Trump Seeks To Eliminate US Foreign Policy Role In Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, Climate And Migration
Trump’s Dismantling Of US Humanitarian Role Killing Millions
In a recent post about Trump’s attacks on education and culture, I wrote that Trump was using the Nazi playbook, under the guise of mandating that all government activity “align” with his personal views:
I) “Alignment” – Totalitarian Consolidation of Power In The Leader
Gleichschaltung.
Trump’s Executive Orders and dictates to the nation’s universities, cultural institutions, State governments, and now K-12 schools mandate that all policies and decisions must be “aligned” with Trump’s dictates.
In another example of that fascist consolidation of power, the New York Times (NYT) reports today that Trump is using exactly the same “alignment” mandate to govern the State Department and core historic objectives of US foreign policy, including professional staff hiring policy (NYT):
The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”
Trump’s twisted “foreign policy vision” includes abandoning Africa and longstanding US foreign policy goals (NYT):
A draft White House executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.
The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.
Here is how the US State Department describes US foreign policy:
Promoting freedom and democracy and protecting human rights around the world are central to U.S. foreign policy. The values captured in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in other global and regional commitments are consistent with the values upon which the United States was founded centuries ago.
No doubt that there have been many major US foreign policy disasters – including murderous illegal wars of choice – that were based on sham assertions of “Promoting freedom and democracy and protecting human rights around the world.”
No doubt that the Cold War, McCarthyism, the Red Scare, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and US military invasions were manifestations and perversions of those goals.
No doubt that the US has used these goals and objectives as propaganda to foster “color revolutions” and stoke CIA coups and regime change operations.
No doubt that these goals and objectives have been relied upon to assert US hegemony throughout the globe and support arrogant US imperialist claims on everything from Manifest Destiny to the Monroe Doctrine, the post WW II “rules based order”, “American exceptionalism”, and the “Unipolar” US dominance after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Some call this the operation of the “Deep State”.
But that does not mean that the goals and objectives themselves are sham and should be abandoned.
Or that the “Deep State” should be dismantled.
And why would Trump want to exit Africa? (coming at a time he seeks to prohibit the teaching of US history of slavery). In more racist practice, the NYT reports that Trump’s Executive Order would:
And it says the department will end its contract with Howard University, a historically Black institution, to recruit candidates for the Rangel and Pickering fellowships, which are to be terminated. The goal of those fellowships has been to help students from underrepresented groups get a chance at entering the Foreign Service soon after graduation.
Instead, Trump’s “vision” for the US role in Africa is explicitly imperial extraction (NYT):
The [Africa] office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”
No doubt that Trump is hell bent on dismantling Biden’s disastrous “America Is Back” and replacing it with his “America First” policy. But in that head to head competition for killing, consider the fact that Biden’s support for Israeli genocide on the Palestinians killed maybe 200,000 people – Trump is killing 100 TIMES that many.
Trump has said nothing about dismantling the US Military Empire and closing some 900+ US military bases around the world or slashing the bloated $1 trillion Pentagon budget.
Now that would really be going after the “Deep State”.