Policies vs semantics

Lo and behold, President Trump is as underwhelming as candidate Trump. Nothing seems to have changed in his worldview.

During the campaign, he maintained that other countries have taken away American jobs and he would get them back to make America great again. He stressed the need to buy American and hire American. He forgot to add marry American. How would the world look if every country followed the same policy?

Trump has the advantage of ignorance. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be blaming the rest of the world for shutting down America’s manufacturing industries. These were relocated by the US manufacturers to stay competitive by using cheaper labour elsewhere, or simply to enhance their profitability. Besides, globalisation was an idea pushed forward by the developed countries who envisioned that free trade would add to their wealth.

The developing countries undoubtedly gained from new opportunities to do large-scale manufacturing for the rich countries. Their gains in terms of wealth cannot be compared to what the West Europeans and North Americans achieved by maintaining their sale prices and gobbling up enormous profits by getting them manufactured cheaply. The money that has been made in this manner is mostly accumulated in the West.

Chinese billionaires, Russian oligarchs and Indian tycoons have bought assets in the West, recycling the wealth generated in the emerging markets.

Someone needs to educate Trump that forcing Americans to buy more expensive US-made goods will not improve their living standards. Has he consulted American citizens if they want to buy American goods or buy what is affordable? He is 70 and spent his life in the midst of wealth luxury. He speaks of poverty without realising what it means to be poor and what it means to stretch your dollar.

Lo and behold, President Trump says American infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. We can offer him the best expertise available in that field. From new capital cities to gargantuan luxury, gated communities to six-lane motorways we are highly experienced in building all that the poor man can labour to build but not really enjoy. Even our military has been acknowledged as an expert housing developer.

Simple folks like me were bemused by Trump’s idea of making America great again. All along I had learnt and believed that the US was the world’s predominant economic, military and cultural power. All they touched turned to gold. They knew how to produce the deadliest weapons and the swankiest planes. They could build a whole casino city in the desert of Nevada or build a casino called the Taj Mahal.

No President Trump, America is excessively great. It has military bases all over the world. It has invaded countries at will. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the US worked hard to turn it into Moscow’s Vietnam. Their job was not finished until the Soviet Union crumbled. Even then, over 50 percent of the federal budget is spent on defence. Can it be any greater than that?

Trump has promised to eliminate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. Since that horrible thing grew out of American policies, they should know how to eradicate it as well. But Trump does not realise that Muslim countries are the biggest victims of ‘Islamic’ terrorists. He conveniently overlooks that far more Americans have been killed and are being killed because of lax gun control laws.

Trump will also not say a word about the US trailing far behind Europe in providing social security and healthcare. That is precisely where American capitalism has failed the nation. Obama spent his two terms ensuring healthcare for the vulnerable, to the utter dismay of the pharmaceutical industry and other vested interests. The Republicans – including Trump – are hurriedly rolling back Obamacare to pay back their billionaire contributors.

These are some indications of how Trump’s great-again America would look like. No wonder he had to face protests from women and the underprivileged during his inauguration.

As he tries to pursue his pro-rich manifesto, resentment against him might grow – which would influence the popularity rating of the Republicans as well. The next congressional election is due in less than two years. The Democrats are determined to oppose Trump’s anti-people agenda by all means at their disposal. The US has just started living in interesting times.

That Trump has never held public office is a great handicap. It means that he will be learning on the job. It gets more frightening when you think he has no experience of international dealing other than business contracts and has nominated someone who shares the same distinction as his secretary of state. America may be great but it cannot run the world singlehandedly.

Trump’s dream of lording over the world will not be any more successful than Narendra Modi’s similar ambitions on a regional scale. India is the dominant power in South Asia but it cannot expect Pakistan to sacrifice its vital interests to accept India’s hegemony.

In his latest outburst, Modi has offered fresh advice to Islamabad suggesting that Pakistan should “walk away from terror if it wants to walk towards dialogue with India”. India, he said, cannot walk the path of peace alone. Then the BJP leader announced that “those in our neighbours who support violence, hatred and export terror stand isolated and ignored.”

Pakistani spokespersons tend to retort that India, not Pakistan, stands isolated. No country is willing to buy India’s sob stories and cover its policy to strangulate the Kashmiri Muslims. Mehbooba Mufti and others who have collaborated with the Indian occupiers admit that Modi and Co’s reign of state terror in the valley has alienated the Kashmiris beyond recuperation.

Modi’s speech writers must also have realised that the hoax of surgical strikes and Pakistan’s “isolation” has run its course. Hence, the semantics of walking the talk of dialogue and walking the path of peace with India is their way of conceding that the international community has shown contempt for India’s jingoism and threats to break up Pakistan.

New Delhi has also failed to provide proof of Pakistan’s involvement in acts of terror whereas Islamabad has furnished evidence – to friendly governments and the UN – of India’s proxy war against Pakistan. How long will we have to wait till Modi descends from his high horse?

Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com