President Donald Trump is delusional. My dictionary defines "delusion" as: "a persistent belief in something false typical of some mental disorders." Even if you generously leave off the last five words of that definition, from all the available data it seems to fit Trump perfectly. Trump, according to the tireless work of the Washington Post researchers, has told over 3,000 lies in his first 500 days in office. Many of them are repeat lies, proving the "persistent belief" part of that definition. Many of these lies are easy to disprove, which checks the "something (obviously) false" box as well. One recent example that Trump has repeated more than once in the past week is his claim that he won the state of Wisconsin in the presidential election, a feat that no other Republican had managed since "Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1952." This is false. It is untrue. Richard Nixon won Wisconsin three times, and Ronald Reagan won it twice -- even though Trump boasted that he had done what Reagan could not. Eisenhower even won Wisconsin again, in 1956. These are not the shifting sands of political opinion, these are basic historical facts which anyone can look up within seconds on the internet. And yet no one has been able to convince Trump that what he is saying is simply delusional. Republicans generally revere the memory of Saint Ronnie, but none of them so far has had the backbone to defend the Gipper's electoral record against falsehoods from their current delusional leader. This is just one small, rather silly example, but it proves the bigger case -- Trump continually refuses to admit he's gotten something wrong, because he sees doing so as a sign of weakness. Therefore, since he said no Republican since Eisenhower had won Wisconsin, it must be true and anyone who says otherwise is attacking him with "fake news."

Lying about the scope of his electoral victory is rather minor, though. Having a delusional worldview while meeting with other nations' leaders is quite another. That impacts America as a whole, because it serves to undermine our standing in the world. In Trump's rather unique worldview, Europe and Canada are our enemies, while Russia and North Korea should be our friends. That would be a jaw-dropping statement to make about any U.S. president, but with Trump it is merely par for one of his many golf courses. Trump has shown, in two recent multilateral meetings between America's closest allies, that he is deeply distrustful of America's staunchest friends and is quite willing to punish them for all their perceived faults. Trump has actually instituted tariffs against our allies using an obscure clause in U.S. law that allows the president to do so unilaterally (without the consent of Congress, in other words) when "national security" is at stake. Trump has claimed (with zero proof) that Canadian steel and European cars sold in this country actually threaten our national security. Again, this is simply jaw-dropping stuff, but so far Congress has not bothered to directly challenge Trump's delusions. The Senate just passed a very weak "perhaps you shouldn't do this" state-of-the-Senate resolution against Trump's national security tariffs, but they failed to even vote on any stronger measure which would have removed Trump's ability to singlehandedly levy such tariffs. So they've dipped one very timid toe in the water, but they refuse to dive in yet.

Trump just finished a meeting of the heads of state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which he further espoused his delusional worldview. In Trump's mind (this is easily proven by his own statements on the matter), the other countries in NATO pay us what amounts to protection money so our military will defend them. This is not at all the way it works in the real world, but Trump persists in believing this is the way it works. We defend them, they pay us, and these other countries (in Trump's mind) are not paying nearly enough to America, and are therefore getting a free ride. Again, this is not the way it works. In reality, each country pays for its own military and they've set a target (years in the future) of each spending two percent of their gross domestic product on funding their own militaries. Note that no money changes hands between them and America -- they pay for their own military with this money. But somehow Trump has never been able to grasp this basic fact. Time after time, he speaks of it as other countries stiffing us somehow, by failing to pay us what they promised they would. There is no other word for this belief than "delusional," folks.

On trade, Trump is equally delusional. To Trump, a trade surplus is a good thing and a trade deficit is a bad thing. Others may believe this basic economic viewpoint, but Trump's interpretation of it is rather unique (and that's just a polite way of saying "delusional," really). To Trump, a trade deficit means that America is paying lots of money for nothing. China, for example, is somehow stealing billions of dollars each and every year from America's pockets. Of course, this is not really how things work in the real world. If I shop at a local supermarket once a week, over the course of a year I will have built up a rather large "trade deficit" with Safeway. But this trade deficit does not worry me in the slightest, because for all the money I have given them, they have exchanged food and other household goods I require to survive. I have gotten value for my money, therefore I am in no way the loser in the transactions, no matter how big the "deficit" I run with them. China gets all those billions by selling us stuff, too, and the trade deficit just means they sell us more stuff than we sell them. If American companies provided goods to the Chinese cheaper than they could make them on their own, we would be running a trade surplus. In either case, nobody's "stealing" anything -- goods and services are exchanged for money.

Donald Trump has never understood any of that. To him, there are winners and losers in the world, and the fact that we run a trade deficit with China means we are the losers, period. Just listen to him talk about it -- it's obvious that this is how he sees the issue. The fact that American consumers can buy stuff cheaper because of this arrangement is completely lost on him. The fact that we get anything at all of value out of trading with China also goes over Trump's head. And yet, after a year and a half in office, nobody's been able to explain any of this to him. He continues to stick to his delusional way of looking at it.

