Much was made by Mr Donald Trump, the property mogul, itinerant hotelier and now President of the United States, as he crisscrossed the US on the Campaign Trail, of what he would achieve in his first 100 Days in office. Theoretically, it can take 100 seconds to boil an egg, and 100 minutes to travel from London to Birmingham. It also took Napoleon Bonaparte 100 days to travel from exile in St Helena to the battlefield at Waterloo. How then has the President fared?
The Man
For a man who appears to live part of his life through the medium of the 'tweet.' a man who likes to reveal his inner thoughts through a somewhat limited vocabulary and a flurry of poor spelling, he has kept up his incessant chatter during his first 100 days.
One has to also wonder at the sagacity of using his own private estate and working Hotel, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, as a place to entertain and discuss policy with foreign dignitaries; was that not the purpose of Camp David after all? Apart from the logistical nightmare, these events must cause immeasurable security hazards and the cost to the American purse astronomical. On the other hand, it does allow him to play as much golf as he likes - the very thing he criticised Barak Obama for doing! As he explained in an interview with Reuters, he thought that being President would be 'easier.' He is a man who appears riven by deep-rooted insecurities, who does not take criticism well and has to turn to friends to find out their opinions on matters of State.
He has openly said that he misses driving and his old life, hates being crowded by secret service agents all the time and still seems strangely obsessed by his election results, showing and telling about them at every opportunity.
The Wall
A much-mooted lynchpin on the campaign trail is still in development. Asking about tenders, speculating about height and position is one thing, actually building it is another.
Mexico has said NO. Congress has said NO, and with its threat of imminent shut-down on Friday, it won't happen anytime soon, so where to now?
Foreign Policy
One can only wonder what the Chinese President Xi Jinping thought on the evening of April 8th after Trump had been called away to answer an urgent telephone call during their formal dinner.
Returning to the table to say as he later told Fox News,'We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you have ever seen...And President Xi was enjoying it...I said Mr President, let me explain something to you.This was during dessert...I said, we've just launched 59 missiles heading for Iraq;' of course, he meant to say Syria, which if regaled at the time must have given the Chinese President a bout of instant indigestion. As the UK Foreign Secretary said yesterday Military Action, with UK assistance, is still on the table. As regards to North Korea, the President asserted that conflict was a possibility, but that all options were still on the table. And regarding the intervention in Afghanistan, all options were also still on the table!
Pretty big table eh?
Homeland
He has said much and indeed signed much, but the legislation actually does not add up to much - far less than the Obama administration at this time. At home, the economy is stable although in his tax-cuts he, of course, favoured the rich, and with his trade talks, Europe is more likely to come out on top rather than the UK, in any future deals.
As the 100-day milestone is reached tomorrow -Saturday - one thing is sure; President Trump is a changed man from Mr Trump. He now realises that being on the inside looking out is a lot different from being on the outside looking in. A man with no political training has to learn fast in the position he finds himself. If he has actually learnt anything will only become apparent to the rest of the Word in time?
