The US State Department will close all but one consulate in the biggest country in the world soon. In Washington, elected officials are considering sanctioning India because they bought the world’s best air-defense system, the Russian S-400. From Algeria to Venezuela American economic sanctions take food from billions of hungry mouths. In Iran, the people cannot even get the COVID-19 vaccine on account of US policies. Pretty soon, much of the world will find itself labeled as enemies of the democracy that once represented peace and friendship. The question is, “what will the sinking world opinion mean for the American dream?”
The Norwegians have been pressured to lay off the Nord Stream 2. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has even gone so far as to sanction officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration has dealt with the world like diplomacy were a reality show starring the meanest, most bombastic, and narcissistic businessman to ever sign a contract. Meanwhile, Trump’s son-in-law adviser finally brokers a deal to save the family’s ass-ets, and 666 Fifth Avenue, after an apparent mafia-style arm twisting of the Qataris. The Saudis are ready to lift an airspace blockade of their neighbor, now that an investment firm owned by the Qatar sheiks has bailed out the royal son-in-law.
China has been blamed for a virus the American president ignored. All those countries who signed up for Paris and the climate emergency, are “losers” to Trump and his populist supporters. And the emerging countries of the world are either “shitholes” or “banana republics” to the crew that’s been running Washington. Now, Kushner, and by proxy Trump, stand to reap humongous profits when distressed properties get snapped up on account of the Coronavirus pandemic economic catastrophe. Kushner’s company is already set to raise $100,000,000 in a bond offering on the Israeli Stock Exchange.
The reality of the Trump/Kushner policy endeavors amounts to an international protection racket. Kushner, the Israelis, and corporate players are essentially throwing whole societies under the bus so that Israel gets a free hand. Take the Morocco case, as a for instance. Kushner helped broker a deal to normalized Israel/Morocco relations, that eliminated any hope the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara will ever have self-determination. Trump’s deal recognizes Morocco’s claim to a territory disputed by the UN-recognized Polisario Front. The deal also includes the weapons system to kill off any Sahrawi resistance, the sale of MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones. With increasing frequency and severity, the United States of America is forcing its will onto the rest of the world.
If the Morrocan case were not proof enough of mafioso-style dealmaking, the case of Sudan’s $335 million ransom, and the fact the country’s leader is one of the perpetrators of the 2019 Khartoum massacre, are even more dastardly. The Trump administration brokered this deal with Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan in exchange for a $335 million deposit supposedly for victims of Sudan terrorist activities. al-Burhan is a brutal dictator who stood by and watched his soldiers kill, rape, and torture his people in the streets of Khartoum.
Trump and Kushner tried bribery to cheat the Palestinians out of any hope of becoming an autonomous state in Bahrain. When that plan did not take hold, the slum lord son-in-law and his presidential pappy turned the thumbscrews tighter and offered to lift crippling sanctions imposed because of long-held animosity by Arabs, and support for terrorist groups. The bottom line being, the Trump administration would forgive Osama bin Laden himself, if the price were right. And the price in this case is Israeli expansion and more Trump wealth. Unfortunately, Trump and Co. are taking America down like the Titanic.
Foreign Policy Magazine framed it well back in July with “Four years of neglect, unilateralism, and failed diplomacy have left America’s alliances in tatters.” As authors, Pete Buttigieg and Philip H. Gordon put it:
“Indeed, among all of Trump’s foreign-policy legacies, none may be more consequential than the damage he has done to America’s standing, influence, and power in the world by weakening the system of partnerships and alliances the country has created and relied on for decades.”
In June contributors to The Guardian asserted that Trump was tearing America apart. In October, Nature claimed that Donald Trump had “damage science”, saying it would take decades for us to recover. A story in The Atlantic by Eliot A. Cohen claimed Trump is ending the American Era. And on the human rights front, Donald Trump has taken America back half a century with his questionable, often cruel leadership and policies. These Columbia Law reports reveal the American nobody from my generation ever wanted to see.
From separating children from their illegal alien parents to resending discrimination laws and healthcare initiatives, Trump’s rule is just like the statesmanship of Titanic’s captain. The ship of American dreams may as well not even have a rudder, because we are perpetually piloted by those convinced icebergs don’t exist. At his infamous speech before the UN, President Trump chastised the assembly:
“We have it in our power, should we so choose, to lift millions from poverty, to help our citizens realize their dreams, and to ensure that new generations of children are raised free from violence, hatred, and fear.”
Never in the recorded history of humanity has any powerful leader done more to condemn himself or his people, before the eyes of the billions focused on his claims. Trump, if anything, seems to have been on a mission to do exactly the opposite of what he professed. And with his errant stewardship, the dreams we all held so tightly when I was a young man, they have drifted farther away than ever before. I can only imagine how the people of the world abandoned by America, must feel. America has struck the iceberg of hazardous detente, and her captain stands waist-deep in frigid waters bragging about his ship’s speed, denying the tragedy at every turn.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
