The troubled flight of Trump's trial balloons
Gaza, Greenland, Canada, Panama...and the Kennedy Center?
In the early 1780s, two brothers in southeastern France began experimenting with balloons, looking for a way to reliably lift them to the skies. Joseph Montgolfier took note of his wife’s blouse “inflating when she hung it over the hearth to dry,” as Richard Holmes noted in his book, “The Age of Wonder.”
So Joseph and his brother Étienne, who were in the paper business, used hot air to lift the ballon made of linen and paper that they launched on June 5, 1783 in Annonay, south of Lyon. The balloon, 30 feet high and 110 feet around, soared to a height of about 6,000 feet.
On September 19 that year, the Montgolfiers staged a remarkable show in front of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the rest of the royal court at Versailles: Their elaborately decorated balloon lifted a wicker basket with a sheep, a duck and a cockerel, and all three animals survived the eight-minute flight.
It proved that earthbound life could tolerate higher altitudes, and the Montgolfier brothers soon followed up with the first manned balloon flight. They inspired a wave of pioneers, many using hydrogen rather than hot air to fill their balloons. A key precautionary technique was to launch small balloons to test which way the wind was blowing — “ballons d’essai,” trial balloons.
In the first three weeks of his administration, President Donald Trump has launched a dizzying fleet of trial balloons: Seize the Panama Canal. Make Canada the 51st state. Take over Greenland. Send U.S. forces to turn Gaza into a Riviera-style resort. Slap heavy tariffs on our neighbors. And even personally commandeer Washington’s Kennedy Center.
Some of the ideas appeared impulsive, others have been in gestation for a while. But they are like Trump’s promise on health care reform — that he has “concepts of a plan” rather than a detailed proposal. Bill Maher joked in his monologue Friday that Trump fired someone for having a “fully-baked idea.”
A favorite practice
Trump has long trafficked in trial balloons — historian Ruth Ben Ghiat wrote perceptively about them in a 2017 CNN opinion piece. “How do leaders persuade people to accept their repressive agendas, scapegoat targeted groups and disrespect democratic norms?” Ben Ghiat asked. “In the year since his election as president, Donald Trump has used one strategy to these ends: floating extreme ideas that end up polluting the mainstream.”
“It works by introducing an idea that is reprehensible to the values of liberal democracy, framing it as an off-the-cuff remark, or even as a joke. Later, you can take it back, or blame others for having misheard, or misinterpreted you. Meanwhile, your idea has circulated to millions, sometimes even creating its own news cycle. It is in the air. It cannot be unheard.”
The notions of taking over Canada or Gaza may be intended as shiny objects to distract us, or as maximal demands that could prompt some world leaders to make concessions. But if Trump is serious about making progress toward his goals, the problem may not be that he is launching too many trial balloons, but that he is launching too few — or failing to make smart use of the technique.
If he wants concessions from Canada or Panama or a rethinking of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, testing the waters with small, strategically communicated ideas would likely be more effective than broadcasting sweeping declarations that back the leaders of other nations into a corner, where displaying weakness to U.S. threats would be politically suicidal.
“The Middle East desperately needs new thinking,” the Economist argued, “yet by blurting out a proposal that is impractical, unethical and unprepared, Mr. Trump has sapped American credibility. He may end up causing turmoil and empowering extremists.”
Poor reception
While House Speaker Mike Johnson saluted Trump’s Gaza idea as a “bold move,” it drew condemnation from many nations around the world — and crucially from the ones in the Middle East who would have to consent to relocating Gazans. Similarly, Canadians, Panamanians and Greenlanders have expressed opposition to the idea of US expansion in their spheres.
Elon Musk might be able to share with Trump some of the testing techniques SpaceX uses to perfect its technology. It only staged its first manned flight after the Falcon 9 rocket had completed 85 missions successfully.
While Trump tends to the trial balloons, more fully developed plans to gut the federal government are being put into action, under Musk’s direction, and along the lines laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. (I wrote about the Trump-Musk partnership for US News.)
The fate of three agencies facing possible abolition (USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Board and the Education Department) will likely be just the beginning — unless the courts prove to be a lasting restraint.
It is the wrecking ball rather than the trial balloon that may be the defining symbol of the second Trump administration.
One of the core injustices of the present moment is this: We are suffering through too many trial balloons BY Trump and zero trials OF Trump, to hold him accountable for his numerous crimes. Excellent column, Rich!
Another not-to-be-missed column. Thank you for making the complex so understandable and enjoyable.