The age of Trump – Part 2

 At the end of the day, whoever the American electorate settle for as their president – be he a goat, madman, genius, saint or scoundrel — is stricto sensu a matter for the Americans and nobody else. And yet, we as foreigners have legitimate grounds to be interested in the final outcomes. For better or worse, we live in the shadow of the American industrial juggernaut. Whoever sits on the high magistracy of the world’s greatest economic and military power not only sets the tone for the world; what he chooses to do or not do will ultimately shape the destiny of entire nations, and probably the collective life-chances of billions of people on our planet.

In concluding this piece, I would like to review the key elements of Donald Trump’s declared domestic and foreign policies and what they portend not only for America but also for the rest of us.

Donald Trump’s economic policy goals are anchored on creating what he terms a ‘dynamic booming economy’ that will generate over 25 million jobs in the coming decade. He targets a growth rate of between 3.4 and 4 percent in the coming years. He hopes to achieve these goals by boosting investments in physical infrastructures while removing irksome regulations and streamlining taxes. He also aims to leverage on the over US$50 trillion shale oil and gas reserves while advancing US energy security and self-sufficiency. He has indicated that he will reduce the corporate tax from 35 percent to 15 percent. His personal income tax plan will make the poorest groups pay more while relieving the richest segments from their tax burden, a rather regressive approach to public finance. It is clear from simple calculations that his tax plan will increase the burden for the poorest groups while giving relief to the upper crust. It will also entail withdrawal of about US$5 trillion from government coffers, thereby worsening the public debt.

 

In the infrastructure sector, Trump aims to boost deficit-neutral projects in transportation, including cost-effective roads, rail lines, bridges, ports and pipelines, in addition to electricity, clean water and telecommunications. He also plans to revitalise the ailing steel industry and make it once again the ‘backbone’ of the American economy. He also underlines the need to improve project delivery and incentives-based contracting to ensure that infrastructure programmes are completed on time and with the highest standards.

His human capital and education policies are, at best, wishy-washy. With regard to health, he has nothing to offer other than an avowed commitment to reversing Obamacare, the closest thing to universal health coverage that America has known.

In the area of defence, law and order, Trump has promised to boost capacity and effectiveness by increasing the military budget. He will set the military-industrial complex to work building more carriers, armoured tanks, fighter jets and submarines. He has also said that he will audit the Pentagon to ensure it optimises both value for money and efficiency in delivery. Like all conservatives, he reaffirms the Right to Bear Arms; completely ignoring the fact that gun control is a necessity if America is to escape its dubious prize of being the homicide capital of the world, with its nihilistic culture of random, gratuitous violence.

It is on immigration that the president-elect has won his greatest notoriety. There is the famous wall that he intends to erect across the 2,000 km border between Mexico and the United States. Trump has promised that he would not only go ahead with the project, he will make the Mexicans pay for it by taxing the remittances that that they wire to their families back home. He has also promised to deport some 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also made strong noises against Muslims and people from terrorist countries. In addition, he had threatened that Muslims will have to prove that they have absolutely no links whatsoever to terrorist or extremist movements before they can gain entry into the United States.

Trump’s foreign policy ideas have been a mixture of realism and fantasy. He has promised to kick some member countries out of NATO for not paying their dues. His rhetoric has been tough and uncompromising, resonating with many of his supporters. He has made it clear that he will be a sworn enemy to terrorists and extremists everywhere. He has promised to make America safe again.

In international economic relations, he has been expressly opposed to free trade and is bent on revoking the trans-Atlantic Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) linking North America to Asia and Australasia. Unless he is persuaded to change course, we would expect that the entire TPP project will have to be shelved for the moment. Trump happens to believe that the Chinese have used all forms of subterfuge to steal American jobs and to make the American market a dumping ground for their products. He promises to impose unilateral tariffs on Chinese goods, regardless of the fact that such tariffs may be in breach of international trade laws as enshrined in the WTO. He seems to overlook the fact that a lot of these products coming from China are produced by American and European firms who have re-located to the Middle Kingdom, taking advantage of lower labour costs and cheaper availability of other critical inputs.

Astonishingly, he has indicated that he will renegotiate the financial securities held by foreigners as a means of reducing the US public debt. Standing currently at US$19 trillion, the US public debt represents 102% of GDP. The Chinese alone own US$1.3 trillion of these securities. The idea of unilaterally renegotiating those debt instruments will undermine America’s status as the safest issuer of debt instruments and could erode the status of the dollar as a global reserve currency, and ultimately, the stability of the international financial architecture as we have always known it.

