Trump’s art of surrender

America is in decline. The touted City on the Hill is on its way down to the depth of the valley. The decline of the US may not be obvious to many observers. But it is real. And it’s probably irreversible. There’s no suggestion here and now that America will suddenly lose its allure for  seekers of opportunity, relative freedom, or its firm grip on the rest of the world. No. The almost 100-year-rule of the United States over the affairs of the world will not end on July 4th, the country’s 250th anniversary. America has life and influence in its tank way beyond that date which is about 11 days away.

However, this year’s independence anniversary celebration of the country manifests or features some of the reasons why America is losing it. One such feature is the presidency of Mr. Donald J. Trump, a megalomaniac who has a proclivity for buffoonery. He is self-centered. He is a racist. He is tainted with allegations of corruption. He has actually been convicted of fraud. He is a sex predator. His inclination to being obsessively and profoundly profane is staggering. Trump is a loose canon. His attachment to wheeling and dealing will ultimately corrode the hitherto moral stature of the American presidency.

Trump’s 80th birthday which he loudly and vulgarly celebrated on Sunday, June 14, came in proximity to the country’s 250th independence. For a man who’s self-absorbed, the coincidence provided a perfect opportunity for corruption and abuse. He reportedly splashed a staggering $60m to fete and humour himself. He converted the White House grounds and lawns into a canvas to stage and host a mixed martial art sport called Ultimate Fighting Championship [UFC]. And the halls of the White House were turned into changing rooms for the ‘’fighters’’. It has been alleged that Trump owns a stake in the company that was contracted to stage the absurd and grotesque performance. In other words, the president used tax payers dollars to enrich himself. Well self-enrichment appears to be in the DNA of this American president. Otherwise how do you explain the absurdity of Trump suing an agency of the government he heads, the Internal Revenue Service, for $10billion and then turning around to negotiate settlement of the suit with his Department of Justice after which the government agreed to pay Trump a little less than $2bn as settlement for an obviously phoney suit. But the heist has come unstuck because the judge who was presiding over the case before it was pulled out of court had raised critical questions which must be answered before the settlement could proceed, if it ever will. There are no easy answers by the government lawyers to the queries from the judge. Any misstep could imperil the licences of the lawyers involved.

It should be obvious to the discerning that the United States is walking down an unfamiliar path under Trump. He promised to drain the swamp in Washington in his first presidency [2016-2020]. He did not. During this his second term, he has become the swamp himself. Unlike his first term when there were adults in the White House, he has this time carefully appointed his acolytes and enablers into critical offices of the federal government who are helping him to perpetuate chaos and to corrode and hollow out the system. The sole qualification for office by appointees in this term is fealty to Trump. He has gone back on many of the promises that he made on his way back to the White House, including a repeated commitment not to start any new wars. His latest war on Iran, in conjunction with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, may yet help to accelerate the decline of America as a global hegemon.

Early this year, Trump had invaded Venezuela and abducted its sitting president, Nicolas Maduro, on allegations of his association with drug traffickers. Maduro and his wife are presently in prison in America awaiting trial. The irony was that the same Trump had last year pardoned a former president of Honduras who was arrested, tried and sentenced to about 40 years in jail in the US in 2024. Apparently the only reason for the pardon was that Trump despised his predecessor, President Joe Biden, under whose administration the former president of Honduras was jailed. Sometimes, probably most times, Trump’s policies are driven by the burning desire to undo whatever a predecessor he disliked did.

And that was how and why he tore the nuclear containment agreement that former US president, Barack Obama, signed with Iran. Trump, a racist, detests Obama who happened to be an African-American. Trump did everything to smear Obama ahead of Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012. Trump is still incensed that President Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize soon after he assumed office in 2008. He has been hankering over the Prize so much so that the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a Venezuelan opposition leader, had to gift Trump a fake replica of the plaque. For a man without shame, Trump excitedly accepted the gift in spite of a caveat emptor by the Swedish awarding body that the Prize was not transferable. Also to satisfy and pacify a grumpy Trump, FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, had to contrive a FIFA peace prize and then awarded the same to Trump.

Now Trump’s intense dislike for Obama and the determination to undo some of the achievements of the former president is about to ruin whatever is left of his presidency and cost America dearly. Since end-February, the world had been paying a huge price because of Trump’s envy and tomfoolery. In 2015 after about 18 months of negotiations, the Obama administration working with Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union [the so-called P5+1 Group – permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany], struck a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear ambitions. The Agreement had its limitations and critics but the pact known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] was widely hailed as a landmark diplomatic deal in 2015. It required Iran to drastically limit its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international and US nuclear-related crippling economic and financial sanctions. Iran’s compliance with the agreement was rigorously monitored and the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] confirmed compliance with the agreement by the parties until 2018, two years after he won the presidency, when Trump unilaterally dumped the agreement.

