In an interview with Reuters on
Monday, Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan,
put in bald language the change in the world order instigated by President
Donald J. Trump. “For 80 years,” Balakrishnan
explained, “the US was the underwriter for a system of globalisation based on
UN Charter principles, multilateralism, territorial integrity, sovereign
equality.” That system “heralded an unprecedented and unique period of global
prosperity and peace. Of course there were exceptions. And of course, the
Cold War was still in effect for at least half of the last 80 years. But
generally, for those of us who were non-communists, who ran open economies,
who provided first world infrastructure, together with a hardworking
disciplined people, we had unprecedented opportunities. “The story of Singapore, with a per
capita GDP of 500 US dollars in 1965. Now, [it is] somewhere between 80,000
to 90,000 US dollars. It would not have happened if it had not been for this
unprecedented period, basically Pax Americana and then turbocharged by the reform and opening of
China for decades. It has been unprecedented. It has been great for many of
us. In fact, I will say, for all of us, if you look back 80 years. “But now, whether you like it or
not, objectively, this period has ended…. Basically, the underwriter of this
world order has now become a revisionist power, and some people would even
say a disruptor. But the larger point is that the erosion of norms, processes,
and institutions that underpinned a remarkable period of peace and
prosperity; that foundation has gone.” In its place, as scholar of
authoritarianism Timothy Snyder said to me in a YouTube conversation
yesterday, Trump is aligning himself with international oligarchs like
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin
Salman (MBS), and China’s Xi Jinping. Because of his position as the
president of the United States of America, this means he is aligning the
United States of America with this oligarchical axis as well, abandoning the
country’s democratic principles and traditional allies. On February 28, Michael Birnbaum,
John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison, and Souad Mekhennet of the Washington Post reported that
Trump initially launched the strikes on Iran at the urging of MBS and
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the assessment of U.S.
intelligence that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. and would
not for at least a decade. Both countries see Iran as a threat to their power
and want it weakened. Netanyahu has been eager to get rid of the Iranian
regime for decades and has urged previous U.S. presidents to attack without
success. On Tuesday, March 24, Julian E.
Barnes, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that MBS
sees a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East and so has been
pushing Trump to continue his war against Iran. MBS, the journalists report,
has urged Trump to use troops to seize Iran’s energy infrastructure and drive
the regime out of power. He has assured Trump that the jump in oil prices
will be temporary, although most observers disagree. Judd Legum of Popular Information notes
that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) controlled by MBS invested $2
billion in the private equity firm of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, one
of Trump’s volunteer Iran negotiators, before the war. A report by Democrats
on the Senate Finance Committee and House Oversight Committee released on
March 19 says that “since 2021, Mr. Kushner has collected more than $110
million from the government of Saudi Arabia for investment management
services that have reaped little to no return.” The fallout from the Iran war has
also benefited Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Despite reports that Russia is aiding
Iran in the fight, the Trump administration dropped sanctions on Russian oil
that was already at sea, giving Russia an injection of up to $10 billion a
month into its cash-strapped war effort against Ukraine. Today Trump reposted Russian
propaganda claiming that Ukraine discussed funneling money to Biden’s
reelection campaign. Also today, four Russian lawmakers arrived in
Washington, D.C., for the first such visit since Russia invaded Ukraine in
2022 to talk with lawmakers and officials, “part of the normalization of
relations with the United States of America,” as one of the Russians told the
Russian press. Trump declared he was determined to
achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine, but this week, according to Ukraine
president Volodymyr Zelensky, administration officials said the U.S. would
not guarantee Ukraine’s security unless Ukraine withdraws from its own land
in Donbas. Ceding the region to Russia would essentially give Putin what he
launched the war to grab. It is the same region that was at stake in 2016,
when Russian operatives told Trump’s 2016 campaign manager they would help
Trump’s presidential candidacy if he would look the other way as Putin
installed a puppet over the region. This afternoon, Noah Robertson and
Ellen Francis of the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is considering diverting
weapons intended for Ukraine to the Middle East. They also noted that on
Monday, Pentagon officials told Congress that it was going to divert about
$750 million in funding provided by NATO countries for Ukraine to restock