If he does make good his threat on climate change, we should expect Washington to repudiate the Paris Treaty while pulling out resources meant for the fledgling Climate Fund. Strangely enough, Trump seems to hold the view that the entire climate discourse is largely a hoax promoted by the Chinese to undermine American manufacturing.

During the campaigns, in an unprecedented move, some 370 prominent economists took a public stand against Trump’s economic policies, dismissing them as posing “a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country”. In a list that included Nobel winners such as Angus Deaton of Princeton, Kenneth Arrow of Stanford and Oliver Hart and Eric Maskin of Harvard, they sombrely concluded: “His statements reveal a deep ignorance of economics and an inability to listen to credible experts. He repeats fake and misleading economic statistics, and pushes fallacies about the [value-added tax] and trade competitiveness. He promotes magical thinking and conspiracy theories over sober assessments of feasible economic policy options.”

 

In foreign relations, Trump is gunning for an America First policy. While he intends to continue to work with Western allies in safeguarding international order while fighting common enemies such as terrorism and Radical Islam, Trump is insisting that those who benefit from the American nuclear umbrella must pay for it. This would include countries such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, Egypt and Israel.

The president-elect has not minced words in making it known that he has blood account to settle with ISIS and their fellow-travellers. He shocked the world when he described President Obama as “the founder of ISIS”. There are strong currents of thought that believe that ISIS, an infernally evil terrorist organisation, may have been put together by secret powers that desire to plunge the Middle East into chaos as a prelude to fomenting a global war that will lead to the emergence of a so-called ‘New World Order’. We as yet have no evidence that ISIS is the creation of the Obama administration, but the way they have pussyfooted over Syria and ISIS – with a mysteriously Delphic obfuscation and ambiguity – is troubling to all men and women of conscience.

Indeed, there are many in Nigeria who believe that Obama knows a thing or two about Boko Haram and the murderous herdsmen who are waging a silent genocidal war in the Middle Belt of our country. These murderers are using American weapons to commit violent aggression against our country, most of them from shadowy American training camps just off our borders. And for the umpteenth time, Obama has recently blocked our government’s bid to purchase military equipment for the legitimate purpose of defending our people and territorial borders as enshrined in the hallowed precepts of the Law of Nations. And to add insult to injury, they have refused to classify Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation even when they killed more people than the Taliban and al-Qaida put together. The fact that some of our bravest officers are being mowed down in the battlefront in all sorts of unbelievable ambushes is evidence that the insurgents are benefiting from satellite imaging technology that gives them full prior information of the movements of our brave soldiers.

Each time the State Department included Nigeria on the list of his African tours, we are told, Obama would strike it off with a red pen. I have reason to believe the Obama administration has never wished us well as a country. It is a paradox that the world’s greatest black nation could be treated with such contumely by — of all people – the first African-American President in living history. It says more about the man than about us.

If history is any guide, the Republican leaders have often treated Africa better than the democrats. The two Bushes have been genuine friends of our country, as have been the Clintons. I am led to believe that President Donald Trump, in spite of his uncouth ejaculations, will prove to be friend rather than an adversary in the manner that Obama has made himself out to be.

Unlike Obama, Trump has been particularly hawkish in relation to Israel, insisting that Jerusalem must be the undisputed, eternal capital of the Jewish people. He and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seemed to have struck it off rather well. His rapport with Vladimir Putin has also surprised foes and friends alike.

A good number of observers of contemporary Russia do not realise that Vladimir Putin has become, of late, a fervent adherent of the Orthodox faith. He follows a long tradition of Russian thinkers – from Vladimir Solovyev to Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Berdyaev and Vladimir Lossky — who envisioned Russia as the New Rome, the custodian of the one holy and apostolic faith. Old Rome is viewed as the corrupt harlot that has prostituted herself with Nazism and the evil pagan gods of this Babylonian-dominated world. Holy Russia — the New Rome – sees herself as the bearer of a destiny that will redeem the world. Indeed, those who have visited the villages and towns of Russia these days testify to a new spiritual rebirth that is taking place in that country — pure and authentic in a manner never seen in the West in living memory.