Trump said the Obama deal was defective and boasted that he would get a better agreement. But he did nothing in the two years before he lost his bid for reelection in 2020. He started the process of striking his own deal after he returned to office last year. He mixed diplomatic negotiations with coercion. His team would be negotiating with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva, Switzerland, and when it appeared that they were about to reach an agreement, Trump would find an excuse to bomb Iran. Even Qatar, an American ally in the Gulf region, which served as a mediator at a time were frustrated by the conduct of Trump bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities at the point of a breakthrough during negotiations. When America bombed Iran in June 2025, Trump had claimed that the Iranian nuclear programme had been ‘’obliterated’’.

Curiously, on February 28, 2026, Trump in coalition with Netanyahu of Israel launched a war against Iran, on the pretext that Iran, whose nuclear facilities had been ‘’obliterated’’ during the 2025 so-called 12-day war had become an imminent nuclear threat to the US and its ally, Israel. Trump said that the February war would last for about four days. It didn’t. Trump said it would end in unconditional surrender by Iran. It didn’t. Trump said he would wipe out that Persian civilisation. He couldn’t. Trump said he would ensure regime change in Iran. He failed. Indeed he killed tiers of Iranian leaders but they were replaced by a set of more hardline rulers. In the midst of the bombings in the latest war that lasted for over 100 days, Trump incited Iranians to rise against their leaders. They ignored him. Meanwhile, the global economy including that of the US was spiralling off the cliff. Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz and starved the world of crude oil, gas and fertilizer supplies. Trump found himself in a bind. He may not be on the ballot in the midterm elections in November but his Republican Party would be. If his party lost the majority in the House and the Senate as it is being projected, that could effectively translate to the end of Trump’s presidency more than two years to the 2028 presidential election. For a wannabe dictator Trump, the term ‘’lameduck’’ will become torture because an opposition Democrat Party-led Congress would clip his excesses and cripple his administration. He could even be impeached again. And again. That would extend his dubious record as the most impeached American president.

Trump failed to achieve any of the reasons that made him to levy war on Iran – not regime change, not inciting Iranians to topple their rulers, not to obliterate the nuclear programme which Trump claimed was ‘’obliterated’’ in June of 2025, and certainly not the unconditional surrender of Iran. By all measures, it was Trump that waved the white flag, and offered Iran humongous amounts of money to make the war go away. Trump unilaterally ended his war of choice, saying that the warring parties had agreed to a memorandum of understanding [MoU] as a basis for further negotiations to resolve the issues in contest. In reality the MoU is actually a surrender document by Trump. Even Trump’s party men who are mortally afraid of him are incensed by the contents of the MoU.

The MoU provided a window of 60 days to thrash out a deal between the US and Iran beginning from last week. Nobody believes that any agreement would be reached within the timeframe, that is, if there would ever be a deal. Analysts believe that given the contents of the MoU,  the odds are stacked against Trump, so much so, that any deal arising therefrom would be to the detriment of the US, and far worse than the torn Obama’s JCPOA. The highlights of the MoU include immediate termination of military operations on all fronts including Lebanon; respect for each other’s sovereignty; immediate removal of the American naval blockade of Iran; immediate lifting by Iran of its closure of the Strait of Hormuz; the US to liaise with regional partners to raise at least $300billion for the reconstruction of Iran; America to terminate sanctions on Iran; Iran to recommit not to develop or procure nuclear weapons, among others  The capitulation by Trump bothered on complete humiliation. If there is any redeeming feature in the MoU for Trump, it is that it is widely believed that it would not produce any peace deal. Israel had already distanced itself from the MoU and vowed to continue bombing Hezbollah and to continue to  occupy parts of Lebanon. The violations of the terms of the MoU started even before the ink that was used to sign the deal dried. Trump had threatened to bomb Iran again even before he left Switzerland where he signed the MoU. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz soon after it opened it last weekend. Israel had bombed and killed at least 100 Lebanese in less than 48 hours after the MoU was signed. Both the US and Iran delayed the departures of their negotiators to Switzerland last weekend in the wake of the MoU violations and uncertainties. Nigeria and the world should stay alert because the pains arising from the US/Israel war on Iran may not really be about to end.

The reality is that President Trump has led America to another defeat in war. The loss may not be unique to Trump, it is the manner of the defeat in this war of choice. In truth America has not really won any war since the so-called World War II ended in 1945. Every other war that America has fought since then had either ended in a loss or a defeat or, at best, a pyrrhic victory. In Vietnam, America lost with more than 58,000 dead soldiers. It was a humbling defeat. If America won its war on Iraq, it would only qualify as a pyrrhic victory. In Afghanistan it was another humuliating and devastating loss. Meanwhile, as the US had been busy fighting wars, and in some cases turning allies into enemies especially under Trump, America’s main rival for global hegemony, China, has been busy creating new global alliances and turning itself into the manufacturer of the world. China is consolidating and it is poised to topple the US earlier than projected.