Remaking the globe by decree

By Gail Collins

Donald Trump’s rechristening of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” might not have been as consequential as, say, a massive trade war with China, but this fast early move to try to shape the world by renaming part of it was instantly revealing about his rule-by-decree presidency.

Who does things like this? Kings, maybe, which is Trump’s mindset. The American public had been able to assume that our president, whether we liked him or not, would be smart in all the easier ways of politics, like getting along with an important neighbor and ally. But Trump has looked down on Mexico since the day he started running for president (if not before) and he has always been happy to use executive power to enact his personal whims.

The Gulf provocation sent an early signal that the second Trump presidency would be worse than the first, with a chief executive totally unconstrained by the normal rules of diplomacy — or anything else, really.