America Last?

 

Our president was elected on a promise to Make America Great Again, but he lied. Almost everything he has done has weakened our country. Let’s look at some of the things that he has done.

Foreign Policy

In foreign policy, making America great again has taken a form he has called “America First,” but that has turned out to mean “American Alone.” Mr. Trump foolishly thinks that we are strong because we stand alone. He does not understand that allies make us stronger and that preserving our alliances makes us stronger not weaker. So, he is willing to sacrifice alliances built over many years for small, domestic political advantages. The latest expression of his view is his executive order suspending sanctions on Russia in order to allow us to import Russian diesel fuel in the hope that the price of diesel fuel will come down before next month’s election.

This action flies directly in the face of the policies and interests of our NATO allies in Europe. They are supporting Ukraine against Russia because they see Russia’s expansionism as a threat to all of them. They see Putin as today’s Hitler, and they remember Munich. So, they ask themselves, “If Putin can take all or part of Ukraine, what is to prevent him from focusing next of Romania or Poland? 

Trump doesn’t care about any of that. He is willing to throw away NATO and the support of our European allies for a possible electoral advantage in November. He is willing to give up our position as “leader of the free world” and thereby to weaken the United States in the hope that a few Republicans may be elected to Congress next month. How will Europeans ever trust NATO or the United States again?

Trump also appears to be willing to dump our Arab allies in the Middle East. The current war with Iran has shown that the United States cannot or will not defend our Arab allies against attacks by Iran or its proxies like the Houthis. There can be no doubt that our position in the Middle East will be permanently weakened. Trump's foolish support of Netanyahu in Israel's upcoming election can never make up for the doubt in the minds of our Arab allies.

Immigration

In running for office, Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigration, and he has done so with a vengeance. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been arrested and imprisoned or deported. It was always obvious that the mass deportation of immigrants would damage our economy, especially in sectors like construction or agriculture that depend on immigrant workers. Today, crops are rotting in the fields because the workers who used to harvest the crops have disappeared, and an article in the New York Times tells us that the cleanup from Hurricane Isaias in Florida may well be delayed because workers are afraid to show up for work.

As if that were not enough, we learn in a recent article that the deportation of immigrant workers will reduce the income of the Social Security System on which millions of Americans depend in their retirement.

In order to satisfy the racists who elected him, Trump has damaged America's economy and made the people who voted for him more insecure and impoverished.

Taxes

Trump’s signature economic policy is the huge tax cuts that he passed in both his first and second administrations to please the billionaires who funded his campaigns. Those taxes have widened the government’s deficit and forced the government to borrow more money to pay its bills. To cover its debts, the government has had to resort to “printing” money, and the result has predictably been rapid inflation. The costs of basic consumer goods like housing, food and gasoline have risen dramatically, and millions of working Americans are suffering.

At the same time, Trump has raised tariffs on many imported goods. A tariff is a consumption tax, and it falls heavily on working Americans because they spend most of their incomes to buy the things that they need to live. Rich people are less affected by the tariffs because they spend a smaller proportion of the incomes on consumption. Indeed, it appears that the main purpose of the tariffs has been to shift the tax burden from the rich to the middle class.

Moreover, American farmers are suffering because other countries are responding to the tariffs by refusing to buy American agricultural products. Corn and soybeans exports have suffered, and farmers cannot pay back the money that they borrowed to finance the growing of those crops.

Thus, to reduce taxes for rich folks, he has been willing to cause immense damage to most Americans.

 America last indeed.