It was quite interesting reading Chidi Amuta’s treatise on the Trump presidency and the implication of his ‘global alienation strategies’- in his attempt to ‘Make America Great Again’.
Dr Amuta’s proclivity and abilities for fine words in written form are not in dispute. So also is his cerebral fecundity, methinks. He has proven that over the years. Talk of consistency! And to boot, years ago when some of us were far from where we are today, Dr Amuta had already established a reputation to be envied.
I am not sure that Dr Amuta has lost his touch in the present times but if there is any one issue that casts a bit of doubt on his present abilities, it is in his treatment of the Donald John Trump phenomenon. And he has certainly weighed in a bit in the past few months on all things Donald Trump. Methinks that anytime he has weighed in on issues concerning the now 47th president of the United States, either pre or post election, he has always done so largely devoid of those innate intellectual, academic, historical, and raffinements intellectuels (French) on which he built his reputation all these years. What could be responsible for this deficit from a mind so brilliant?
The danger of writing on the Orange man is the propensity to do so from either of two extremes – a love/hate perspective. As a result of the well known and well dissected Trumpian contradictions, It has become incredibly difficult to maintain a detached disposition in a literary assessment of the man Trump and his politics. This is perhaps, why, after an assessment of America’s political terrain in 2024, an elated Dr Amuta gleefully declared just before the American election that come the 5th of November 2024 Kamala Harris would be the new American president.
His treatment of the issues he addressed in the piece were patently devoid of research, written with pure emotion and jaundiced every step of the way with conclusions built on quick sand arguments.
Dr Amuta in his treatise on Russia as a permanent traducer of America and Europe was completely off the mark, showing perhaps that he had not properly followed the dynamics of global politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His thesis that Russia under Vladimir Putin has always been hostile to Europe and the United state is as false as false can be. On the contrary, from the moment he becane president of the Russian federation, Putin was under the notion that Russia could have a more friendly relationship with the Europeans and Americans and actually pushed NATO for either membership or partnership with the alliance. His desire for friendship with Europe was based on pragmatic politics. Obviously he was frustrated and angry about the fall of the Soviet Union and blamed Mikhail Gorbachev for that. But he was smart enough to realise that an economically and militarily weakened Russia needed the help that Europe and America could give.
It wasn’t long before he realised that capitalism is not a charitable ideology. It thrives on profit and takes no prisoners. If the west was going to help Russia, it was going to be absolutely on its terms. Russian interest was secondary. After all, Russia had lost out in the over 50 years ideogical conflict between east and west. In other words, the West had the upper hand and would drive home the advantage. Besides, Putin’s Russia did not possess the requisite democratic credentials as well as embrace of western values. A dictatorship of the Putin type and style was not going to be allowed in Europe.
The proof of western hostility to Putin’s Russia was in the three phase admission of former satellites of the Soviet Union into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – a move that many in the capitals of Washington and Europe had assured his predecessors, Gorbachev and later, Boris Yeltson would never happen. Numerous top American ambassadors, statesmen, and those from the intelligence service attested to this at various times, including the late Henry Kissinger and Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense and head of the Central Intelligence Agecy.
On USAID, the dominant discussion right now in the United States, a lot of disturbing activities have been uncovered concerning this very important institution that was founded by the late John F. Kennedy as a symbol of America’s soft power.
Known as the U.S. global puppet master, the USAID has been accused of manipulating foreign elections, pushing ideological and cultural goals globally amid attempts to undermine foreign governments as well as pushing for regime change in foreign countries.
That the USAID has been vital to communities and certain positive causes across the world, especially in third world countries is not in dispute. Their interventions have been in the areas of humanitarian aids, medical interventions, education etc. These activities should continue as the restructuring of the agency goes on.
But one must not be averse to the wayward trajectory that this institution has been subjected to in recent years and the bullying tactics and blackmail used by USAID against weak and vulnerable peoples and countries. The recently appointed Secretary of State, Marco Rubio recently talked about reports from American embassies about how USAID has used it’s assets in their host countries to forment trouble and encourage citizens’ dissent. There are also stories about how USAID collaborated, sometimes with the State Department through the CIA to insidiously and clandestinely overthrow ‘unfriendly’ governments across the globe. The recent activities by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has uncovered a labyrinth of deception and mind-numbing corruption in USAID. Now it has been discovered that the USAID action somewhere along the line is also said to have left visible footprints at the now ‘infamous’ Wuhan laboratory in China.
The scandal has been mind-blowing and has exposed the cultural shift and direction within the organization. The revelations revealed a disturbing trend of payments to terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, the Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko-Haram, etc.
This is not new. But what is perhaps new is the wokeness within USAID. Payments running into millions of dollars have been funneled to organizations in Eastern Europe, Asia, Iran, etc. to promote and undertake gender surgeries and drag queen activities, foster DEI and create an Iran version of the famous children’s series, ‘Sesame Street’, as well as fund a transgender dance class in Colombia. And then there is the procurement of condoms for Hamas and the people of Gaza. How all these and similar outlandish absurdities help in promoting America’s strategic national interest is mystifying. The USAID has seemingly become a nest of strategic incoherence as well as graft. It’s a bit surprising that Dr Chidi Amuta spoke about USAID only in superlatives.
