Article Image

IPFS News Link • Trump Administration

Has Donald Trump Been Forced to Give Up ?

• By Thierry Meyssan Voltairenet.org

Has President Donald Trump abandoned the idea of transforming US politics? Has he bowed to the ex-ruling class of his country? Over the last two months, his administration seems to have restructured AfriCom, CentCom and SouthCom. The first military command of the Pentagon has apparently been authorised to join battle against Chinese projects on the African continent; the second has been engaged to divide the Greater Middle East between Arabs and Persians; and the third to destroy the State structures of the Caribbean Basin. These new missions are accompanied by a return of the neo-conservatives.

Since the mid-term elections on 6 November 2018, President Trump has been under extreme pressure. Federal administrations have been closed since 22 December (the shutdown), because of parliamentary opposition to a budget proposition which included the financing for a Wall at the Mexican frontier. The crisis only came to an end 35 days later, on 25 January 2019, when President Trump provisionally bowed to the demands of the Democratic Party. According to S&P Global Ratings, the shutdown will have cost more than 6 billion dollars, which is more expensive than the Wall it was supposed to economise [1].

During this period, the Trump administration multiplied signs that it was renouncing its foreign and Defense policies, and rallying with US imperialism. Taking into account the real estate promoter's method of governing, it is quite possible that this total change of direction is only apparent, and destined to be called into question on 12 February, the date of the end of the budget agreement. In any case, for the moment, numerous elements suggest that Donald Trump may have given up making the changes he promised.

- On 13 December 2018, at the Heritage Foundation, National Security Advisor John Bolton revealed the new US strategy for Africa [2] :
• (1) develop commerce,
• (2) fight Islamic terrorism,
• (3) verify the use of US aid.

Nothing new, then, apart from the fact that commercial objectives were exhaustively presented not as rivalry against the old colonial powers (France and the United Kingdom), but as a violent combat against China and Russia.

- On 20 December, Secretary of Defense General James Mattis addressed a public letter of resignation to President Trump [3]. Contrary to what was reported in the Press, he was in agreement with the withdrawal of troops from Syria, but was worried about the message that this might send to the Allies of the anti-Daesh Coalition, and therefore the possible end of US leadership [4]. Considering that he needed no public lessons, Trump immediately fired Mattis without allowing him the possibility of exercising his responsibilities until a replacement was found.

However, yielding to his critics, President Trump reversed his position and admitted that the withdrawal of troops would take longer than planned.

- On 3 January 2019, at the opening of the 116th session of Congress, Democrat representative Eliot Engels and Republican senator Marco Rubio tabled two propositions for a law (H.R. 31 [5] and S. 1 [6]) incorporating an almost identical passage aimed at enacting sanctions blocking the rebuilding of Syria. Thereafter, Engels (the author of the Syria Accountability Act of 2003) was elected president of the Chamber's Foreign Affairs Committee, while James Rich was elected to the equivalent Senate Committee. Rich immediately rallied to the proposition of the law against Syria.

The two texts argue that it was the Syrian Arab Republic, and not the jihadists, who tortured the victims photographed in the « Caesar report », which would justify the blockage of the rebuilding of the country. The Senate text goes even further by supporting military aid to Israël, at the very moment when the Hebrew state admitted that it was carrying out an intense bombing campaign against Syria.

midfest.info