military weapons in the U.S. instead. About allocating weapons, Trump told
the reporters, “we do that all the time. We have them in other countries,
like in Germany and all over Europe. Sometimes we take from one and we use
for another.” Last week, the U.S. eased sanctions
on banks in Russia’s ally Belarus, and today Trump announced he would ease
further sanctions on Belarus to try to get fertilizer into the U.S. since
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has stopped the transportation of
about 20% of the world’s fertilizer. Also today, Belarus’s president
Alexander Lukashenko signed a treaty with another of Putin’s allies, North
Korea’s president Kim Jong Un, announcing a “fundamentally new stage” of the
relationship between the two countries as they “oppose undue pressure on
Belarus from the West.” Both Belarus and North Korea support Russia in its
war on Ukraine. Trump has openly endorsed Orbán for
reelection in Hungary’s April 12 elections, posting on social media
yesterday: “Relations between Hungary and the United States have reached new
heights of cooperation and spectacular achievement under my Administration,
thanks largely to Prime Minister Orbán. I look forward to continuing working
closely with him so that both of our Countries can further advance this
tremendous path to SUCCESS and cooperation.” Urging Hungarians to vote for
Orbán, Trump continued: “He is a true friend, fighter, and WINNER, and has my
Complete and Total Endorsement.… I AM WITH HIM ALL THE WAY!” The framers of the Constitution
tried to set up a system that would make it impossible for a president to go
to war for private interests or the benefit of other countries, establishing
that Congress alone can declare war. The framers wanted the American people
to weigh in on whether they wanted to dedicate their lives and their fortunes
to a war. But Trump simply began the Iran war
without consultation with Congress, and administration officials have refused
to appear at hearings, instead briefing Congress behind closed doors. At an
annual fundraising dinner for Republican members of Congress, Trump appeared
to acknowledge he was violating the Constitution. He spoke of the “tremendous
success” of what he called his “military operation” in Iran. He continued: “I
won’t use the word war ’cause they say if you use the word war, that’s maybe
not a good thing to do. They don’t like the word war because you are supposed
to get approval. So I will use the word military operation.” Now, as the war costs at least $1
billion a day and Trump’s declarations fluctuate wildly from saying the war
is over to suggesting he is considering deploying ground troops to posting
this morning that Iranian negotiators “better get serious soon, before it is
too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t
be pretty!” even Republicans are starting to have misgivings. The war has
pushed Trump’s approval rating down to just 36%, while a new Reuters poll
shows that only 25% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the cost of
living. Today the stock market, which has generally trended downward since
the invasion, dropped sharply as traders apparently recognized that the cost
of oil is not coming down anytime soon. Yesterday, after a classified
briefing, House Armed Services Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-AL), who backed
the Iran strikes, told reporters that Congress members “want to know more
about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,”
adding, “And we’re just not getting enough answers on those questions.” Chair
of the Senate Armed Services Committee Roger Wicker (R-MS) commented: “I can
see why he might have said that.” In an in-depth interview with Hunter
Walker and Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo yesterday, Representative Joe Morelle (D-NY), who
sits on the House Appropriations Committee, explained how Trump’s Iran
incursion has become a “mess” for the president. The administration has
suggested it is going to ask for $200 billion for the war, and Morelle noted
that we are already closing in on $30 billion in spending on it and that“when
you consider all the things that Trump rejects or the Republicans reject as
too costly, the fact that they have now spent $30 billion in effectively the
span of a month without even talking to Congress about this expenditure is
really somewhat staggering.” Morelle noted that even if the White
House or the Pentagon did start to provide specifics, “I’m not sure it would
matter anyway because the president changes his mind so frequently. He might
say something and literally without exaggeration, a half hour later say
something completely different, or even sometimes within the same press
conference, give two wildly different answers.” Morelle told Walker and Kovensky:
“They fight us on things that will help American families be able to pursue
dreams, take care of the food, housing, and healthcare needs of millions of
families that they can’t afford”—precisely the things that, as Minister
Balakrishnan noted, the post–World War II international order enabled people
around the world to attain. “But,” Morelle said, “they can go into an
ill-conceived military action that has neither the support of Congress nor
the support of American families, which has no clear objectives, shifting
goals, and has alienated our allies and made us less safe.” |
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