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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Rafael Behr

With no friends left to burn, Trump is running out of diplomatic ammunition

An anti-US banner with the slogan ‘Great Victory’ in Tehran, Iran, 25 August 2026
An anti-US banner with the slogan ‘Great Victory’ in Tehran, Iran, 25 August 2026. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Now is the twilight of Donald Trump’s supremacy. The US is still the richest and most heavily armed nation on Earth. That status is secure. The current president, contemptuous of law and indulged in lawlessness by a supine Congress, enjoys even greater power than the constitution allows.

With those advantages it takes a special talent for incompetence to look as thwarted and impotent as Trump does with more than two years of his second term still to run.

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