Say what you will about Trump and his team, but boring they aren’t. Every day they say something to make me gasp and reach for my keyboard – and they aren’t even in power yet.
Most of their domestic policies, with the possible exception of import tariffs, sound sensible, but almost everything they say about foreign affairs oscillates between unspeakably rude and deranged. An illustration of the former extreme was served up yesterday by Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s anti-terrorist chief.
Mr Gorka suggested, or rather ordered, that Britain bring back UK members of Islamic State currently held in Syria – or else.
“Any nation which wishes to be seen as a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment,” he thundered. “That is doubly so for the UK, which has a very special place in President Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established.”
‘Re-established’ means it’s currently gone, but politicians in general and MAGA people in particular sometimes use words loosely.
Britain does want to be America’s friend. Friendship is a wonderful thing, and I can attest to that from personal experience. I have several very close friends I know I can count on, as they can count on me. Moreover I value their views and take their advice and opinions seriously.
However, if any of them stated that their friendship is contingent on my running my life according to their peremptory guidelines, I’d suggest they take two words, one of which is ‘off’, and arrange them in the right sequence. America may be “the most powerful nation in the world”, but that’s precisely what any British government should tell US officials who talk to Britain as their subordinate, not just a friend and ally.
The other day America got her own taste of Muslim terrorism, and Britain has had to suffer many more incidents of that nature. Far be it from me to regard any Muslim as a potential terrorist, but there’s nothing potential about the miscreants who have stated and proved their allegiance to the terrorist cause.
By fighting on the side of evil they have forfeited their right to British citizenship, and their potential for recidivism is high. However, if Mr Gorka is so concerned about their plight, perhaps he should use his influence to help them migrate to the US. He made that move himself as a young man, so it’s a well-trodden path.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk continues to dictate lenience for another British criminal, Tommy Robinson, thereby showing he knows next to nothing about British law and understands even less. Now, Mr Musk has self-acknowledged problems with mental health, and he should really seek qualified help before he goes off the rails completely.
Someone calculated the number of messages Musk put on his X platform in just one day. Turned out he was posting once every six minutes on average, and half of his posts concerned Britain’s domestic policies.
It’s heartwarming to see such a busy man taking so much interest in helping the country of his grandparents out of its mire. After all, Mr Musk continues to run three mega-companies, while also trying to come to grips with his brief of cutting trillions out of America’s public spending.
Add to this his obsession with populating faraway galaxies and implanting AI wires into every earthling’s head, and one would think Musk has enough on his plate already. However, he displays nothing short of insane energy in finding time to harangue Britain and demand the ousting of His Majesty’s government. (A note to Elon: ‘His Majesty’ refers to King Charles III, not Donald Trump.)
To be fair, Britain isn’t the only country whose affairs the MAGA crowd wants to run on pain of losing America’s friendship. The other day, Musk’s future boss Trump demanded that NATO members increase their defence spending to five per cent of GDP.
Since America herself only spends 3.4 per cent, this seems unfair, but Trump explained it isn’t: “We have a thing called the ocean in between us, right? Why are we in for billions and billions of dollars more money than Europe?”
There I was, thinking we were talking proportions, not absolute numbers. Considering that America’s GDP is almost twice that of Europe, the greater number of billions may still add up to a smaller proportion. But yes, Europe’s defence does depend on the US to an inordinately great extent, and yes, Europe definitely should beef up its defences – at any cost, given the current geopolitical situation.
Then again, in an age of ICBMs and electronic warfare, “a thing called the ocean” doesn’t offer as much protection as it did in the past. America appointed herself as the leader of the free world, but she depends on the rest of the free world as much as the other way around.
And if Trump chalks up America’s defence spending in the debit column, he should also use his much-vaunted business acumen to figure out the benefits of his country’s leadership position. It doesn’t bear thinking about what would happen to the US (and the rest of the West), for example, if the dollar were no longer the world’s reserve currency. What if the 36-trillion-dollar US debt were denominated, say, in yuans?
It’s like the ledger sheet of a property development project, Donald. You spend so much, you borrow so much more, such is the return to expect – pluses and minuses, debits and credits, that sort of thing. Let’s count the beans on both sides, shall we?
Over the past few days, Trump has also made other pronouncements on foreign affairs that make his mental health as suspect as that of his underlings. Some of his ideas are sound, such as America regaining the control of the Panama Canal she relinquished in 1978 courtesy of Jimmy Carter. (“We built it, we paid for it, it’s ours,” American conservatives were saying at the time.)
