An amazing transformation is happening in—and to—America. Like a big ship changing course, President Donald Trump is redefining the United States and refashioning the architecture of global power and trade. Out goes traditional US allies, especially Nato, and in comes, surprisingly, Russia.
The US, to quote Rachel Maddow of MSNB, is changing sides in the middle of a war. It has spent years arming, funding and strongly supporting Ukraine to resist a Russian invasion and an attempt to swallow it.
Now, the US President would not even say that Russia invaded Ukraine, which it did, and is basically blaming Ukraine for the war. The US has frozen all military support to Ukraine, including intelligence briefings, and terribly humiliated its president, Vlodomir Zelensky, in the now infamous Oval Office encounter.
This is surprising. But even more surprising is how President Trump is starting fires all over, inside and outside the country, at the same time.
Law 23 in the 48 Laws of Power states: Concentrate your forces. Gather your strength and focus it at the point where you stand to gain the most, don’t spread your energies thin.
President Trump is fighting an economic war against America’s neighbours and closest trading allies—Canada and Mexico. He has imposed a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from the two nations, accusing the two of not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US.
Canada accounts for only 2 per cent of the fentanyl that gets into the US, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently claimed to have brought down the smuggling to just 1 per cent, thanks to the plan the country announced in December: the appointment of a fentanyl czar to spearhead the fight and a $1.3b investment in border security.
President Trump is like the hyena, in the story, which wishes to eat its own children but it can’t very well tear them to pieces and snack on them out of the blue: it must first look for an excuse. So it accuses them of smelling like goats.
Maybe he is hard-ball negotiating and is declaring trade war to soften the Canadians before hammering them for six. But each of the trade wars—Canada, Mexico, European Union, China, India, South Korea—that the President has started or is about to start, hurts the US a little. Cumulatively, it is going to be a hell of a lot of damage. None more so than its immediate neighbours.
I have read that the supply chain in North America is so integrated that the same product flits across border before it is finally finished.
For example, in the case of a truck, the body is done in one factory in the US, it is sent across the border to another factory in Mexico where the axles are fitted then back to the US for the drive train and finishing. What it means is that every time it crosses the border, its cost goes up by 25 per cent.
President Trump and his billionaire advisors are looking at the US the way they look at business. They think it is all about the bottom-line.
They are doing something that America is not used to: they are retrenching thousands of public servants, some in critical areas such as nuclear safety, weather response and air traffic control.
Parks are closing because staff have been laid off. For Americans, going to work is almost as important as being alive.
“I just want to go to work,” you hear many saying. President Trump is doing this to save money but as someone pointed out, this is not a bottom-line issue. This is a welfare-line issue; keeping people on the job is more important than saving taxpayers’ money.
President Trump has eliminated a lot of foreign aid and all but criminalised USAid. The billionaires are looking at all that money going out to Africa and other “holes” and thinking: “This should be coming to us in tax cuts, not going to some Guinea Worm affair!”
As a result, the US will be like a firm that stops spending on marketing and have a brand that is collapsing in on itself.
The world does not do America’s bidding out of love and fear alone, it also does so because of the large pot of steaming posho that America has now removed from the table.
Thousands have lost jobs, millions will go hungry, others have lost access to education and medical help. It is a strange policy for winning hearts and beating China in the influence game.
It’s good to see former Prime Minister Raila Odinga on the trail talking about the things he thinks Kenyans care about —bankrupt universities, schools without capitation, SHA, abductions, killings and so on. I do hope Kenyans’ appetite for snake oil remains keen.
As for SHA, the Auditor-General’s report makes my news nose twitch like a rat’s. This morning, a nice man told me Mr Odinga is joining government.
As what? Co-President, he told me. For the very first time in 55 years, I was lost for words. I didn’t know what to make of it, so let’s wait and see.
