There’s just money upon money, gift upon gift flowing from all the allies and all the dependents of the United States into Trump’s Washington, making many people very comfortable and some very rich.
This is not how a Republican system of government is supposed to work. As I said, the Constitution contemplated this fate and tried to forbid it. But that provision, like so many others, has just gone out the window. And it’s also illegal for the president to impose tariffs. Tariffs belong to Congress. And it’s also illegal for the president to withhold money that Congress has appropriated. The Supreme Court has ruled that the president cannot refuse to spend money that Congress appropriated. He cannot withhold the funds. He cannot pocket veto them. That’s the law—in the same way that Donald Trump cannot spend money, he cannot say, I’m taking this money from the tariffs and giving it to the farmers or whoever else I like. That’s a power of the purse; that belongs to Congress—or, at least, that’s what the Constitution says. That’s what it used to be. But, as I said, with the gifts, with the tariffs, the emoluments, all of it out the window. It’s a different kind of regime.
The theme this week is the end of the American empire. And what I mean by that is not that the United States is diminishing so very rapidly in power and wealth. But the United States has always been something more than a system based on power and wealth. It’s been an idea in the minds of people. It symbolized something. And that something has been very important and very powerful—it’s part of the power and wealth of the United States, but it’s also bigger than wealth or power.
I read the story in Axios of the government of Switzerland sending a delegation to Washington, D.C., bearing gifts for President Donald Trump: a personalized Rolex desk clock; a solid gold bar, apparently a kilogram in weight, worth $130,000, inscribed with the numbers 45 and 47, so it was the two terms of Donald Trump’s presidency, so personalized to Donald Trump, the gold bar—nice touch if you’re Swiss. And profusions of flattery and good wishes from the government of Switzerland to Donald Trump.
It paid off. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the American tariff imposed by Donald Trump on Swiss goods would be cut from 39 percent to 15 percent.
What do the Swiss really think after they buy Donald Trump’s favor with a clock and a gold bar? Switzerland is a highly developed country with strict rules and standards of behavior. Swiss government officials do not accept gifts. They don’t take gold bars. I don’t know much about Swiss law, but I’m guessing that that would be frowned on by Swiss rules and by Swiss public opinion; they would not accept that their government accept these kinds of lavish personal presents. But in the United States, it seems to be okay. Does Switzerland respect the United States more after buying Donald Trump’s favor with a gold brick, or does it respect it less?