More embarrassing rejections for Trump
Early this morning, while most of the country was still waking up, the President of the United States started his day deep inside the White House, giving a six-minute phone interview not to the American press, but to a newspaper in a foreign country. When the article was published just hours later, buried inside it was a detail that made the entire exchange, and his reasoning for taking the call, crystal clear: he admitted that a world leader had stopped taking his calls, so this was his way of reaching her.
The world leader was Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy. His last remaining ally in Europe. The only European head of state who attended his inauguration. The woman he called “a great leader” and “a marvelous woman” just one month ago. And in six minutes on the phone with Corriere della Sera, he burned it all down.
“I’m shocked by her. I thought she had courage. I was wrong.” He said she was “very different from what I thought.” He said Italy wants America “to do the job for her.” He said she was “unacceptable” for defending Pope Leo after Trump attacked him over the weekend. And then came the threat: “She doesn’t care whether Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow Italy up in two minutes if it had the chance.” He said Italy “won’t be the same country.” And he praised the now-ousted Viktor Orban, saying he “did a good job on immigration” and “didn’t let people come and ruin his country the way Italy did.”
And his attack on the European continent continued throughout the day. By 10:30 AM, before his first meeting of the day, he was on Truth Social lecturing the United Kingdom on how to run its energy policy: “U.K. should, DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! ... AND, NO MORE WINDMILLS!” This is the same man whose war in Iran drove oil to $100 a barrel and created the energy crisis he’s now yelling at Britain for not solving. This follows Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, sharing recently how “fed up” he is with Trump.
Last Thursday, in an ITV interview, Starmer put Trump in the same breath as Putin: “I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses’ bills go up and down on energy, because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.” The British Prime Minister is now publicly equating the President of the United States with Vladimir Putin as forces destabilizing the global economy. He also said British families shouldn’t have to be “paying for a war” the country isn’t involved in. He said, “Come this Christmas, come this winter, I’m going to be paying for what’s going on in this war, and we have to get people off that roller coaster.”
Starmer continues to make it clear what his country’s place is in Trump’s war, saying, “this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.” He refused to let U.S. forces use British bases for offensive strikes. He also said Israel is “wrong” to continue strikes on Lebanon during the ceasefire. Even going so far as to write an opinion piece in the Guardian saying the Iran war must serve as a warning for Britain to “build resilience” at home and with European allies, not with the U.S. He’s also announced a “closer partnership” with Europe as the relationship with the U.S. has become “increasingly strained.”
Before the day had fully started, the President of the United States had already attacked his last European ally through an Italian newspaper, threatened that there was a risk Italy would be “blown up,” lectured Britain on energy policy while his own war destabilized global markets, and praised a far-right leader who was just voted out of power in a landslide. That was just this morning. And it only got worse from there.
Because just the night before, his Vice President, J.D. Vance, a man who converted to Catholicism as an adult, went on Fox News and told the Pope to stay in his lane. “I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” Vance said, “and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”
And the thing Vance either doesn’t understand or is deliberately trying to obscure is that the Pope IS speaking on matters of morality. War is a moral issue. The slaughter of civilians is a moral issue. The displacement of millions of people is a moral issue. When the President of the United States threatens to destroy “a whole civilization,” as Trump did just days ago, and when his own Defense Secretary invokes scripture to justify bombing campaigns, the Pope doesn’t just have the right to speak. He has the obligation.
Pope Leo responded from the papal plane on his way to Algeria: “I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel.” He said, “Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”
The Vatican also issued a letter today to participants in a conference titled “The Uses of Power: Legitimacy, Democracy and the Rewriting of the International Order.” In it, Pope Leo wrote that the legitimacy of authority depends not on the accumulation of economic or technological strength, but on the wisdom and virtue with which it is exercised. In other words, having power doesn’t make you legitimate. How you use it does. He warned that without a foundation in moral law, democracy risks becoming “either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites.” That last part should sound familiar to anyone watching billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel operate as shadow governors while a president signs whatever is put in front of him. The letter didn’t name the United States. It didn’t have to.
And while Trump was burning through allies and Vance was telling the Pope to be quiet, something else was happening just north of us. Something that shows exactly how far the United States has fallen, where this road leads, and how quickly the rest of the world is already moving on without us.
On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before 4,500 delegates at the Liberal Party convention in Montreal, the largest in the party’s history, and delivered a speech that was equal parts victory lap and warning. He opened with a joke that brought the house down: “Anyone had any bourbon recently?” The crowd erupted. Because Canadians have stopped buying American alcohol. They’ve stopped vacationing in American cities. They’ve stopped sending most of their military spending to the United States. And they’re not coming back.
“The days of our military sending 70 cents of every dollar to the United States are over,” Carney told the crowd, and the room gave him a standing ovation. “We are going to build Canada strong with Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, Canadian lumber, Canadian workers.”
U.S. alcohol exports to Canada dropped nearly 85 percent last year, with Canadian provinces pulling American bourbon and whiskey from their shelves and replacing it with their own. Families chose Prince Edward Island over Florida for vacation. Small, individual acts of resistance, repeated millions of times, and together they sent a message that landed harder than any tariff.
