- In the Court of ‘King Trump’
- No More USAID?
- The Gaza Imbroglio
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Trump Rules Like a King Gone Mad!
So far, the second Trump administration has featured a familiar pattern, writes Fareed Zakaria, the CNN-host of the segment Global Public Square in his latest The Washington Post column: ‘The president makes big, dramatic announcements and then his coterie of aides, Cabinet secretaries [ministers] and supportive Republican lawmakers must pretend to policies are great, and the wins impressive, no matter what.’ The similarity with the analogy of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ is unmistakable!
Trump’s Tariffs – A Joke
Trump’s threats of tariffs on Canada and Mexico produced few meaningful gains.
Zakaria writes: “The ‘concessions’ that Mexico and Canada made were either small-bore or policies they were already pursuing…
“Mexico agreed to send thousands of troops to the border at the Biden administration’s request – and is doing the same for Trump…
“In the case of Canada, Trump’s own statement on Truth Special [Trump’s own platform] notes that Canada was agreeing to ‘implement’ its border plan (much of which had been announced in December).”
The move to dismantle USAID [US Agency for International Development] prompted Secretary of State Marco Rubio to blast an agency he had supported in the past.
Trump’s Gaza announcement drew praise, even though many of his backers had previously admired Trump’s desire on get the US out of foreign wars and occupations.
There is no one critical of Trump. His advisers, aides and ministers have been reduced to creeps, flatterers, grovelers and bootlickers!
Therefore, Zakaria argues “Trump’s White House is now a [Royal] court, and his courtiers scurry around aware that the mercurial monarch might change his [poisoned] mind at any time…
[Trump’s brain rot is already at an advanced stage!]
“TikTok is terrible” can suddenly become ‘TikTok is great!’ – and they need to pivot quickly…
“The largest effect, though, is on American democracy. Scholar Francis Fukuyama has noted that the history of modern government has been a steady movement away from ‘patrimonial’ rule – the rule of a single strongman to benefit his family and friends – towards rule by institutions and rules and norms.
Fukuyama notes that in the United States, we are seeing the return to patrimonial rule as ‘citizens freely debating laws are replaced by supplicants begging the king to favour their interests.’
The Trumpian Blitz
With a buyout offer to federal employees (halted for now by a court), the ongoing move to unravel USAID (also paused partially by a court), a freeze on federal grants (also paused) and Elon Musk’s extra-governmental DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) reform unit’s proximity to the US Treasury’s payment’s system, David Wallace-Wells argues in a New York Times guest opinion essay that the early days of Trump 2.0 have featured “a blitzkrieg against core functions of the state, operating largely outside the boundaries set by history, precedent, and constitutional law, and designed to reduce the shape and purpose of government power to the whims and spite of a single man. Or perhaps two men.” [The second being Musk].
Foreign policy can be subtler, more obscure terrain, but in his Substack newsletter Home & Away, Richard Haass (former President of the Council on Foreign Relations) marvels at the drama of Trump’s foreign-policy pronouncements.
“It is impossible not to be struck by the hubris of it all,” Haass writes.
“Taking Greenland. The Panama Canal. Canada. An now Gaza. Trump 2.0 is grandiose in its aims…
“History matters not’…
“Nor do the desires of others…
“We already have four candidates for the 51st state in less than three weeks…
“Somewhere someone is surely designing the new American flag…
Haass cannot discern much of anything in the way of a:
- Traditional formal policy process
- One in which the situation is carefully assessed,
- Relevant history introduced,
- Options developed and weighed,
- Risks and costs factored in,
- Tradeoffs debated, and
- Implementation considered.
Haass writes that “it is easy to get things wrong when policy is made in such a haphazard way . . .
“This account of how the president arrived at his Gaza policy is equal parts instructive and unsettling.”
The End of US International Engagement?
A judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s move to put at least 2,200 USAID employees on paid leave.
But Trump’s attempt to dismantle the US Agency for International Development has been met with intense criticism from the American foreign-policy community.
USAID distributes non-military US foreign aid around the world.
At The Wall Street Journal, senior opinion editorial producer Mark Kelly says that the agency’s supporters point to its life-saving assistance and the goodwill (and soft power) it buys for the US globally.
Trump has pointed out that unwinding USAID will save money.
[This is typical for Trump’s lack of vision and dynamic and strategic statecraft – which requires an understanding of the correlation between development aid and US vital national interests].
On the Center for Strategic and International Studies podcast The truth of the Matter, CSIS Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative Director Noam Unger points to the chaos sown by the sudden and drastic move to all but end the agency.
