Opinion | How Donald Trump’s autocratic actions are getting in the way of his successes

US President Donald Trump has so far spent his tenure raging against the institutions that, over the past century or so, put America at the forefront of global leadership. His appetite for destruction only seems to gather momentum, which threatens to obscure his one possible foreign policy triumph: he made Kim Jong-un blink. Developments around North Korea could be his big chance to make fools of his detractors, who counselled against using insults and militaristic threats to subdue Kim.

Internationally, Trump’s targets include the United Nations, even though it was within this body that US envoy Nikki Haley managed to get support from China and Russia for the sanctions crippling Pyongyang.

Trump has also directed fire at the World Trade Organisation and free-trade deals that have more firmly integrated many previously isolated countries into the global economy. Domestically, the institutions in his cross hairs include the US Department of Justice and the FBI because of their roles in the investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian government operatives.

The latest twist in the drama surrounding this investigation came when Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, a classic Trumpian move that would have autocrats around the world applauding.