Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Among tariffs, territorial ambitions and other threats to America’s well-being by Pres. Trump, one of the more severethreats may be his willful ignorance concerning the severity of climate change. Michael Mann, one of America’s most highly regarded climatologists, noted that the Trump Administration has given polluters and fossil fuel promoters, “the keys to the fossil fuel car allowing it to be driven over the cliff”.
But there are other pressing problems in Trump’s first 100 days in office, with one receiving a good deal of attention: “Tariffs”. Over 125 years ago, President Trump’s predecessor, President William McKinley, set in motion policies involving high tariffs. He initiated the Tariff Act of 1890 which began with a 38% tariff, whose purpose was to protect American manufacturing, but the result was that farmers paid more for their imported farm machinery and received less for their agricultural products on international markets, thus worsening their financial hardship.
President Trump is replicating another McKinley policy 125 years ago when McKinley expanded America’s land acquisitions by initiating the Spanish-American War to acquire the Philippines. The historian, Alfred McCoy, who has written on America’s invasion of the Philippines, observed that the result was the deaths of tens of thousands of Filipinos. This was done in spite of efforts by the Anti-Imperialist League, led by Mark Twain and the psychologist William James, to prevent American imperial wars.
Alfred McCoy, in a recent article, quoted a passage from The Second Coming, a poem by the Irish poet, WB Yeats: “…what rough beast, its hour come round at last/ slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? This quote was meant to illustrate the failure of past imperialisms and the foreboding sense of future territorial conflicts. In times gone by, the Panama Canal Project twice suffered failure, despite considerable investment by a French “Compagnie Universelle…”. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt persuaded Congress to purchase the rights to complete the Canal.
But it was not for these reasons that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Roosevelt; Rather it was for his efforts in bringing together representatives from the Russo-Japanese War in Portsmouth, NH in 1905 in order to negotiate a peace treaty. Perhaps there is an opportunity for President Trump to gain the same prize if he can broker an equitable and fair settlement between Russia and Ukraine.
Following WWII and the formation of the United Nations, the U.S. made a collective decision to forego any further territorial ambitions and devote its energies to Commerce and capital rather than conquest. A “new world order” was defined by the U.N. Charter of 1945 which guaranteed all nations the right to Independence, alliances such as NATO, free trade without tariffs, and assurances of sovereignty rights. The UN Charter codified the “major principles of international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations”. Over the intervening years American wars have been fought, although not over the acquisition of moreterritory.
“Caption: The Antis. Here, take a dose of this anti-fat and get slim again! Uncle Sam No, Sonny!, I never did take any of that stuff, and I’m too old to begin!” “Illustration shows a huge Uncle Sam getting a new outfit made at the “McKinley and Company National Tailors” with President McKinley taking the measurements. The strips on Uncle Sam’s trousers are labeled “Texas, Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, Florida, California, Hawaii, [and] Porto Rico. Carl Schurz, Joseph Pulitzer, and Oswald Ottendorfer stand inside the entrance to the shop and Schurz is offering Uncle Sam a spoonful of “Anti-Expansion Policy” medicine, a bottle of which each is carrying. On the right are bolts of cloth labeled “Enlightened Foreign Policy” and “Rational Expansion.” Illus. in: Puck, v. 48, no. 1226 (1900 September 5), centerfold. 1900 by Keppler & Schwarzmann. Public Domain.
We are now facing an attempt to resurrect McKinley’s ghost by appropriating foreign territories, imposing tariffs on allies, while trying to make “deals” on an international level. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it” announced Trump, concerning the acquisition of Greenland. A Trump advisor revealed that acquiring Greenland is of strategic importance in order to control the Arctic shipping lanes as climate change melts the Arctic sea ice at five times the global average. One would think that the rapid melting of Arctic ice would make Trump more aware of climate issues, but the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords Indicates that he is unwilling to link ice melting with climatechange.
In Ukraine Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy means that he is willing to go “full steam ahead” to gain “peace” but only if mineral rights are gained while large swathes of Ukrainian land would be ceded to Russia. This kind of devil’s bargain will be hard for the Ukrainian people to swallow, especially after sacrificing tens of thousands of young men to the conflict with Russia.
In another area of conflict, Gaza has suffered enormously from bombs supplied by America that has obliterated its buildings and caused 50,000 deaths. Trump believes it is acceptable to transfer 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries. He appears to view land in terms of real estate rather than as a homeland for Palestinians, thus betraying an inability to understand the profound relationship which Palestinians have with their ancestral land. His lack of sympathy for a Palestinian State is contrary to the support given by 146 out of 193 member states of the U.N. including Ireland and Norway. Trump’s solution for Gaza’s 2.2 million residents Is to build six “safe communities” outside Gaza while America would build a “Riviera of the Middle East” to rise from the ashes. Despite the desperate circumstances most Gazan residents are suffering, they show no inclination to accept this proposal. These residents are descended from the 750,000 that had been compelled to leave their homes in 1948, after which Israel expropriated 5 million acres of Palestinian land.
President Trump’s transactional approach is his unilateral offer to make Canada the 51ststate. A recent poll taken in Canada indicates that 91% of Canadians are completely opposed to this proposal, Although Trump’s aggressive rhetoric has become normalized in the U.S. he is viewed with alarm and fear by most Canadians who don’t know whether to laugh or cry at his clownish demands. Trump’s view of Canada as being an appendage to the U.S. is coupled with threats of 25% tariffs, which is precipitating a once-friendly neighbor into a state of puzzled estrangement.
Is Trump a trustworthy arbiter in Ukraine or Greenland or Palestine or Canada? He seems unable to sympathise with two sides in conflict zones, nor does he seem willing to sympathize with underlying ethnic or religious differences; At the same time he does not grasp the animosity he is creating in Greenland, Gaza, Canada and Panama by the crudeness of his approach. Perhaps his MAGA followers really believe that, despite his showmanship and buffoonish behavior, he is an inspired leader and that there is purpose to his seeming madness.
One person who does not see any purpose to his “madness” is James Carville, an advisor to the Democratic party who advises that: “Democrats should sit back and watch Trump self-destruct”. In a recent interview he maintained that Trump “identifies with criminal regimes in the world. He loves dictatorships. He “doesn’t like the Constitution…
“Can you love the country and not love the Constitution….He doesn’t like our alliances… He doesn’t like the people we have formed relationships and friendships with. He doesn’t believe in separation of powers. He believes he is above the law. In fact, “deep down, Trump hates America”, or the version of America that does not agree with him.
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