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What does Donald Trump talk about when he talks about love? For the man presents himself as being full of it. He is associated with a politics of grievance and retribution that has boiled over at times into violence, most infamously in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021. And yet no other president, or presidential candidate, has so wreathed himself in valentines.
In speeches and blast emails, Mr Trump romances his supporters with constant reminders of his love. Among those for whom he has declared his love over the years are “the Hispanics”, “the Saudis”, “the poorly educated” and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency. His heart often has reasons of which reason would appear to know nothing. Like Titania he has tumbled for the most improbable of creatures (“We fell in love,” he gushed of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un). Like Rihanna he has found love in hopeless places, including the Soviet Union (“you could see it was a country where there was a lot of love”) and even in that crowd on January 6th (“There was a lot of love out there. There was tremendous love”).
Pretty much by definition, presidents are not normal people. But even by their abnormal standard Mr Trump is an unusual character. His detractors like to point out that he had a head start in life as the son of a millionaire real-estate developer. They may not give him enough credit, though, for how through daring, determination and a certain ethical flexibility he willed himself into becoming a billionaire, a flamboyant celebrity, a reality-television star and then the president—how, like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, Donald Trump “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself”. His insistence on this conception overwhelmed the scoffers at his candidacy eight years ago, bulldozed most Republicans into believing he did not lose in 2020 and may now persuade Americans to return him to the White House.
Biographers of Mr Trump have recounted how, as he discovered he could dominate and bamboozle others, he acquired some contempt for them as well. Once he became known for his wealth people would claw at him for favours. He marvelled, as a candidate in 2015, how easy it was to woo voters with the slightest gesture.
Wayne Barrett, a New York journalist who was probably the closest student of Mr Trump’s rise, fall and fragile recovery into the early 1990s, writes in “Trump” that people who worked for the mogul longed for him to find love but “did not really believe he had the capacity for it.” Mr Barrett quotes one such person as saying Mr Trump was “unaware of his own tragedy” and then continues, “As they saw it, his deeply ingrained remoteness was so much a part of his unexamined life that he neither understood it nor regretted it.” When one friend, irritated by Mr Trump’s uninterest in his troubles, accused him of being a shallow person, he replied, “That’s one of my strengths.”
The Great Gatsby was laid low by love, but that seems to have little chance of undoing The Donald, as his first wife, Ivana Trump, called him. Outsiders can never know what really goes on inside a marriage, but journalists, lawyers and the participants themselves have rendered some of Mr Trump’s marriages more transparent than most. Ideals of love have not tended to predominate.
“If you don’t marry me you’ll ruin your life,” were the words with which Mr Trump proposed to Ivana, according to her book “Raising Trump”. “Continuing love and affection was not a material part” of their nuptial agreement, read a court filing from Mr Trump as the couple split up. “I was bored when she was walking down the aisle,” Mr Trump later recalled of Marla Maples, the woman for whom he left Ivana. “I kept thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’” Probably no Valentine’s Day card will ever invoke Mr Trump’s advice about how best to behave toward women: “You have to treat ’em like shit.”
Outside his family, Mr Trump did not express much love for the people who helped build his fortune. “Look at those losers,” he remarked to an associate as he watched people gambling in one of his Atlantic City casinos, according to “Confidence Man” by Maggie Haberman.
To Mr Trump, hate could be a virtue. Back in 1989, New York’s mayor, Ed Koch, urged citizens not to have rancour toward five black youths arrested for the rape of a white jogger in Central Park. Mr Trump, then beginning to dabble in politics, took out full-page ads in the four daily New York papers calling for reinstatement of the death penalty and declaring, “I want to hate these murderers and I always will.” The youths served years in prison, but even after they were exonerated Mr Trump would not recant, saying in 2014 that they did “not exactly have the pasts of angels”. (Hate can mean never having to say you’re sorry.)
As president in 2020, Mr Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast, devoted that year to the theme of “loving your enemy”. “I don’t know if I agree,” he mused, when he stepped behind the lectern. He had recently been impeached for the first time and was not inclined to forgive people he thought of as enemies. “They have done everything possible to destroy us,” he said, “and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation.”
