Donald Trump claimed “We are doing GREAT” after 100 days back in the White House despite causing economic carnage with his tariffs and wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza.
Recent polls show Trump’s approval rating, of around 39% to 45%, is the lowest for any newly-elected president after 100 days for some 70 years, according to CNN.
True to form, the US president sought to dismiss the findings as fake news.
“The Polls from the Fake News are, like the News itself, FAKE!” he messaged on Truth Social.
“We are doing GREAT, better than ever before.”
But he risks growing anger among millions of citizens in America as reality bites and they see their cost of living rise due to his tariff wars.
He has torn up the global economic system built up over decades, damaging economies around the world, but with the International Monetary Fund warning the US will be the hardest hit major economy.
Trillions were wiped off the value of shares.
However, in a sign of how the US is so deeply divided, many Americans still have faith in his economic stewardship.
Fifty-two percent of US adults voiced confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, according a CNN/SSRS poll.
But this was a 13-point drop from December.
Trump has triggered economic uncertainty, by pausing for 90 days higher tariffs on many countries, exempting some items from the US import levies such as smartphones, and signalling he now wants to avoid a full-blown trade war with China.
He returned to the White House in January with furious energy, signing huge numbers of executive orders and sparking accusations that he is riding roughshod over the US constitution.
The US president’s tough line on immigration is proving popular among many Americans, as is his scaling back of government, even if nuclear workers were accidentally fired in the axing of public sector workers’ jobs by the Department of Government Efficiency which was co-led by Elon Musk.
Before he got back into the Oval Office, Trump scored a success in getting Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, but this did not last.
His bombastic claim during his election campaign to be able to end Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war in a day, was swiftly stretched to a 100-day timeline, and so far the bloodshed continues.
Trump now says Putin may be “tapping me along”.
Trump is seen to have been pivotal in the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney winning the federal election in Canada, by saying the country should be part of the US.
Likewise, with Greenland which he did not rule out sending US troops to seize.
Aaron David Miller, a former veteran US diplomat in Republican and Democratic administrations, said it’s not too late for Trump to shift course on foreign policy, especially if he begins to feel pressure from fellow Republicans uneasy over economic risks as they seek to retain control of Congress in next year’s mid-term elections.
“What’s happening is not yet beyond the point of no return,” said Mr Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“But how much damage is being done now to our relations with friends and how much adversaries will benefit is probably incalculable.”
