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| Trump IS No Isolationist |
But to label Trump an “isolationist” who is taking the United States back to the 1920s is a misdiagnosis.
Given Trump’s manic instability (witness his tweets that can contradict each other several times in one day), it is not easy to pin down his ideological profile. But he is clearly no isolationist.
The only constant about Trump is that he always focuses on himself first. That is why it matters greatly that he has business interests in at least 144 companies in altogether 26 countries.
In his very own way, Trump is the personal embodiment of corporate multinationalism. How else to understand the fact that he brazenly continues to pursue his business interests from the White House?
His connections with Russia are already the subject of a simmering scandal.
At his rallies, he plays to his political base with xenophobic rants. In the real world, he profits from importing goods (instead of buying American, which he is advocating for others) and employs cheap immigrant labor.
Another sign of his corporate internationalism is that, within the first few months, he appointed six alumni of Goldman Sachs to high-level positions in his administration.
This includes the Treasury Secretary, Under Secretary of State, his chief economist, as well as his Deputy National Security Adviser. His Secretary of State was Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil.
He has given the Pentagon and the CIA more power to make decisions on air strikes, assassinations and troop dispositions in the 172 countries and territories in which the United States has a military presence.
And he has surrounded himself with military men. Trump’s chief of staff, national security advisor and secretary of defense are all former generals. They made their careers dedicated to the global projection of U.S. power and influence.
n trying to understand Trump we need to make a sharp distinction between imperialism and isolationism.
During his presidential campaign, many voters were convinced that he would reduce America’s role as world policeman and concentrate on domestic affairs.
Now it is clear that he relishes the global stage. He has turned out to be a blustering egomaniac with an itchy finger on the nuclear button, demanding that the rest of the world submit to him
His September speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations was a bully’s insistence that no one had the right to challenge America’s sovereign authority to impose its will on the internal affairs of other nations.
For these reasons, to consider him a throwback to 1920s American isolationism seriously understates the threat of the Trump presidency. The danger is not that Trump will retreat from the world, but that he will attack it.
Note EU-Digest: Lets hope the EU Commission will stop "sucking its thumb or make empty statements and instead take some urgent counter measures to operate independently on the world stage.
Read more: Trump: No Isolationist - The Globalist
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