Strong Men make Nations Weak

Many of my fellow American citizens, maybe because they have little experience of living abroad, don’t seem to realize the enormous damage Donald Trump is doing to the United States as its President.

Yes, a small country like Panama may cower and recoil when threatened with invasion and decide to part ways with China and its “Silk Road Initiative”.

But other countries, more confident in their strength, may take the opposite tack. How many of them are not right now thinking of intensifying the commercial and even the strategic connections with the ascending power from the East?

The damage to the reputation of the United States in the world has been enormous. What will other countries more powerful than Panama think when Donald Trump unapologetically talks about transforming them into a 51st US State or forcing them to concede part of their territories?

Are we back in the 19th century?

I am not even talking about silly, ridiculous things, like changing the name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. Canada and Denmark are certainly not as militarily powerful as the United States, but they are members of NATO, a body that is extremely important to the American government in its desire to contain Russia’s influence in the western world.

When you threaten your fellow NATO members with the unbridled language (not to mention tariffs) used by Donald Trump, how can you expect the rest of world to condemn Russia when it invades Ukraine? When you talk about sending troops to occupy Gaza and make it “the Riviera of the Middle East”, civilized nations will not respect you.

The latest blunder is shutting down USAID, an agency created to spread America’s influence all over the world by the use of “soft power”. Make America popular, make people in other countries follow America’s political leadership, watch American movies, sing American songs, adopt American slang, drink American Coca Cola, go to American McDonald’s, follow the NBA, watch the Super Bowl - in other words, buy American?

And it it obvious that when USAID sends any kind of food, product, equipment or whatever to foreign countries, all of this is acquired from the American market, benefitting American agriculture, industry or technology.

But the message Trump sends to other countries is not “America the Beautiful”. It is “The Ugly American”.

And now it has come to pass that a South African emigré who left his home country because he opposed the end of “apartheid” is dictating Donald Trump’s policy of fascism, racism and imperialism all over the world.

Strong men make nations weak.