US “embassies around the world…are busy trying to sort out the implications of this, as opposed to the countless other things that they’re supposed to be doing on a daily basis,” Unger says, describing USAID as “a protection of US foreign policy, of US priorities around the world.”
Samantha Power who directed USAID during the previous administration writes in a New York Times essay: “Many of the Hungry and sick people who depend on U.S.A.I.D. are at risk of dying…
“Unless these cruel and immensely counterproductive actions are reversed…
“Future generations will marvel that it wasn’t China’s actions that eroded U.S. standing and global security, paving the way for Beijing to become the partner of choice around the world…
“Instead it was an American president and the billionaire he unleashed to shoot first and aim later, eliminating an institution that is a cost-effective example of what once distinguished the United States from our adversaries.”
Trump’s Misplaced Rationale
Of course, the move fits well within Trump’s agenda of pulling America back from its decades-long role of underwriting and upholding the Western-dominated, institution-infused global order – on the theory that the US gets taken advantage of and can strike better deals by throwing around its weight.
At the World Politics Review, Paul Poast writes: “Such a ‘soft power’ argument” for continuing USAID “may not hold sway with those who want the U.S. to play a lesser role in the world. Having prestige and status abroad doesn’t matter if your focus is largely, even exclusively at home. Giving aid might be what is done by the leader of the free world, but not if that leader would rather be left alone.”
[But as have seen, Trump wants to have it both ways – in fact, many ways].
At the Carnegie Endowment’s Emissary blog, Stewart Patrick acknowledges the same while offering sharp criticism: “No recent move tells us more about President Donald Trump and his administration’s disdain for America’s global reputation…
The episode reveals the transactional nihilism at the heart of Trump’s foreign policy, which recognizes no positive purpose for the United States in world affairs…
“If the agency dies, so will many innocent people…
“And so will the still-lingering reputation of the United States as a country that takes an enlightened view of its own self-interest and stands for more than just itself in world affairs.”
Trump Complicates Matters in Gaza
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first foreign visitor to be invited to the Trump White House since his inauguration.
He arrived a happy man given the outcome of the US presidential election and his own improved approval ratings at home.
And he left even happier, as Trump doubled down on previous comments suggesting that the inhabitants of Gaza would be better off settled down elsewhere.
More specifically, Trump declared that “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip…
“We’ll own it” [!]
He did not rule out sending American troops, saying “We’ll do what is necessary.”
Palestinians would be resettled (presumably forcibly, if need be) elsewhere, although some would be allowed back to live among people from all over the world in a rebuilt Gaza that would become, in Trump’s own words, the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
White House officials attempted to walk back Trump’s comments, saying U.S. troops and dollars would not be required and that any resettlement would only be temporary.
But there was no walking away from the proposal itself.
Indeed, officials said Gaza would be handed over to the United States by Israel once the fighting ended.
But as Haass indicated in his newsletter, Gaza is not Israel’s to give and there is no prospect that the fighting would end if any of this were to be implemented.
Haass also notes that it is easy to ridicule and dismiss Trump’s proposal as the non-starter it is, but his ideas are also dangerous.
They have already been rejected by Palestinians of every stripe, by Arab governments, including closest US regional partners, and by European allies.
The proposal which contravenes international law, makes it more difficult for Saudi Arabia and Israel to find mutually acceptable common ground.
Indeed, the Kingdom released a statement almost immediately after Trump’s remarks and explicitly reiterated that it is unwavering in its demand that a Palestinian state be a condition of normalizing relations with Israel.
Trump’s proposal will only work to strengthen the hands of radicals in the Palestinian world and the far-right in Israel.
And Haass is of the opinion that it will make it even more difficult for the U.S. government to carry out effective diplomacy and see that the Gaza ceasefire deal is implemented in full.
Jordan is particularly vulnerable, be it to a U.S. aid cutoff if it refuses to go along with Trump’s plan, or to demographic and political destabilization if it does.
The Israeli right will run with this as a model for the occupied West Bank and will complicate any efforts by this or any government there to engage in traditional, i.e., realistic diplomacy.
Supporters of this new approach argue current policy has failed for some time and it is necessary to think outside the box.
But as Haass points out, this misses the point that current policy is failing because among other things, the United States has not done nearly enough over the years to promote steps that would increase prospects for progress and rein in those that undermine it.
Furthermore, Donald Trump has the backing at home and the standing in Israel to move things in the right direction.
Haass stresses that this will require that he approach the region not as a real estate developer but as a political leader.
But this is asking too much of Trump. He will surprise everyone, if he demonstrates that he is capable of doing so. It will be equivalent of the leopard changing its spots.
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