Say that you love me
Mr Trump’s love has limit and conditions. He seems to need to feel appreciated and admired, to feel loved, and then he will complete the transaction by declaring his own affection. “I’ll never stop loving you,” he vowed in a recent mass email seeking donations. “Why? Because you’ve always loved me!” That is a deal his supporters are eager to make. They have their own unmet needs for recognition and affirmation. They know their guy is not perfect; in fact, it seems probable that when their love swears he is made of truth they believe him even though they know he lies. They will not risk his love by doubting him. This codependence has become the strongest force in American politics. ■
A man pushes his shopping cart filled with food shopping and walks in front of an aisle of canned vegetables with “Down price” labels in an Auchan supermarket in Guilherand Granges, France, March 8, 2025.
Nicolas Guyonnet | Afp | Getty Images
Annual Euro zone inflation dipped as expected to 2.2% in March, according to flash data from statistics agency Eurostat published Tuesday.
The Tuesday print sits just below the 2.3% final reading of February.
So called core-inflation, which excludes more volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, edged lower to 2.4% in March from 2.6% in February. The closely watched services inflation print, which had long been sticky around the 4% mark, also fell to 3.4% in March from 3.7% in the preceding month.
Recent preliminary data had showed that March inflation came in lower than forecast in several major euro zone economies. Last month’s inflation hit 2.3% in Germany and fell to 2.2% in Spain, while staying unchanged at 0.9% in France.
The figures, which are harmonized across the euro area for comparability, boosted expectations for a further 25-basis-point interest rate cut from the European Central Bank during its upcoming meeting on April 17. Markets were pricing in an around 76% chance of such a reduction ahead of the release of the euro zone inflation data on Tuesday, according to LSEG data.
The European Union is set to be slapped with tariffs due in effect later this week from the U.S. administration of Donald Trump — including a 25% levy on imported cars.
While the exact impact of the tariffs and retaliatory measures remains uncertain, many economists have warned for months that their effect could be inflationary.
This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.
TO GET A sense of what the Republican Party thinks of the electoral value of Elon Musk, listen to what Brad Schimel, a conservative candidate for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, has to say about the billionaire. At an event on March 29th at an airsoft range (a more serious version of paintball) just outside Kenosha, five speakers, including Mr Schimel, spoke for over an hour about the importance of the election to the Republican cause. Mr Musk’s political action committees (PACs) have poured over $20m into the race, far more than any other donor’s. But over the course of the event, his name came up precisely zero times.
Customers shop for fresh fruits and vegetables in a supermarket in Munich, Germany, on March 8, 2025.
Michael Nguyen | Nurphoto | Getty Images
German inflation came in at a lower-than-expected 2.3% in March, preliminary data from the country’s statistics office Destatis showed Monday.
It compares to February’s 2.6% print, which was revised lower from a preliminary reading, and a poll of Reuters economists who had been expecting inflation to come in at 2.4% The print is harmonized across the euro area for comparability.
On a monthly basis, harmonized inflation rose 0.4%. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, came in at 2.5%, below February’s 2.7% reading.
Meanwhile services inflation, which had long been sticky, also eased to 3.4% in March, from 3.8% in the previous month.
The data comes at a critical time for the German economy as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom and fiscal and economic policy shifts at home could be imminent.
Trade is a key pillar for the German economy, making it more vulnerable to the uncertainty and quickly changing developments currently dominating global trade policy. A slew of levies from the U.S. are set to come into force this week, including 25% tariffs on imported cars — a sector that is key to Germany’s economy. The country’s political leaders and car industry heavyweights have slammed Trump’s plans.
Meanwhile Germany’s political parties are working to establish a new coalition government following the results of the February 2025 federal election. Negotiations are underway between the Christian Democratic Union, alongside its sister party the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democratic Union.
While various points of contention appear to remain between the parties, their talks have already yielded some results. Earlier this month, Germany’s lawmakers voted in favor of a major fiscal package, which included amendments to long-standing debt rules to allow for higher defense spending and a 500-billion-euro ($541 billion) infrastructure fund.
This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.
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