Carney laid out the numbers. Twenty new trade and investment agreements on four continents in one year. New strategic partnerships with China, Qatar, and the European Union. Negotiations are underway with India, ASEAN, Mercosur, the Philippines, and Thailand. Canada is on track to double its non-U.S. exports to $300 billion over the next decade. His wife, Diana, told the crowd that in Mumbai, Sydney, London, and Paris, strangers have stopped them on the street to thank Canada for “providing a beacon of hope in a confounding world.”
Carney described Canada as a nation “forged through accommodation, not assimilation” and “partnership, not domination.” He said, “Canada’s founding insight is that unity does not require uniformity. This is neither myth nor miracle, but a series of choices, made imperfectly, across generations.” He told the crowd that Canadians “are being called to serve, but not against something. For something. For each other.” And then he laid down the values that brought 4,500 people to their feet: “Where women always have the right to choose. Where you can believe what you want to believe. Where you can love who you want to love.”
He closed the speech with a story about two volunteer “heroes” from Gander, Newfoundland, the small town that welcomed thousands of stranded American passengers after 9/11. They showed him a thank you card from a young girl named Ellie, who had written: “Your kindness motivates me to use my kindness.” Carney paused on that line and told the room: “Ellie’s phrase captures what Canadians instinctively know: that virtue is like a muscle. It grows with exercise. When we are kind, kindness grows. When we seek unity, unity grows.”
Canada has the leader it needs right now. A real leader. Someone who acts with moral clarity, with the kind of morals that are entirely absent from our White House. Someone who loves their country for everything that’s good in it and calls on that goodness in his people instead of exploiting their fear. Someone who builds unity instead of weaponizing division. Reading his words, hearing how he speaks to his country, it’s like being kicked in the gut. You’re happy for your best friends because they have everything they need, but there’s a deep sorrow underneath it, the weight of knowing just how much we could have and don’t.
My family has spent stretches of every summer up in Canada for years. We love Canada. We love the Canadian people. And it’s that kindness, that acceptance of everybody, that willingness to welcome strangers and take care of each other, that makes Canada a beacon of light in these times. To watch them thriving under conditions that were forced on them, not because of anything they did but because a madman in the White House decided to turn on his closest neighbor and oldest friend, I want only the best for them. And I carry with me a deep pain of the comparison between our leaders, because it is stark and sharp, and it lands hard. But it also shines a light on something we cannot afford to lose sight of: there is still hope for us. Someday, we could have a leader who also guides as Mark Carney does. Someone who was exactly what the moment demanded, the way so many other leaders throughout history have risen to meet their country’s darkest hours and made the history books for all the good they did. That possibility still exists for America. We just have to fight for it.
And people heard him. Not because he was louder or more aggressive, but because he spoke to something real. Something people recognized in themselves. On Monday, Carney won all three byelections and secured a majority government. Full control of the House of Commons. The Liberals could govern until 2029. The winning candidates didn’t just win. They dominated, taking 70 percent in Scarborough, 65 percent in downtown Toronto. Carney’s message of standing up to Trump didn’t just resonate. It won. Overwhelmingly.
This is what the world looks like when you push your closest allies away. They don’t just leave, they build new systems and they find new partners. And they do it fast, because they have no choice. And when they do, they change the whole dynamic. What Trump doesn’t fully understand is that none of this made “America Great Again.” It made America weak and vulnerable. We are now standing alone in so many ways while our closest allies form alliances and relationships around us.
As someone who understands our history of American exceptionalism and also our responsibility to the world, this is the part that’s hardest to sit with. Because American exceptionalism was never supposed to mean what Trump has turned it into. It was supposed to mean that we hold ourselves to a higher standard, that we lead not because we’re the strongest but because we’re willing to do what’s right even when it’s hard, that we build coalitions instead of issuing ultimatums, that we show up for other nations not because we have to but because that’s who we are. That’s the version of this country that built the postwar order, that rebuilt Europe, that kept the peace for nearly 80 years. But Trump has twisted it into something unrecognizable. His version of American exceptionalism means we’re so exceptional that the rules don’t apply to us. That we can invade sovereign nations, threaten allies, insult the Pope, blow up trade relationships, and the world will just take it. And for a while, they did. But they’re not taking it anymore. And what we’re watching now, with Canada, with Europe, with every nation building a future that doesn’t include us, is the cost of confusing dominance with leadership.
And it’s not just Trump. Over the past decade, that perversion has filtered down into the culture itself. American exceptionalism, for millions of people in this country, has stopped meaning that we aspire to be better and started meaning that we already are better. Better than everyone. Better than our allies. Better than the countries we trade with, the nations we helped rebuild, the neighbors we share a border with. It’s the attitude you hear when Trump says ‘Canada lives because of the United States.’ It’s the attitude his supporters carry when they mock other nations, dismiss other cultures, and treat the rest of the world like it exists to serve us. It’s not patriotism. It’s entitlement. And the world can feel it. They’ve been feeling it for years. And now they’re done pretending it doesn’t matter.
