What Machiavelli Would Say About Trump

What Machiavelli Would Say About Trump

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Argument: What Machiavelli Would Say About Trump

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Argument

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

What Machiavelli Would Say About Trump

The U.S. president offers a guide on how to be a very bad prince.

!Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20

*Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20*

*Stephen M. Walt*

By **Stephen M. Walt**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

!US President Donald Trump whispers to a White House staffer as he makes his way to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on September 26, 2020.

*US President Donald Trump whispers to a White House staffer as he makes his way to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on September 26, 2020.*

US President Donald Trump whispers to a White House staffer as he makes his way to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on September 26, 2020. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

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September 23, 2026, 4:49 AM

Paul Krugman put up a nice post on his Substack last week, pointing out how other countries are rapidly losing their fear of U.S. President Donald Trump and starting to join forces and push back against his erratic and predatory approach to foreign policy. He’s right, but what caught my eye was when Krugman cited Niccolo Machiavelli’s dictum that to be a successful prince, “it is better to be feared than loved.” Ideally, a prince should seek to be both, but Machiavelli observes that this feat is hard to pull off. If one must choose, therefore, being feared is preferable because men are fickle and their affections are unreliable. Fear, however, is maintained “by a dread of punishment that never fails.”

As Krugman notes, Trump’s ability to threaten and intimidate others has been undermined by his own blunders (such as the war with Iran) and the general incompetence and inconstancy of his regime. I mean: What’s the point of negotiating with Trump or reaching an agreement when he might change his mind and tear it up a few months later?

Paul Krugman put up a nice post on his Substack last week, pointing out how other countries are rapidly losing their fear of U.S. President Donald Trump and starting to join forces and push back against his erratic and predatory approach to foreign policy. He’s right, but what caught my eye was when Krugman cited Niccolo Machiavelli’s dictum that to be a successful prince, “it is better to be feared than loved.” Ideally, a prince should seek to be both, but Machiavelli observes that this feat is hard to pull off. If one must choose, therefore, being feared is preferable because men are fickle and their affections are unreliable. Fear, however, is maintained “by a dread of punishment that never fails.”

As Krugman notes, Trump’s ability to threaten and intimidate others has been undermined by his own blunders (such as the war with Iran) and the general incompetence and inconstancy of his regime. I mean: What’s the point of negotiating with Trump or reaching an agreement when he might change his mind and tear it up a few months later?

And this is far from the only way in which Trump is acting contrary to Machiavelli’s advice. In fact, if you read key sections of *The Prince* carefully (as the students in my realism class did a few weeks ago), it’s clear that Trump is in many ways the poster child for How to Be a Very Bad Prince.

For starters, after arguing that it is better to be feared than loved, Machiavelli points out that there is something even worse: You could end up *hated* or *despised*. To avoid the former, he cautions the prince not to go after his subjects’ property or their women. Trump has certainly violated the former rule, having enriched himself at public expense and undermined the well-being of many Americans through his misguided economic policies. Moreover, his own sordid personal life and close association with Jeffrey Epstein betray a highly predatory attitude toward women, which may make him popular with misogynists such as the Tate brothers but has also contributed to the deep hatred felt by a sizable number of Americans.

What about being despised? Machiavelli warns that a prince is “rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid, and irresolute.” Nobody would call Trump “effeminate,” but the other adjectives apply in spades. For all his macho bluster, Trump’s vacillations and inconstancy are now well-established, and leaders made of sterner stuff (e.g., Chinese President Xi Jinping) have figured this out and taken advantage of it. Corporate leaders, university presidents, and law firms that bent the knee to Trump early in his second term look both craven and foolish, while those who stood up to him now seem both courageous and farsighted. Not only is Trump no longer feared as much as he once was, but he’s also well down the road to being both hated and despised.

Machiavelli also argued that a prince should not be overly “liberal” (meaning generous) and “must care little for the reputation of being a miser.” This advice might sound counterintuitive—why would being a cheapskate help a prince retain power?—but if you read Chapter 16 of *The Prince* carefully, his central message is that a wise prince should manage his finances prudently and not try to buy his subjects’ loyalty by being profligate. If he does the latter, he will soon e