The old year ends bitterly for US President Donald Trump. The stock markets shudder, its political support is crumbling, the opposition is strengthened, the circle of loyalists is shrinking, the world community is distancing itself and Russia special investigator Robert Mueller is approaching.
But nothing symbolizes this wasted year better than the "shutdown", the partial US government stalemate, which Trump has pushed with his demand for a physical wall on the border with Mexico. As a result, around 800,000 civil servants will start salary-free in 2019, while Trump bunkers in the White House and sends out more angry tweets.
The coming year is unlikely to improve, on the contrary. At half-time Trump stands politically with his back to the wall. He has discarded all moderate - in his eyes: braking - advisor discarded and acted since then virtually unleashed, as the "Washington Post" writes: even more uncompromising and impulsive than ever, in Dauerclinch with real as well as supposed "enemies". At the same time his talent to obscure reality, with lies, half-truths and his daily reality show, but always transparent - so ineffective.
Trump's options are dwindling, but the dangers are growing. "The last two years have not been anything compared to what's in store for him over the next two years," Republican strategist Michael Steel predicts in The New York Times.
The SPIEGEL shows from which directions Donald Trump threatens to be in trouble next year.
Trump's biggest source of fire
Trump's government team has been so drained by resignations and throws that from the beginning of several ministries and offices are only temporarily managed, including those for defense, justice, home affairs and the environment. Elsewhere, the Mittelbau is missing - or the qualification, new UN ambassador is to be, for example, Heather Nauert, a former Fox News presenter. 65 percent of the top positions were replaced under Trump, a presidential record. Trump obviously does not mind that, at any rate he does not hurry up with the replacement of vacant posts. Because the power is so focused on the White House, where he surrounds with family members and confidants who do not challenge him, especially since he appreciates the advice of conservative TV commentators anyway more than his staff. Apropos: Trump's now third chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has the prefix "acting", so is also acting only on call. Because Trump is his own chief consultant: "Only I can fix it," he explained in 2016 and later boasted himself as almost infallible: "My gut sometimes tells me more than someone else's brain."
For Trump, the election campaign never stopped, and this year alone he had himself celebrated on dozens of "campaign rallies". Meanwhile, almost all of his political efforts serve a second term from 2020. Whether the US withdrawal from Syria and its growing isolationism or its increasingly brutal immigration policy: Everything aims to keep its national populist basis - because without which he has no chance Success. And this base wobbles. In recent Gallup polls, Trump's popularity bobbed between 38 and 40 percent - well below the 2016 (46 percent) result, which in turn only triumphed because the US electoral system favored conservative-leaning states. Therefore, Trump 2019 politically likely to be even more extreme and shocking, because love his most loyal supporters.
How vital this base for Trump is, he is currently showing with the fight for a wall on the border with Mexico. He even let it come to partial government downtime - the "shutdown". Although he once promised that he would charge for the construction of the Wall in Mexico, and although other methods of border security are more effective, he now demands $ 5 billion from the US Treasury. The Democrats reject that. In the end, he even threatened to block the border altogether - and thus trade flows of $ 558 billion a year. The dispute is likely to be resolved at the earliest when the new Congress takes place on January 3 and the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives. But this already third "shutdown" under Trump is unlikely to be the last. Despite growing criticism of the consequences for the state employees concerned, Trump sees this brutal method as beneficial for him: the Wall was his most important campaign promise, so he must insist on it, despite all the realities of politics and logic - otherwise he risks his base and his Re-election in 2020.
The new Democratic majority in the US House of Commons is a double-edged sword for both sides. The opposition can now trump Trump with hearings, block his agenda, and slow down his power. But even Trump is likely to take advantage of this by increasing the opposition to the archenemy and thus motivating his base to resist. Among the topics with which the Democrats want to make his life difficult: Trump's finances and Russia contacts; the ethical failures of his government members; the mistreatment of migrants and the deaths of two Guatemalan children in US borderland; the relationship with Saudi Arabia; America's military engagement abroad. Nancy Pelosi, the designated Speaker of the House of Representatives, has to master a balancing act. Her left wing wants to instigate an impeachment, which is allegedly now Trump's concern. The moderates, on the other hand, could come to terms with it, such as infrastructure reform, to earn points for 2020. The problem: Trump has proven to be an unreliable negotiator who does not keep his word - which is increasingly attracting republicans against him Resistance not only comes from Congress, but also from democratically governed states like California. But this largest US state blocked the central government in 2018 with 44 lawsuits and other legal claims, for example against Trump's health and immigration policy. A California lawsuit against Trump's easing of motor vehicle environmental regulations was followed by 16 other states - and the capital Washington.
The most existential threat for Trump is Russia special investigator Robert Mueller. He could submit his final report in March. It is unlikely that Trump will voluntarily interrogate himself about Mueller. Mueller's report will have enormous explosive power - triggering a radical reaction with Trump. The former FBI chief must first hand the report over to the as yet unnamed new Minister of Justice - or to Trump's provisional incumbent Matthew Whitaker. He then decides whether he publishes it or passes it on to the congress. If necessary, the Democrats want to demand the results in court. So cornered, Trump could only aggravate his previous attempts to politicize the judiciary in his favor. Of course, this should not always succeed: Even several independent US prosecutors are now investigating Trump's former advisor, his family and his companies.
The US economy - on whose further growth Trump has tied his fate - will cool off in 2019, according to many experts. Reason are, inter alia, Trump's trade wars with China and Europe, higher key interest rates, the exploding debt burden of the state as in the economy, global turbulence, a global downturn and the increasingly questionable competence of the US government. Speaking, if not the end of the upswing of the US It is well known that the last few years have seen the US stock exchange, and Trump also sees it as the barometer of its popularity. His anger at falling prices is likely to be left out to US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell or Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, which would only further unsettle the financial markets.
With the announced withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan Trump reverses longstanding premises of US foreign policy. Some welcome the move as an overdue beginning from the end of the eternal wars of America. The others criticize the abrupt way in which Trump accomplishes this, especially since he has not coordinated the move with his own security experts or the Allies. Trump seems to have less and less interest in detailed briefings. And increasingly surrounded by hardliners and yes-men, Trump reveals that his "America First" doctrine in truth means "America Alone": he is snubbing allies, undermining alliances and global organizations like the UN - and courting dictators. The entire postwar world order is at stake - if it is not already destroyed. "Trump undermines America's national security more than any foreign adversary," ex-security advisor Susan Rice warned in The New York Times. Others fear that in order to distract from the problems at home, he could stage international crises and use the US military.