Some of Trump's delusions about the world are longstanding, some are brand-new, and some are merely transactional. Trump has a longstanding belief that Vladimir Putin is a good guy and that America and Russia should be friends. This is about to be on full display, as the two leaders meet one-on-one next week. Any criticism of Russia -- that they shouldn't have meddled in our presidential election, for instance -- Trump brushes off as hardly being worth paying attention to. However, in the NATO meeting, Trump unveiled a brand-new delusion against one of our allies, and hammered on it again and again while the other world leaders rolled their eyes in frustration.

According to Trump, Russia somehow owns Germany, because (again, according to Trump) Germany is letting Russia build a natural gas pipeline which will provide 70 percent of Germany's energy needs. Why should NATO bother protecting Germany from Russia when they have let themselves become a "captive" of Russia? Again, Trump only sees world trade through a winners-and-losers lens. But, as usual, he got his facts wildly wrong. Germany only uses natural gas for 9 percent of their energy needs. Trump's 70 percent figure might have also overstated reality, but let's use it anyway: 9 percent times 70 percent equals 6.3 percent. That's how much of Germany's energy needs will be coming from Russia when the pipeline is turned on. By this measure, America could be said to have been "captive" to Saudi Arabia for a long time. Except, of course, for the reality that that's not how things actually work in the real world. Trump's attack on Germany was, in a word, nothing short of delusional. And that's before you even try to square Trump's attitude towards Germany's pipeline project with his general feelings towards Putin and Russia. How can Russia be the enemy (or even captor) of Germany while also at the same time be such swell guys that they should be invited back into the G-7? It boggles the mind. Maybe he was just trying to gaslight Angela Merkel? Seems appropriate, since natural gas is the substance in question.

Some of Trump's foreign policy delusions are transactional, when Trump himself sees a certain personal advantage to believing something that just isn't so. Exhibit A in this category is Trump's continuing bromance with Kim Jong Un. Trump sees his meeting with Kim as a resounding foreign policy success worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. It reflects on him, in other words, in a very personal way. So he's got every possible motivation to overstate what was actually achieved by this meeting. Which he continues to blithely do.

Trump and Kim met and agreed to some aspirational (rather than concrete) goals that were left undefined, to provide maximum wiggle room for North Korea. Trump surrendered a rather large prize to get even this -- the cancellation of the regular semiannual joint military exercises with the South Korean armed forces. North Korea had long been seeking this, so they were delighted when Trump tossed it on the table in exchange for not very much. Since that point, the North Koreans have actually been expanding their nuclear research facility, as well as reportedly investigating ways to cheat on any future inspections by hiding their weapons where they cannot be found. Mike Pompeo just met with the North Koreans (but not Kim, who was touring a potato farm instead), which went disastrously from all accounts (except Pompeo's initial glowing report). The North Koreans openly mocked Pompeo (telling him he probably hadn't slept well) and then mocked him even more on state media after the meeting was over. Nothing was decided, no visible progress was made, and we haven't even gotten those 200 soldiers' remains from the Korean War the North Koreans had promised. A meeting that was supposed to address these remains had to be cancelled because the North Koreans didn't bother to show up.

But in all of this, the North Koreans were careful not to directly attack Trump himself. Kim even sent Trump a fawning letter, which Trump just released publicly. Trump did so to prove his continuing delusion that Kim is genuinely working hard towards denuclearization, all evidence to the contrary. In normal times, when talks between America and another country begin breaking down, the president addresses the situation in some fashion or another -- by changing negotiation tactics, by public statements designed to change the other side's behavior, by attempting to give a concession or two, or whatever. But Trump insists that everything's going peachy, because Kim Jong Un shook his hand for the cameras. This is perhaps Trump's most dangerous delusion to date. Of course, it is still early days and Trump has been distracted by other matters this week, so perhaps he'll change course eventually. But to deny that there's a problem when the problem becomes glaringly obvious is not exactly the best negotiating tactic in the world.

At the heart of all of these recent foreign policy issues is the same problem: Trump's delusions. If Trump believes one thing, then no amount of people proving to him that he's wrong is ever going to change his mind -- he'll go on repeating his own delusional worldview even in the face of solid proof to the contrary. Europe and Canada can't be trusted, but Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un can. NATO isn't paying us the money it should. China is stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from America, but that's not going to stop Ivanka from manufacturing her clothes lines there. Russia is holding Germany captive because they sell the Germans six percent of their energy needs. At the same time, Russia should be let back into the G-7, because everyone in the Crimea speaks Russian anyway. The North Korean nuclear threat does not exist anymore, because Kim Jong Un is such a swell guy who writes great letters to Trump. The talks are going great, and 200 soldiers' bodies have already come home (even though the Pentagon says they haven't).

All of these seem to be deeply-held delusional beliefs by Trump, and all of them are significantly weightier than lying about the historic size of his election victory. Trump has not changed his basic tune on trade deficits, Russia, or NATO since he took office. The German pipeline is a new one, but it'll likely soon become one of Trump's old favorites (give it time). The North Korean situation is still better than Kim and Trump calling each other names, but it is nowhere near as rosy as Trump currently sees it. On this last one, there is still hope that Trump's advisors will be able to change his mind in the next few weeks (especially if North Korea gets even more provocative than they already have). But in all of these cases, Trump displays "a persistent belief in something false." So why mince words? Our president is dangerously delusional, and we should not shy away from saying so in public.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant