AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Guest EssayMay 16, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ETCredit...Antonio Giovanni PinnaListen · 7:40 min By E.J. Dionne Jr.Mr. Dionne is a contributing Opinion writer.You can describe the costs of Donald Trump’s second presidency by the damage he has done — to the rule of law, to the United States’ standing in the world, to the constraints on corruption and self-dealing we once took for granted.As Mr. Trump closes in on 500 days in office, it is even more devastating to measure the extent to which his has become the presidency of lost opportunities.He has wasted the nation’s time and attention span on a festival of personal obsessions: tariffs, Greenland, a ballroom, the outcome of the 2020 election and an ill-considered war. In doing so, he created a public agenda entirely out of sync with the problems our nation needs to solve. He also blinded himself to the ways in which he might have made his presidency more successful and more popular.We are in a moment when we need to build — more housing and better ways to address child care, elder care and health systems. The country also needs to think ahead: about the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence, the need for alternatives to fossil fuels, the imperative of strengthening rather than wrecking alliances and of curbing inequality that is rising unsustainably and leaving nearly 60 percent of consumer spending in the hands of just the top 20 percent of us.My hope is that Mr. Trump’s opponents will set aside the feuding that seems to captivate the Democratic Party and realize that voters are in the market for big fixes to problems that are being left to fester.It’s disconcerting that Mr. Trump’s visit to China this week coincided with a growing consensus in China that he has been, in the words of a Beijing think tank, an “accelerator of American political decay” and thus of American decline. When President Xi Jinping of China made an oblique reference to American decline, Mr. Trump rushed out with an inartful but characteristic social media statement blaming “the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden.”Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT