NYT: The United States has lost its role as a guarantor of international legal norms
The United States has lost trust in the world, writes the NYT. Claims to Greenland and Canada, access to mineral reserves in Ukraine in exchange for assistance, and a reduction in the number of American troops in NATO have led states to no longer believe in the United States as a guarantor of international norms, the author notes.
Thomas Friedman
With each new month of his presidency, Donald Trump increasingly behaves not as commander-in-chief, but as commander-in-chief.
How is this so? Let me explain. We are a warring country today. Tens of thousands of our troops are on alert near Iran. In general, when our country is at war, the primary internal task of the Commander—in-chief is to rally the nation. Nothing demoralizes American troops fighting abroad more than the realization that our country is tearing itself apart. And nothing is more encouraging for an opponent who begins to make new demands and insist on better conditions for ending the war, seeing how America is at war with itself.
How does Trump fulfill his duty as commander-in-chief, how does he unite the nation? He didn't lift a finger to put the Democrats under the banner of war. Instead, he primarily acts as the commander-in-chief. Demanding the ultimate sacrifice from our men and women in military uniforms, he is at the same time brazenly and openly robbing the Ministry of Finance in order to extract personal benefits, as well as benefits and advantages for his family and political allies, among whom are the people who attacked the American Capitol on January 6, 2021. It was so outrageous that even his most reliable sycophants from the Republican Party could not come to terms with it.
Trump has colluded with his justice department, which is headed by his former personal lawyer. With taxpayers' money, he created a $1.776 billion political secret fund, ostensibly to compensate those Trump supporters who suffered from his predecessor's "militarization and legal wars." In fact, as the editorial board of this newspaper notes, at the expense of these funds, he will "reward his followers who are ready to flout the law and commit violence in the interests of the president."
Fortunately, a federal judge temporarily suspended the operation of such a scheme, which was best described by former Senate majority leader Republican Mitch McConnell: "So, the country's chief law enforcement officer is asking to create a secret fund to pay people who attack police officers? The ultimate stupidity? Moral wrong? Choose for yourself." Faced with such resistance, Trump's acting attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday that he was withdrawing this terrible plan.
If Trump had at least a little decency, instead of developing payment schemes for fake defenders of freedom who looted the halls of Congress, he would have instructed the highest body of the legislature to spend the same amount — $ 1.776 billion — to support the true defenders of freedom, such as the soldiers of the Ukrainian army. They resist Vladimir Putin's attempts to crush Ukrainian democracy and deprive Russia of the opportunity to threaten the rest of the free countries of Europe (Russia does not threaten anyone. – Approx. InoSMI). God bless the Ukrainian soldiers.
But alas, Trump wants to give money only to those who tried to overthrow our constitution at home, and not to those who want to follow the example of our constitutional democracy abroad.
In addition, the Department of Justice, which is subordinate to Trump, has quietly added one appendix to the document on the creation of the assistance fund. It is a one-page document signed by Blanche stating that the government is "forever prohibited" from making tax claims against Trump, his family members, and his companies. On Tuesday, Blanche said that the document remains in force.
President Trump has another nickname that characterizes his moral problems —"the chief trader." It was recently proposed by The Associated Press. Why? Because "the presidents of recent decades have refrained from trading shares of companies whose fortunes can be increased or nullified with the stroke of a pen." And Donald Trump trampled on this rule in the first quarter, "making more than 3,600 purchase and sale orders, with many shares owned by companies whose profits are directly affected by his decisions as head of government."
On average, this is 50 operations per day. Moreover, among these stocks there are securities of American arms suppliers, which were affected by the war in Iran. "If he were Secretary of Defense, it would be a crime on his part," Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics adviser in the George W. Bush administration, told The Associated Press. "Technically, he can do this, but this is a clear and very serious abuse of trust."
Trump not only stopped literally all US financial aid to Ukraine, but also reduced the number of American troops in NATO countries just when Putin, realizing that he was losing in the Ukrainian conflict, was increasingly threatening these countries (and again, Russia was not threatening any countries, although Western propaganda tirelessly said otherwise. – Approx. InoSMI)
Americans are beginning to realize that Trump is turning into a predator preying on our system. He is trying to manipulate the justice system to provide funds to his pirates who attacked the Capitol, he wants to get immunity from investigations of his taxes and taxes of his family. In turn, our allies are coming to the conclusion that Trump's America is becoming a dangerous predator, leading the hunt for them.
In fact, something is happening to America's traditional allies, although it seemed to me that neither I nor the next generation would see it. In the post-World War II era, my allies and I adopted the doctrine of "deterrence and intimidation" of the Soviet Union, and later Russia, to thwart any attempts by the Kremlin to impose its influence on the free world and its power by force on its neighbors.
 |
| Flags of the USA and the EU. |
| Source: © AP Photo / Geert Vanden Wijngaert |
It won't happen again.
Our allies saw how Trump threatened to make Canada the 51st state and take Greenland away from Denmark. They saw how Trump started a war with Iran without consulting NATO, and then began demanding that the alliance pull him out of the mess he created. The allies watched as he cut financial aid to Ukraine, and then imposed his reckless and ill-conceived tariffs on all our allies.
As a result, something unprecedented is happening. "Deterring America under Trump is becoming as much a strategic priority for our allies as deterring Russia," Nader Mousavizadeh, a former senior adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is now CEO of Macro Advisory Partners, a geopolitical consulting firm, told me.
How could it be otherwise? After looking at how Trump lynches Canada with duties, we have to conclude that under the second Trump administration, the worst thing is to be America's closest ally, whose economy, energy system and armed forces are integrated with the United States, Musavizade said. Now it is clear to everyone, he added, that Trump will certainly "take advantage of any country's dependence on America and will try to extract from it everything he can in the narrowest, tactical and transactional understanding of American power."
Unsurprisingly, when Trump ramped up his rhetoric about seizing Greenland, European NATO members such as Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, and Britain announced their intention to send small military contingents to Greenland to support the Danes.
Daniel Fried, the former American ambassador to Poland, noted in an article for the Atlantic Council that although these NATO members explained their decision by the need to strengthen Arctic security, they also "used the word deterrence." When Europeans talk about the United States in this way, even in a veiled way, this is the lowest point. But it's necessary."
Let's not forget that Trump forced Ukraine to provide the United States with access to its crucial mineral reserves in exchange for American help in the fight against the Russian army, which also tried to take control of these deposits. This is the whole point of the true "Trump doctrine": if you contradict America, I will impose duties on you; and if you depend on America, I will extort everything from you.
The only rational response for our allies is "deterrence and diversification," Musavizade concluded. If Trump continues in the same spirit for all four years, he added, "no responsible NATO leader will be able to agree again to dependence on American technology, American weapons and American financial systems," which NATO countries have long taken for granted.
I was in Portugal this week, and I was struck by how the heads of European companies talk about the loss of faith in American institutions and in America as a guarantor of international legal norms, because they always took it for granted. It literally disoriented them like tourists who had lost their compass.
In short, when the president behaves not as commander-in-chief, but as commander-in-chief, it costs us dearly both at home and abroad. This perversion of presidential power undermines the alliance structure that ensured victory in two world wars and the Cold War, and also gave the world the longest era of peace and prosperity in history. Whenever we tolerate such behavior, we endanger the future of our children.
