We should hope the U.S. doesn’t take on the character of its president

Organizations take on the character of their leader.

Today, the U.S. is on its way to becoming a freeloader nation. Just as our president was in his business life — not paying contractors and vendors the agreed-upon price for their products and services after receiving them — we have begun freeloading on the rest of the world.

This jumped out from my reading of the G20 meeting results. Though our country contributed one of the greatest shares of the global warming gases that threaten our civilization, we are now relying on the rest of the world to resolve the problem by reducing their emissions as we renege on our commitment to do so.

So Donald Trump is bringing his unethical business style to the country. The freeloader-in-chief, during the campaign, proposed to pay off the national debt for pennies on the dollar and force Mexico to pay for a “beautiful new wall,” among other “America First” ideas. Do we, the most prosperous and powerful country in the world, really want our country to be a taker as the rest of the world carries our load?

I hope not!

This story was originally published August 4, 2017 at 7:48 AM with the headline "We should hope the U.S. doesn’t take on the character of its president."