But that idea came packaged with other revelations that collectively add up to Trump’s intention to embark on a campaign of territorial expansion, by force if necessary. He has made no secret of the low esteem in which he holds NATO, both as a concept and definitely as it currently is. Yet now he has begun to make thinly veiled threats to invade a NATO member, trying to outdo Putin in that activity.
In his first term, Trump attempted to buy Greenland, the world’s largest island, which is currently an autonomous province of Denmark. Greenland’s prime minister replied the island wasn’t for sale, and the matter was dismissed as an unfunny joke.
Now Trump has declared that Greenland is vital to America’s security, which is why he must buy it, not just continue to use it as home to several US bases. When asked whether he ruled out an invasion if America’s overtures were again rejected, Trump gave an evasive answer.
Even though the territory left the EU after a referendum in 1985, Denmark still controls its foreign and defence policies. Moreover, the EU has stated its commitment to providing “aid and assistance” in the case of an “armed aggression” against Greenland.
Now I was under the impression that Europe should strengthen its defences against such likely adversaries as China and especially Russia. Trump’s hints, dropped with his usual logorrheic irresponsibility, suggest that we should fear an attack from the west as well.
He probably didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and every time Donald shoots off the lip, MAGA zealots insist he should be judged by his deeds, not his words. This ignores the fact that, when uttered by world leaders, words become deeds – and in this case, extremely dangerous ones.
Once he got on his imperial hobby horse, Trump refused to dismount. He also suggested that, since the US is Canada’s biggest trade partner, Canada should become America’s 51st state. By the same logic, the US should become a province of China, a country leading other countries by a comfortable margin as America’s partner in trade.
Canada also happens to be a member of the British Commonwealth, and King Charles is her head of state. Thus Britain may have something to say on this subject, provided Musk allows her to speak.
Trump didn’t say whether he contemplated doing an Aaron Burr and leading a military expedition into, say, Quebec. I wouldn’t put it past him: he seems perfectly capable of saying anything. So there’s another NATO country, quaking in her boots in anticipation of an American invasion.
Compared to that, Trump’s desire to re-baptise the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America sounds rather tame. Indeed, if the French can refer to the English Channel as La Manche or to the Channel Islands as les Îles Normandes, why can’t Trump call that gulf whatever he wishes?
But he ought to give more thought to the new name. After all, technically speaking, Mexico is America too. Perhaps calling it the Gulf of Texas or the Gulf of Dixie would be more apposite, but the possibilities are endless.
I look forward to Trump’s second shot at presidency, if only because I know I’ll never run out of topics to write about. On balance (a word that seems not to figure in Trump’s lexicon), I think his tenure will be a success, certainly domestically.
But if Trump plans to act not as the leader of the free world but as its dictator, he will damage America not only internationally but domestically as well. He is definitely a man of action, but it wouldn’t hurt if occasionally he acted as a man of (prior) thought too.
Children should be seen and not heard. With the pontificate of Francis, I felt the pope should be added to that list (at least the current pope). Now I think we should add President Trump and a long list of his advisors to the growing list. Some people do love their sound of their own voice, and we all know how social media have created a pandemic, but please chaps, spend some time alone with your thoughts and spare the rest of us your infinite wisdom.
No such luck, I’m afraid. They’ll always find a loudspeaker to broadcast their views and a pond in which to admire their reflection.
You’ve put your finger on one of the biggest problems we have to face, which is that people no longer grow up. Statesmen behave like spoilt children because, when they were children, they were spoilt. When they became men, they didn’t put away childish things. They have no dislike of the Nanny State, because they’ve never been punished by a nanny.
The expectation of “human rights” and “social justice” (and all the other nonsense for which the overgrown infant Jimmy Carter, may he rest in peace, has recently been praised) has its origin in the expectation of being allowed to stay up late and have lots of toys to play with.
And this is connected with one of the other biggest problems we have to face, which is that wealth and comfort have made us soft and weak.
In 1916, the Danish West Indies became the US Virgin Islands without any fuss. The USA paid $25,000,000, not a large sum even at the time, but the Danes had been trying to sell it to the USA for fifty years. That’s the kind of thing that used to happen in a sane world.
A mere century later, in a world gone mad, what a kerfuffle!