Trump keeps on winning... for now

New Straits Times

20 hours ago

Even for a man who once boasted that his supporters would get "tired of winning", United States President Donald Trump is on a roll.
The 79-year-old's victory on his "One Big, Beautiful" bill is the latest in a series of consequential successes at home and abroad in the past two weeks.
From US airstrikes that led to an Iran-Israel ceasefire, to a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation spending deal and a massive Supreme Court win, they have underscored Trump's growing power.
The Republican will now take a victory lap after Congress passed the tax and spending bill that embodies the political goals of his second term.
He will sign it at an Independence Day event at the White House featuring a flyover by a B-2 stealth bomber, the type of aircraft used in the US raids on Iranian nuclear sites.
"It's going to be a HOT TRUMP SUMMER," the White House said on social media.
After the bill passed, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, posted a video of Trump telling a campaign rally during his first presidential run in 2016 that "we're going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning.
And you'll say, 'Please, please. It's too much winning'." The author of the book Trump: The Art of the Deal has bragged of several in recent weeks, but the bill is arguably the biggest.
It fulfils many of the pledges he made in the 2024 election with its tax cuts and funding for mass migrant deportations.
It also showed his ability to get his Republican party to fall in line despite bruising infighting — and a major row with his billionaire former ally Elon Musk.
But more importantly for a man who openly wants to join the pantheon of US presidents whose faces are carved onto Mount Rushmore, it promises to consolidate his legacy.
The bill seals Trump's hardline US domestic policy into law — in contrast to the rash of presidential executive orders he has signed that can be overturned by his successors.
Yet Trump still faces a series of challenges. They start with selling a bill that polls show is deeply unpopular among Americans due to its huge cuts to welfare and tax breaks for the rich.
"The president needs to lead the effort to go out and explain it, he has the biggest megaphone in America," Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff under president George W. Bush, told Fox News.
Rove added that it would have a "huge impact" on the US midterm elections in 2026, as Democrats pounce on it and people realise that they are losing healthcare coverage. "The work is just beginning."
Trump talked about the bill at a campaign-style rally in Iowa on Thursday that was also kicking off celebrations for America's 250th anniversary year.
Trump's winning streak has meanwhile fuelled the self-belief of a man who said he had been "saved by God to make America great again" after he survived an assassination attempt last year.
But the next prizes could be far harder to obtain. After the Iran-Israel ceasefire, Trump has stepped up his search for a deal to end the brutal war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
He will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday — but peace has proven cruelly elusive in the 22-month conflict.
Trump's election campaign promise to end Russia's war in Ukraine within 24 hours has also stalled, despite him having his sixth call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday.
The US president is due to reimpose steep tariffs on dozens of economies next week. He has insisted that countries will either bow to him and reach a deal or face sweeping levies, but global markets remain gripped by uncertainty.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, insisted that Trump would do what he had promised.
"Despite the doubters and the 'Panicans', President Trump has delivered win after win for the American people," Leavitt told reporters.