President endorsed prevailed. Given the unpopular war in the Middle East, high gasoline prices and the threat of inflation – plus the President’s lame-duck status – his endorsements may have even less effect in the 2026 November elections, especially with GOP control of the House in severe jeopardy and Republican rule in the Senate on the verge of teetering.
Then there is the question of the Iran war itself.
The United States and Israel have wreaked substantial damage on Iran, devastating its military infrastructure, constricting its economic prospects and perhaps even setting back its nuclear-weapons potential.
But devastation is not a predictor of capitulation.
Tehran still controls the Strait of Hormuz and has trapped 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers in the area, rendering them essentially the new Iran hostages. Though Mr. Trump is rushing troops to the region with the implicit threat of trying to open the strait militarily, he has received only tepid support from customary U.S. allies, many of whom resent being lectured and hectored by the President.
At the same time, there are signs that his support on Capitol Hill is eroding even among Republicans, who ordinarily are budget-conscious and may balk at the US$200-billion figure the administration has floated for additional military spending for the war. Some GOP lawmakers emerged skeptical from a briefing on the conflict Wednesday. They indicated impatience with the lack of discrete plans for conducting the war, opening the strait, controlling inflation and bringing the fighting to an end.
Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s statement that “we negotiate with bombs” may not stanch demands for further diplomatic negotiations, the results of which are shrouded in the kind of fog that is usually associated with warfare. Then again, countries ordinarily don’t negotiate in public. Recent examples of failed public negotiations include Mr. Trump’s overtures to North Korea in 2019 and Joe Biden’s efforts to craft an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in 2024.
Roosevelt had a good reason for forswearing another term. In his postelection remarks, he cited the “wise custom which limits the president to two terms.” This “wise custom” was breached by his fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won four elections beginning with his 1932 triumph.
By the same token, Mr. Trump has good reasons for travelling to Beijing.
The trip will give him a chance to quell Chinese hopes that American overextension in Ukraine and Iran has severely compromised U.S. capacity to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
It also offers potential domestic political advantages. Here’s one: a chance to enhance soybean export possibilities to China at a time when Iowa, which produces 597.6 million bushels of soybeans annually, could be poised to elect a Democratic governor and senator.
Soybeans matter. For a President with low approval rankings, everything now matters.