Trump’s crazy flipper fingers baffle Europe. How d’you think he does it? (I don’t know)

(Originally published Feb. 16 in “What in the World“) Trump dispatched that second aircraft carrier to the Middle East.

Which one? The same one he had leave the Mediterranean last October and anchor in the Caribbean to lead his ouster of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro—the USS Gerald R. Ford. Left without a single carrier in the Middle East to lead his threatened attack against Iran, Trump last month ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln to leave the South China Sea for the Gulf. Note to Beijing: there is only one U.S. flat-top between Tokyo and Singapore—an amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli.

Since diverting the Lincoln, Tehran has managed to quell anti-government protests that prompted Trump’s first threats to attack. So Trump has raised the ante and demanded Iran give up the nuclear program he claimed to have obliterated last June—or else. It will take about three weeks for the Ford to join the Lincoln, so while it’s underway Trump is keeping Tehran talking.

Europeans are slowly waking up to the threat posed by Trump’s United States. Leaders at the annual security conference in Munich now speak of “de-risking” their nations from America—politically, militarily, and economically. Canada, too.