Donald Trump and his transactional presidency

Deccan Herald

10 hours ago

If, shortly, you read that Donald Trump has managed to annex Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Palestine, you should not in the least bit be surprised. After all, Trump, no original thinker, has been following in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the US, and Adolf Hitler – two men for whom territorial expansion through military might, economic blackmail, and genocidal practices was perfectly acceptable. Thucydides, the 5th century BC historian and author of The History of the Peloponnesian War, famously wrote, 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.' It is only a matter of time before Trump's bullying tactics will result in the whole world, save China, giving in to his demands..Were Trump's territorial expansion plans to come true, the new US would be the largest country in the world, and its population density would go down almost 50%. Annexing Canada and Greenland will add 4.8 million square miles and 43 million people to the American Empire. The latter figure would only be 33 million if one takes into account Trump's plans to deport over ten million 'illegal' immigrants, almost all of whom are non-white, to various third countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and South Sudan, which would result in a 30% increase in the combined population density of these countries. Contrast this with the 100-year Pax Britannica period, 1815 to 1914, when Britain added around 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people to its empire..There is an ulterior motive behind Trump's plan to grab Canada and Greenland. These two countries have enormous mineral resources, especially rare earth minerals that are essential in powering electric vehicles, data centres, and consumer/military electronic products. Currently, the US relies on China for its supply of rare earth minerals, a state of affairs that challenges its hegemonic status in the world..Trump's stated intention to grab Palestine and expel its occupants to parts unknown is reminiscent of what President Andrew Jackson (1829-37), labelled 'King Andrew', achieved through the genocidal Indian Removal Act of 1830. The act, which authorised the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories, resulted in the militarily forced displacement, by foot, of over 100,000 native Americans (thousands died along the way) from the southeastern states to the less desirable central regions. The native Americans were granted US citizenship only in 1924 through an act of Congress; however, they could not vote – a right that was conferred upon them only in 1965. In his second term as President, Trump has been actively pursuing the elimination of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, and, unfortunately, he seems to be succeeding..A major cause of World War II was a wrongly perceived need for more living space ('Lebensraum'), Hitler's desire to expand Germany's borders to the east. Hitler was motivated by the so-called Septemberprogramm, a memorandum of German war goals in 1914 which proposed economic and military dominance through territorial expansion in Europe and the colonies in Africa..MAGA plans.Trump's 'Make America Great Again' is no different from the British Empire's rationale for justifying the Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60 between Qing-dynasty China and Britain – two wars that were more about European mercantile interests forcing China to legalise opium, thereby protecting an illegal and very profitable opium trade by East India Company to overcome a huge trade deficit. The US has a current trade deficit of $295 billion with China..The most punitive of Trump's latest tariffs have been directed at China and many developing and less developed economies in the Global South, in particular Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar – countries which are easily susceptible to being economically and militarily coerced by the US into forming alliances against China. Just recently, Vietnam was coerced into allowing Trump to set up his first golf course in the country. The latest US Defence Intelligence Agency's report characterised China, not Pakistan, as India's principal adversary. If India is forced into an alliance with the US against China, it will end up as collateral damage, much like Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.In keeping with his goal of attaining national purity by getting rid of 'undesirable' populations, Trump has dismantled all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) programmes set up by previous presidents and shut off their funds. Eager to please Trump and ensure their government contracts are not impacted, private companies and universities have followed suit by cancelling their own DEI programmes. Trump and his MAGA followers are committed to making America white again, a hearkening back to a pre-civil rights, slave-holding America. Were you aware that the grandfather of Trump acolyte Elon Musk moved from Canada to South Africa because he preferred to live in racist white South Africa, and that some of Trump's forebears actively collaborated with elements of the Third Reich? As the saying goes, 'the apple never falls far from the tree'..Martin Luther King's dream of his children 'one day living in a nation where they are not judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character' is far from being realised. Trump's slogan of making America great again is only about making America a right-wing white Christian nation and spreading, through military might and economic domination, this unipolar message across the globe. The unipolar message, greatly amplified by social media and Big Tech, does not resonate with China. Pax Britannica culminated in the First World War. Will Pax Americana follow in its footsteps?.History teaches us that trade wars invariably end up being shooting wars. A third Opium War is in the offing, and it is not going to be pretty..(The writer is a retired professor; he has written extensively and presented lectures on the societal and geo-political implications of technology)