The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, is proving to be a man of his word even as his methods tend to engender concerns in those who think that more damage will result if he continues on his present trajectory.
Through hastily couched executive orders, he has set in motion a drive to rid the country of those he believes are not legally supposed to live and work in America, not minding their contributions to the overall socio-economic life of the nation. During the campaigns, he promised that he would embark on a project of deporting those he described as illegal aliens. The concern is that the exercise is becoming indiscriminate.
Already, there are complaints that those residing legally in the country are beginning to be caught in the frenzy to rid the nation of suspected criminals and other undesirable persons.
There also seems to be an international backlash, as some Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Guatemala, and others, are closely monitoring the situation so as to have a concerted response. These are countries that are considered allies of the United States of America, especially in the drug war.
The purge seems not to be limited to illegal aliens alone, as some government departments have embarked on a process of ridding their offices of those believed not to be sufficiently loyal to the Trump administration, just as many are being offered generous payoffs should they decide to resign. The sacking of Inspectors General, the independent watchdogs in bureaucratic circles, has even been declared illegal and unconstitutional.
An opposition politician in that most powerful country in the world has raised an alarm that the freezing of funds for grants and aids, which Congress, the legislative arm, had already appropriated, may have plunged the country into chaos. That and the suspension of citizenship by birth rights are already being challenged in the courts. How those pan out with the surfeit of conservatives in the entire gamut of the federal judiciary going up to the Supreme Court will determine what measures concerned citizens may be disposed to adopt to stop the Trump whirlwind.
However, of more significant concern is Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organisation (WHO) again, as he did in his first tenure. He has also pulled the country out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, even though the devastating effects of fire in California and flash floods in other parts of the country are blamed on the adverse climate. Regardless, he urges a hastened exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels, a major cause of ozone layer depletion.
Trump also boasts of using tariffs to whip countries into line. He used them in Colombia to force that South American country to allow US military aircraft carrying immigrants to land and threatened to apply them to Canada and Mexico, fellow members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with China to follow soon.
He had joked about making Canada the 51st state of the United States and even acquiring Greenland by military force if necessary. We use the joke advisedly just as we bear in mind that nothing is beyond this man with a king-size ego and megalomanic tendencies.
As a newspaper, we concede to Trump his America First propensities and their isolationist implications just as we remind him that no country can go it alone in a world that is, in truth, a global village.
That Trump is carrying on as if the world is unipolar is, to say the least, anachronistic. With China hot on the heels of the United States daring to take over as the world’s largest economy, it becomes necessary for someone to put a leash on this loose cannon. We were also of the opinion that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) summit in Russia late last year that drew countries like China, India, Brazil, some Arab countries and South Africa together would have sounded a note of warning to Trump and his ilk, who still wallow in the long-forgotten feelings of America as a shining city on a hill.
During the campaigns, there were fears that Trump, without a guardrail, would not be healthy for America. With the calibre of nominees he is pushing forward for cabinet positions, it is becoming obvious that he has a game plan that may, invariably, do the United States no good.
Even as we express reservations about Trump’s audacity, which makes him perceive his country from the narrow prism of a gladiator in shining armour, we commend him for standing up to the courage of his conviction. In particular, we applaud his position on gender, in which he insists that only males and females exist. More impressive is the drive to bring Americans back to God.
However, we urge him to tread softly and spare a breath for the sensibilities of other nations. We appeal to him not to put the United States’ assumed invincibility in overdrive and to use that country’s fabled power with the utmost discretion. Taking other nations for granted or attempting to subject them to misguided irrelevance could be counterproductive.