From Mar-a-Lago to The Hague: How the World Is Watching the Trial of the Century—Starring One Donald J. Trump

The Hague, 31 May 2024 – Somewhere in the marble-clad chambers of the International Criminal Court, clerks are printing out a 37-count indictment that lists, in polite legalese, crimes against humanity allegedly committed by a man who once sold steaks at Sharper Image. The global press has taken to calling the spectacle “Judge Trump,” a phrase that sounds like a low-budget reality show—possibly one where the grand prize is a one-way ticket to a Dutch prison with surprisingly tasteful tulip arrangements.

From the vantage point of, say, a bar in Nairobi or a rooftop in São Paulo, the entire episode feels like America’s long-running sitcom finally jumping the shark. Foreign ministries that spent four years fielding 3 a.m. all-caps diplomatic cables are now drafting congratulatory memos to their legal attachés: Please prepare briefing on how to subpoena a golf cart. Meanwhile, the Swiss—who’ve perfected the art of discreetly storing other people’s problems—have already updated their banking terms to include “seized super-yacht” as a collateral class.

The charges themselves read like a Mad Libs of geopolitical malevolence: conspiracy to overturn an election, mishandling classified documents, and something creatively phrased as “deprivation of honest services,” which sounds suspiciously like every airline loyalty program. But the international subtext is what keeps diplomats awake at night. If a former U.S. president can be hauled into the same dock once reserved for Serbian generals and Liberian warlords, what does that do to the gentle fiction that great powers are, by definition, immune from the rules they write for everyone else?

Europe, ever the punctual hall monitor, has responded with a collective shrug that translates roughly to, “We told you so.” Brussels is quietly dusting off contingency plans for a transatlantic trade war led by someone who thinks tariffs are a personality trait. Across the Channel, the British—fresh from auditioning five prime ministers in as many years—are relieved to discover there’s at least one political system more self-sabotaging than their own. In Paris, waiters report a 300 percent spike in Americans ordering “whatever Macron is having,” apparently under the impression that French jurisprudence comes with complimentary champagne.

Asia is taking notes. Beijing’s state media has produced a 12-part documentary titled “Rule of Law, American Style,” complete with dramatic reenactments and a laugh track. Japan, ever polite, has issued a travel advisory warning citizens that U.S. political rallies now carry “unpredictable plot twists and possible indictments.” South Korean analysts are busy calculating the over/under on whether Trump will surrender voluntarily or insist on a red-carpet perp walk. (Vegas currently has the latter at 3-to-1.)

The Global South, meanwhile, is enjoying the schadenfreude buffet. Kenya’s leading newspaper ran the headline “World’s Policeman Gets Parking Ticket,” while Argentina’s vice-president tweeted a picture of herself sipping mate with the caption, “Ex-presidents in handcuffs? Amateur hour.” Even the Taliban issued a statement—delivered, ironically, via WhatsApp—reminding Washington that they, too, once faced “unfair treatment” after losing an election.

All jokes aside, the trial—if it ever happens—will be less about one man’s Twitter archive and more about whether the post-1945 order can survive its own creator’s nosedive into jurisprudential purgatory. A conviction would confirm what smaller nations have long suspected: sovereignty is just a polite word for “you first.” An acquittal, on the other hand, would prove that impunity scales with GDP. Either way, the precedent will be studied in law schools from Lagos to Lahore under the chapter heading “How to Lose an Empire and Alienate People.”

So here we are, watching the world’s most heavily armed democracy argue over procedural minutiae while the planet boils and billionaires race to colonize Mars—presumably so they can reenact this whole circus under lower gravity. The rest of us will keep refreshing our feeds, half-hoping for justice, half-hoping for better memes. Because if history teaches anything, it’s that when empires fall, they don’t go quietly; they hire a production crew, sell the streaming rights, and release the blooper reel six months later.

Lights, camera, arraignment.