From Minneapolis to Venezuela, Trump piles up risks as he faces midterms

A new AP-NORC survey suggests most Americans are less than thrilled with President Donald Trump’s recent performance as global chaos engine. According to the poll, 56 per cent of US adults say Trump has “gone too far” in deploying the US military abroad, and majorities disapprove of his foreign policy overall — Venezuela included.

The finding lands just two weeks into a year in which Trump has already claimed control of Venezuela, escalated threats to seize Greenland, flooded US streets with masked immigration agents, and celebrated a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve — an institution presidents normally avoid poking with a stick.

In foreign affairs, the poll paints a bleak picture for Trump’s pitch. While some respondents believe the US operation against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro helped curb illegal drugs or benefited Venezuelans themselves, far fewer agree that it advances US security or economic interests.

The administration, meanwhile, has whiplashed from declaring Maduro a drug kingpin to portraying Venezuela as an economic opportunity — with Trump saying the US will control some Venezuelan oil and at one point posting a meme naming himself the “acting president of Venezuela”.

This surge of interventionism departs sharply from the 'America First' rhetoric Trump based his election campaign on. The president has also threatened the governments of Cuba and Iran, while insisting the United States will control Greenland “one way or another”, a stance that managed to antagonise a NATO ally (Denmark) in the middle of a European security crisis.

Notably, Republicans still line up behind him: about 7 in 10 say Trump’s actions abroad are “about right”, though only around 1 in 10 want him to push even further. Democrats and independents drive the pushback — roughly 9 in 10 Democrats and 6 in 10 independents say Trump has overreached. In all, 57 per cent disapprove of Trump’s handling of Venezuela, and 61 per cent disapprove of his foreign policy — matching his stagnant job approval.

While the survey zeroed in on foreign intervention, Trump’s domestic manoeuvres have been equally breathtaking. Besides declaring Venezuela an American protectorate and vowing to annex Greenland, the White House cheered on the revelation that the Federal Reserve — the central bank that moderates inflation and interest rates — is facing a criminal investigation over testimony from chair Jerome Powell about building renovations.

The Department of Justice has spent the past year filing criminal cases against a list of Trump adversaries including former FBI director James Comey, New York attorney-general Letitia James, and former national security adviser John Bolton.

But going after Powell, who helps set US monetary policy, appeared to be a bridge too far for some conservatives. Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, normally a Trump loyalist, warned Wall Street wanted no part of it: “The president has very good points, certainly. But Wall Street doesn’t want to see this kind of investigation.”

Trump shrugged off concerns during a Detroit speech meant to highlight what he insists is a booming economy despite inflation and anxiety: “Right now I’m feeling pretty good,” he said, before calling Powell “that jerk”, and suggesting he’ll be “gone soon”.

Historians were less amused. Joanne B. Freeman of Yale put it bluntly: “The presidency has gone rogue. We haven’t seen this in this way before.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s immigration crackdown has escalated into city-level confrontations. After the White House dispatched 2,000 immigration agents to Minnesota over alleged fraud involving the state’s Somali American community, a federal officer shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three in Minneapolis. The administration claims the officer acted in self-defence, accusing Good of trying to run him over, but local officials and widely shared video dispute that account.

Trump defended the raids by describing targets as “already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention”.

To local leaders trying to keep cities functioning, the effect has been pandemonium. Cleveland mayor Justin Bibb, who chairs the Democratic Mayors Association, said Trump has produced “chaos, confusion and uncertainty”. Residents, Bibb added, “don’t feel like the world is getting better” — or the economy either.

That resonates with the poll: nearly half of Americans say the US should take a “less active” role in world affairs, versus only 2 in 10 who want more involvement — including just 1 in 10 Republicans.

The AP-NORC survey drops ahead of midterm elections that could determine the final balance of Trump’s second term. Democrats are hammering inflation and affordability, an obvious weak point: just 31 per cent of US adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy in a December AP-NORC poll — his lowest score on that metric in either term.

But some progressives argue Democrats are missing the bigger story. Ezra Levin of Indivisible warns that Trump is not drifting into lame-duck mode but accelerating: “Authoritarians don’t willingly give up power. When weakened and cornered, they lash out.”

Republicans dismiss those concerns. The party line is that Trump is doing exactly what voters hired him to do. Kiersten Pels of the RNC predicted voters will reward the president: “President Trump is making our country safer, and the American people will remember it in November.”

Strip away the theatrics, and the numbers show a public growing weary of nonstop brinkmanship — abroad, at home, and in institutions once considered off-limits. Trump, however, seems convinced that more chaos is the point — and that voters secretly love it.

Whether that instinct is strategic genius or self-sabotage is precisely what the AP-NORC data suggests we’re about to find out.

With AP/PTI inputs