During President Trump’s first term as president, many of us complained about his bad behavior: his boorish remarks, personal insults, badgering, and other sundry criticisms. But this time around, the President seems to be taking a more nuanced approach; at first glance, he is working from both ends of the behavioral spectrum. On the one hand, he is stating his hopes for the future without pressures on others; on the other hand, he’s playing hardball with his expectations. And he seems to be taking a strategic approach to whichever attitude he uses.

Trump is taking a hardline approach to internal abuses and how they should be handled. An example is his reliance on Tom Homan, border czar, who said the following:

I’ll tell you what’s going to be horrible, when we take a wonderful young woman who’s with a criminal. And they show the woman, and she could stay by the law, but they show the woman being taken out. Or they want her out and your cameras are focused on her as she’s crying as she’s being taken out of our country. And then the public turns against us. But we have to do our job. And you have to have a series of standards and a series of laws.

Some people insist that Tom Homan doesn’t have the power to act on his deportation threats; technically, that’s true. But he has President Trump and the new Department of Justice that will stand behind him. They’ll be able to get the job done.

When necessary, Homan doesn’t mince words:

‘If they step over that line,’ Homan said when asked whether the administration would prosecute. ‘They could sit back and watch us, which again I find incredible. You don’t want to take public safety threats out of your community to help us. But there are laws on the books that we will prosecute.’

In contrast, Trump modified his demand for a “big beautiful bill” to be passed by Congress. After his initial proposal, he said he would accept one or two bills:

‘Whether it's one bill or two bills, it's going to get done one way or the other,’ Trump told reporters, adding, ‘One bill, two bills, doesn't matter to me. They're going to work that out, but the end result is going to be the same.’

Once he met with GOP Senators, though, he became more convinced of his original proposal, and believed one bill had the greatest chance to be passed. He let them know that was still his preference, but didn’t state there’d be negative consequences if they voted for two bills.

When Trump has expressed his foreign relations demands, they seem to be more hardline. He has warned Hamas about their ongoing resistance to releasing the hostages:

‘We want to get back those hostages for Israel and for us,’ Trump said at the end of his press conference Tuesday. ‘You know we do have people that are hostages being held, and I’ll just say it again: If this deal’s not done … by the time I get to office, all hell is going to break out.’

Twice Trump emphasized that this is a foreign relations issue for the U.S. and he will not back down.

He’s also shown a willingness to listen to his trusted advisors, modifying his own positions when it’s appropriate; his position on Ukraine is one example:

Trump has more recently relaxed his 24-hour ambitions, saying earlier this week that he hoped to have the conflict solved within ‘six months.’ Keith Kellogg, his appointee for special envoy in the war, separately set the goal of ‘100 days.’

It’s clear that Trump is listening carefully to Kellogg and they are both primarily on the same page.

Regarding negotiations with Greenland and the Panama Canal, they are proceeding in some in intriguing ways. Trump is described as a leader who plans to take over the Panama Canal.  Except that’s not what he said:

At least rhetorically, Trump has promised that if Panama does not accede to demands that it reduce shipping costs on U.S. freight, ‘we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly and without question. We’re not going to stand for it. So, to the officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly.’

Please note that there is a major condition included: if Panama reduces U.S. shipping costs, they can keep the canal.

Finally, when Trump proposed taking Greenland, even possibly fighting for it, Greenland initially refused:

Trump has been eyeing Greenland since his first term in office and last month told reporters that U.S. control of the vast Arctic island was a necessity for America’s economic security, in part due to its strategic position and natural resource wealth. On Tuesday, he vowed to ‘tariff Denmark at a very high level’ unless it gave up control of the territory.

Meanwhile, the prime minister of Greenland just made the following concession on Saturday, when asked if he had spoken to Donald Trump:

No. But we are ready to talk together. I think we are both ready to increase the dialogue and expand. And thus also talk about the things that bring us together in the world we live in.

We should all be impressed and inspired to see this new Donald Trump, who is relying on his entrepreneurial skills and his relationships skills. He is being firm when the situation calls for it, and is being more nuanced when necessary. And he also has smart, experienced and trustworthy people he can rely on.

He’s becoming a master statesman and a respected world leader.

Image: Gerd Altmann, via Pixabay, from Wikimedia Commons // CC0 1.0 Universal