On April Fool’s Day, President Donald Trump made a prime-time address to the nation about the war he and Israel have unleashed upon the Mideast. At my deadline, and after failed peace talks, Trump has announced a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Ending Iran’s blockade was an issue for the talks. Trump had spent most of a month seesawing between declaring a glorious victory and threatening Iran’s total destruction.
Trump offered nothing new in his speech, nor did he clear up his waffling war of words with European allies. One day, he excoriates them for not abetting his unprovoked war. The next, he tells them that the U.S. needs no help in achieving its goals – whatever they are on that particular day.
Who knows what Trump will spout next? Well, not our historic allies.
“If you create doubts daily about what obligations you have, then the obligation is emptied of content. There is too much talk. It’s going off in every direction.
“If you want to be serious, you can’t say each day the opposite of what you said the day before.”
Macron had earlier called the assassination of Iranian leaders, “outside of international law.”
Other European leaders agreed.
This Mideast War is “outside the scope of international law,” according to Italy’s conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who denied U.S. planes access to Spain’s bases, had also earlier agreed that the Israeli/U.S. attack was “illegal.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was blunt: “This is not our war; we have not started it.”
On the other side of the world in mid-March, Koji Sonoda of The Asahi Shimbun of Japan wrote, “Japan must seek a new global order in a world ruled by strength.”
Citing “a U.S. military source,” Sonoda said, “Trump only does what he wants and there are no rules pertaining to him.
“To remain silent toward such a U.S. administration stance will only contribute to the arrival of a world of the survival of the fittest in which major powers, including China, can determine the fate of small and middle powers.”
Childish? Or worse?
On March 13, Madrid’s La Sexta reported Spanish politician Cristina Almeida’s conversation on Más Vale Tarde, in which she said: “We are in the hands of a madman with power, and he is offering to kill people in order to seize control of Iran’s oil. He doesn’t care about democracy.”
Two weeks later French Sen. Claude Mahuret denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a dangerous madman, drunk with power, who lit a fuse in Ukraine that set off a powder keg and upended the world order.”
Mahuret then updated his catalog of crazies:
“In February 2026, another dangerous madman lit another fuse in the Middle East, once again threatening the international balance. Was this war also supposed to last a week?”
He noted – as have many observers – “Every time the Epstein affair surfaces, bombs explode somewhere in the world to create a diversion. There isn’t a single country where Trump hasn’t taken advantage of the situation to enrich himself, never forgetting his family.”
He also cast his critical eye on “MAGA America,” which accepts that “public affairs are conducted in the service of private interests.”
An oil grab and profiteering?
Trump himself reinforced this suspicion with a Truth Social posting: “We can extract the oil and get rich. It would be a great success for the world!”
An April 3 commentary in La Sexta titled “Trump and His Imperialism” took issue with such social media posts.
But Big Oil is getting the big payday Trump promised during his campaign. Not getting rich are U.S. consumers. The Financial Times reported last week, “U.S. inflation jumps to two-year high as Iran war ripples across economy.”
Joining the chorus of concern about U.S. motives April 11, Pope Leo XIV declared, “Enough of this idolatry of self and money.”
Those appear to be two of the few constants driving President Trump, who pocketed at least $3 billion in 2025.
On April 8, La Sexta cited the observations of Juanma Lamet, a journalist for El Mundo, on the reactions by different political parties to the war, saying the conservative People’s Party “lacked decisiveness because Spaniards don’t understand a mentally and politically unstable individual like Donald Trump waging an illegal war.”