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He captured it correctly when he asserted that America has always courted both friends and foes alike. But he got it wrong by claiming that the ranks of the haters of America will increase because of Trump and his Tariffs. Nothing could be further from the truth. America as a working, viable, going concern was on the verge of almost being destroyed under the ‘crazed’ democrats.
Any political party or government that would deliberately allow the kind of illegal immigration of about 15 million people in a record time of about three years as happened in America had to be ‘crazed’.
From New York to Chicago, to Texas and Georgia, the democrats were spending billions of dollars to cater for illegal migrants, including putting them up in fancy hotels and dislocating students to provide them accommodation, using their schools. They gave them thousands in dollars including android phones. Mind you, these were the people who broke the law. And all these happened while many citizens, including blacks, hispanics, brown people, and combat veterans were in the streets without shelter.
And what did an open border bring to America? It brought death in the form of fentanyl, the drug that kills tens of thousands of Americans annually. It also brought all manners of unvetted people who turned out to be criminals and possible terrorists.
Contrary to what Amuta claims, the booing of the American flag in Canada and perhaps other places as a result of the Trump tariffs are temporary and are a reaction to the emotions of the moment.
Perhaps Trump might eventually come unstuck. Perhaps, he might fail to make America Great Again and that would be a disaster as he seems to represent America’s last chance at some sort of redemption and resurrection. But what is important is that Trump’s threats are working handsomely – for now. The countries of Canada and Mexico are complying. Venezuela and Colombia are coorperating and China is asking for dialogue. The Japanese premier was in America a few days ago, followed by King Abdullah of Jordan. And who knows! He might just succeed in turning America round.
As for America’s long standing and natural friendship with Europe, Trump’s second coming can only shake it up some more and force the European block to be more responsive rather than reactive to issues of great concerns to them, especially as regard regional security. Once more, the days of rich Europe cuddling up to America to continuously pick the tab on security spending for common defence and joint protection are over. Europe can be made much more militarily stronger, not weaker if they spend more to protect themselves and the Trump presidency will guarantee that.
Secondly, the issue of trade and economic relationship between America and Europe is now under review as Trump insists on better concessions from the Europeans to American business concerns. Tariffs from the Americans are being wielded to elicit greater coorperation from the Europeans and, like the Canadians and Mexicans, the voices from Europe are becoming more reconciliatory.
Lastly, undergirding the European Union’s engagements in the next few years are the implications of the cultural issues brought about by the Trump presidential win. It will not be out of place to say that conservative leaders like Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Victor Urban of Hungary have been strenghtened by what happened in America on November 5th 2024. Most importantly, they will have the support of other conservative leaders who have been hiding in the shadows in the Union for fear of labelling, and attack from their more ideologized leftist counterparts. The leftist liberals in the European Union is set for an unprecedended assault in the coming years as Europeans continue to push back on an ideology ‘gone too dangerously far’
The public rise of Donald Trump, the growth and progress of his businesses under various political establishments, and his determination and efforts to pull down the political establishment establishment is nothing short of a mystery – almost unfathomable.
The Orange man is indeed more of a mystery than the world realises. And the strangeness of the mystery around him is that mysteries are created in darkness, in secret, in silence and in the shadows. It is clandestine and sometimes plays in the labyrinth of deception and manipulation. Trump’s mystery is created in the public space, in the full view of the world. It adds to his personal strenghts and weaknesses. One could argue that though a product of various political establishments under which his businesses thrived, of recent he has become detached and alienated from the political establishment of the present times, its foibles and idiosyncrancies to the extent that he is doing his damnadest to pull it down as promised to the American people.
Surely he is not to be cloaked with a veneer of invincibility and perfections. He has his warts and deficits like all of us.
To have a man, an entertainer and businessman who was never a practicing politician, never contested local, state, and federal elections become the president of a country like the United States is the stuff that fiction is written about. To have him come back to power four years after being rejected by the same people is nothing short of phenomenal. And all this happened as he faced the biggest biased political witch-hunt in perhaps American political history as well as attempts to assassinate him to stop him from taking power. It is why Politico, a media outfit not friendly to Trump recently described him as perhaps the most consequential president in American history.
The Trump presidency has catalysed the opening of a pandora’s box in American politics and exposed that country’s ugly underbelly, at least in recent times. It is why perhaps, all others things being equal, the next four years might see a rennaissance or renewal of the United States domestically as well as hopefully, a less belligerent America in global politics. The first proposition (making America great again) is probably more likely to happen than the second. How Donald Trump will achieve American greatness without exploiting the weaknesses of others remains a mystery. Perhaps he has a solution.
Back here in Africa, perhaps in a perverse way, it is refreshing to know that corruption and mind-numbing wastes are not the continent’s exclusive preserve. Others countries in Europe have also been bitten by bug of corruption and graft. Their saving grace for now are the political institutions and economic systems (some have described as virulently exploitative of vulnerable countries). It would be quite interesting if Donald Trump’s DOGE can be replicated in Europe. It will uncover a long hidden truth: that Europe lost its way a long time ago.
.Chude, a social and political affairs commentator is also the National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
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