Letter from Washington: Cornered Trump Reaches for Balkan Playbook

Greetings from the East Coast, where this month has been particularly busy – from the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, where everyone gets a photo op and a stage to air their grievances (for the audiences at home), to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official meeting with Donald Trump, in Washington – a visit that, much like the UNGA, was heavy on pomp and light on concrete results. On the domestic front, the midterm elections are approaching, and the campaign is increasingly starting to look a lot like the ones back home in the Balkans. Trump is escalating the war with media outlets who criticize him, and, while another war, in Iran, is making Trump more unpopular, he has reached for another Balkan political trick: when things get difficult, hand out the taxpayers’ money! Trump has promised that, if Republicans remain their majority in Congress, every American adult will receive $5,000. Still, such a measure would have to get the green light on Capitol Hill, so it is far from certain that Americans will actually get the money – unlike in Serbia, where the outgoing President distributes money from the state budget ahead of elections, despite having no authority to do so.