All of Trump’s losing causes

Trump backed the loser in Hungarian elections, extending a string of bad bets. Now the world wonders if he'll fumble the Iran war next.

For a man obsessed with #winning, President Trump keeps picking the wrong side.

His latest failed bet is Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, the Vladimir Putin lapdog who just got walloped in a reelection bid. During Orban’s 16-year reign, Hungary became the poorest and most corrupt nation in Europe, while Orban did Putin’s bidding by obstructing European aid to Ukraine. Jubilant voters celebrating Orban’s defeat in the streets of Budapest on April 12 chanted, “Russians go home!”

A few days before Orban lost, as polls predicted, Trump sent Vice President JD Vance to Hungary to campaign on his behalf. Trump himself called Vance in Hungary to say, “I love Viktor,” on a call piped in to an Orban rally. Vance is unpopular in Europe and may have done more to hurt Orban than to help him. The veep’s futile mission yielded nothing but embarrassment for Vance and his boss.

Trump envoy JD Vance endorsing the loser of the Hungarian election, Viktor Orban.

In another losing bid, Trump has now picked a fight with the pope. You can’t beat the pope! Especially this pope. In a self-satirizing social media post, Trump called Pope Leo XIV “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy,” apparently trying to ding the pope for speaking out against his Iran war.

Pope Leo responded by saying, “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration.” And why should he be? The pope has God on his side. All Trump has is false gods. American Catholics love the first American pope and only the phoniest among them will side with Trump over the former Robert Prevost, a White Sox fan from Chicago.

[See the economic toll of the Iran war, so far]

Trump has favored Russia in the war it started with Ukraine in 2014, and that’s looking like a losing bet, too. Ukraine has made surprising gains this year by striking targets deep inside Russia. And President Volodymyr Zelensky is now a darling of the Persian Gulf states, bringing the world’s best anti-drone technology to nations suddenly under bombardment by Iran. As those rich nations partner with Ukraine, it will bolster the finances and image of a scrappy underdog holding off a bloodthirsty Goliath stuck in the Middle Ages.

Many of Trump’s policies are losers, as well. The Supreme Court shot down the emergency tariffs at the core of Trump’s trade strategy. Trump has since replaced those with a new sort of tariff that will also probably lose in court. Overall, Trump has lost a record number of legal challenges on issues relating to deportation, birthright citizenship, federalization of the National Guard and many other things.

[Trump’s worst war adviser: Pete Hegseth]

All of this #losing matters now because of the Iran War. For the United States, this is a can’t-lose mission with trillions of dollars at stake, along with geopolitical influence and national prestige. If the United States doesn’t secure a favorable outcome, a rogue state will hold global energy markets hostage and imitators will probably try the same thing.

The United States won’t lose to Iran militarily. But at the moment, it is losing strategically, because Iran has exploited its asymmetrical ability to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway for 20% of the world’s oil exports. Iran’s blockage of most oil shipments through the strait has sent oil prices soaring and endangered the entire global economy.

Trump started the Iran war with the same impulsive rashness that augured other failures. He trusted his gut, which was dead wrong. His gut told him Iran would fold quickly without daring to interfere with oil shipments. Legions of experts could have told Trump otherwise, but he wasn’t interested. In Trump’s simplistic mind, Iran was no different than Venezuela, a broken country where almost nothing works. In reality, Iran is a militant and battle-tested viper of a country led by fanatics willing to die in their quest for power.

[See where inflation has jumped the most since the Iran war started]

So now Trump has to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Since Iran yielded nothing in one day of ceasefire talks led by Vance—which, again, any Iran expert would have foretold—Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iran’s ports. This is supposed to block Iranian oil exports, which will deprive the Iranian regime of most of the revenue that keeps it afloat. At the same time, the US Navy will clear mines in the strait and try to set the stage for a resumption of normal traffic.

Some analysts think this is a sensible way to get oil flowing again and find a way to end the war. But the risks are huge. Blockading a country’s ports is an act of war and Iran may very well fire at US Navy ships or other vessels in the area. It could resume attacks on energy infrastructure elsewhere in the Gulf, further diminishing energy supplies.

While the blockade is underway, even less oil will make it to global markets, since Iran’s exports will be bottled up, in addition to all the other oil stuck in the Gulf. Blockades take time to squeeze the intended target, and it will be a game of chicken as oil prices creep upward, stocks sink, American drivers pay more and more for gasoline, jet fuel becomes scarce and other effects of the energy shock metastasize.

Trump’s gamble, this time, is that the pain of a blockade will force the Iranian mullahs to make concessions that effectively end the war. He guessed wrong about a bombing campaign cowing the mullahs into submission. It didn’t. So now he’s playing another card, as the whole world anxiously wonders if Trump is dealing from yet another losing hand.