The West, led by the EU, provoked Putin to no end by placing nuclear weapons in Poland while insisting that Russia’s closest neighbour, Ukraine, joins both the EU and NATO. Russia annexed the Crimea in what was clearly a pre-emptive strike. The evangelical Christian Right vote was decisive in clinching the presidency for Donald Trump. He has found a kindred spirit in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Ultimately, an alliance between Trump, Putin and Netanyahu provides an intriguing scenario of the kind of world that will emerge before us.

Remarkably, president-elect Trump has made only cursory if any, of references to Nigeria and Africa. During the elections he referred to Nigerians as a band of scammers who scrounge on American jobs. He also made quite uncomplimentary remarks about our own President in a manner that amounted to a gross violation of diplomatic etiquette. Interestingly, he has replied all the world leaders who sent him congratulatory messages. But he is yet to reply to President Buhari’s olive branch of goodwill. It is a silence that speaks volumes.

President-elect Donald Trump has been variously described as a populist, authoritarian nationalist, a xenophobe, misogynist and racialist. He is a phenomenon that could only have been made in America. Although just as wealthy as Trump, Il Cavaliere Silvio Berlusconi of Italy makes a rather poor copy compared to The Donald.

I have been a student of the American Republic from the time I learned to read at the feet of my maternal grandfather. America for me represents the most successful empire ever designed by human ingenuity. Americans pride themselves in their manifest destiny and Exceptionalism. And for good reason. Theirs has been the most successful experiment in democratic government since Athenian Greece. Americans are a great people, capable of compassion, self-sacrifice and international humanitarianism. Indeed, without Woodrow Wilson’s Atlantic Charter which proclaimed the right to self-determination for all colonised peoples, Africa and the rest of the developing world might not have thrown off the shackles of colonial oppression at the time they did. American liberal internationalism gave the world the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. American charities from the MacArthur and Rockefeller to Carnegie and Bill and Melinda Gates have been all over our benighted continent doing a lot of good works – binding the wounds of the sick and broken-hearted, providing succour for the hungry and for refugees and destitute — expanding the possibility frontiers of welfare, justice and peace.

But we would be naïve to overlook the other side. America is an empire. Empires, by nature, are never run by nice guys. Rather, they are governed, by and large, with the sword. The American imperium is no exception. America, sadly, remains the Mecca of racism, white supremacy and Global Apartheid. Some of the thinkers that have shaped my mind the most have been Americans: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, William Dubois, Ralph Bunche, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, Leo Strauss, John Rawls, Joseph Stiglitz, Billy Graham and Noam Chomsky, among others. The world as I have known it has been a better place because of America and Americans.

Most American leaders of the last few decades have tended to be members of the Bilderberg Group, a secretive organisation of the most influential intellectual, political and business elites in the West. It is a group that arrogates to itself the powers of God Almighty Himself: to decide the fate of nations, identify future leaders and decide those who will control governments and international institutions. Africans are not allowed into those inner sanctums. Rare for an American president-elect, Donald Trump’s name has never featured in the Bilderberg meetings that are strictly by invitation only. In that respect, we could say that Donald Trump is the quintessential outsider beholden to no extraneous, subterranean interests. It is a plus for him as far as I am concerned.

However, I still have my worries that the Trump presidency will accentuate rather than mitigate the negatives inherent in the American imperial tradition. Is he the harbinger of a New Enlightenment or another Caligula and precursor of a new Dark Age? Only time will tell.

 

The late Stanley Hoffman, distinguished professor of government at Harvard, was a scholar of uncommon perspicacity and wisdom. He once observed that American international behaviour throughout its history tended to oscillate between isolationism on one extreme and cosmopolitanism on the other. This time around, it would seem, the pendulum has swung decidedly to the right. We have to brace ourselves against the headwinds as the new elephant begins to dance. There will inevitably be a lot of dust and debris. But there will also be opportunities.

 

My fears are assuaged by my hope in the innate goodness of the American people, some of whom I have had the honour to count as friends. It is for this reason that I could never be anti-American. I also believe that the institutions of American democracy as eulogised by political thinkers from Alexis de Tocqueville to James Q. Wilson and Samuel Huntington will survive and endure as they have done since the young republic was born in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Twice in the space of a generation in our epochal twentieth century – the bloodiest of all the centuries — American statecraft and treasure saved the world from barbarism and ruination. At its best, America is a force for good. After all the dust and all the tumult, that capacity for goodness – for standing up when it matters most – will hopefully never desert the American people in times like these. We can only wish them and President Trump well.

 

Obadiah Mailafia