And we’ve seen where this leads. When every country turns inward, when alliances fracture, and nations start seeing each other as competitors instead of partners sharing a planet, everyone loses. That was the 1930s. The global order that kept the peace after World War II, the one that prevented another catastrophic global conflict for nearly 80 years, was built on the idea that cooperation, even when it was expensive and even when it was imperfect, was better than the alternative. America helped build that order. We helped design it. We helped fund it.
And here’s what so many of us forget about the money we spent on global engagement. It has never been charity. It was self-defense. It stopped the spread of viruses before they reached our shores, because viruses don’t respect borders. It kept trade routes open so American businesses could thrive. It gave us leverage and influence in every room that mattered. It made us safer, more prosperous, and more powerful. The average American looks at foreign aid and thinks that money was going to other people. It was going to us. It was always going to us. And now it’s gone, and we are watching what happens when the world decides it can’t count on us anymore.
Trump was elected once, and the world held its breath. They waited it out. They hoped it was a one-time mistake, that America would course-correct, that the system would hold, and we would learn from our terrible mistake. And then we elected him again. That’s when everything changed. Because the message that sent wasn’t just about Trump. It was about us. It told every nation on earth that there are enough Americans who support this, who want this, who will vote for this, that no country can afford to depend on the United States anymore. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’m building my own trade network, my own military supply chain, and my own future without you in it. That’s exactly what Canada is doing. That’s what Europe is doing. That’s what the entire world is doing. And we can’t blame them.
The hardest truth tonight is that a lot of what Trump has done can be reversed. Executive orders can be rescinded. Policies can be rewritten. Appointments can be replaced. But the relationships with the world? That damage is measured in decades, not election cycles. Trust, once broken at this scale, doesn’t come back with a new president. It comes back slowly, painfully, over a generation. If it comes back at all. And that is the deepest wound Trump has inflicted on this country.
Tonight, I want to speak directly to those of you outside the United States. Those of you trying to make sense of this profoundly destructive year, and what our government has put all of you through. I know it would be easy to walk away from every American right now and write us off completely. And I wouldn’t blame you if you did, because this administration has caused real and lasting damage to your lives, economies, and to your sense of safety and stability.
The chaos doesn’t stop at our borders. It never has. We share this planet, and what happens here ripples everywhere. And I, and so many other clear-eyed Americans, see what is happening and are heartbroken over the damage our government is causing in your world.
But please don’t give up on us. We are going to come out of this. We are going to make amends. And we are going to do everything in our power to make sure this never happens again. That is our promise to you. Take care of yourselves and your countries, but don’t forget who we have been at our best, and hold that space for us if you can.
And although the world is reorganizing without us right now, and that is painful to watch, it also means something important: the world still believes in the values we used to stand for. They haven’t given up on democracy. They haven’t given up on cooperation, on partnership, on the idea that nations are stronger together than apart.
And to my fellow Americans, we must never lose sight of what is at stake. What it means to be an American, and our obligation not just to each other, but to the world. We have been through dark moments before, and we rose to meet them. We have to do it again. We no longer have the luxury of treating elections like routine cycles. Every election ahead of us is a fight for the future of this country and our place in the world. A chance to begin repairing what has been broken. To rebuild the trust of our allies. To prove that we are still capable of choosing something better. The road ahead of us is not an easy one. At every turn, we must hold onto truth and decency, the same way so many have done before us. Because that is what a real American is. And that is what this moment demands of us. And that is what I know still lives within us. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: Today was my oldest's 26th birthday. And on a day when I spent hours writing about what's wrong with the world, watching her blow out those candles reminded me of everything that's right in it.
Sources:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/trump-blasts-uk-ban-north-sea-oil-drilling-5HjdXhN_2/
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-04-09/starmer-im-fed-up-seeing-bills-go-up-because-of-putin-or-trump
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5783008/trump-pope-leo
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-liberal-convention-9.7160547
https://www.newsweek.com/mark-carney-takes-swipe-trump-whiskey-joke-defiant-speech-11816956
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/14/oil-wti-brent-as-markets-hormuz-blockade-vance-trump.html
In the UK, we are used to the playground insults from this 'man' and thank God that we have a leader who is reacting in an adult way (don't always agree with him but he's handling the idiot well - it must be like being handed a grenade with the pin pulled out...) Why should we be bullied into an immoral and catastrophic war? We still value diplomacy as a tool of international relations. The White House Easter message? NOT diplomacy
Its not just Canada, UK tourism to the US is also down -I LOVE USA but won't be visiting again until you have a functioning adult administration and I'm not alone. We look forward to seeing you again when this nightmare is over. Until then? we watch in horror from afar (and may visit Canada0
Oh my … as a Swiss citizen who has followed America’s actions (and, sadly inaction at times) in Ukraine and Gaza, Trump being re-elected was a punch to the gut. Because I agree with you 100% . Apart from the enablers who are in on the corruption and filling their pockets as quickly as possible, there were enough Americans who liked what Trump stands for and wanted more. I pray that some of them are ill-informed. But it’s too late. For them and the rest of the world.