The only wealth you keep is wealth
you have given away,” said Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), last of the great
Roman emperors. US President Donald Trump might know of another Italian, Mario
Puzo’s Don Vito Corleone, and his memorable mumble: “I’m going to make him an offer
he can’t refuse.” Forgetting such Aurelian and godfather codes is propelling
the decline and fall of the American empire.
Trump is making offers the world can refuse
– by reshaping trade deals, dispensing with American sops and forcing powerful
corporations to return home, the US is regaining economic wealth but
relinquishing global power.
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As the last leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR),
Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (restructuring) led to the breakup of its vast territory(22 million square kilometers). Gorbachev’s failed policies led to the dissolution of the USSR into Russia and independent countries, and the end of a superpower.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (restructuring) led to the breakup of its vast territory(22 million square kilometers). Gorbachev’s failed policies led to the dissolution of the USSR into Russia and independent countries, and the end of a superpower.
Ironically, the success of Trump’s policies
will hasten the demise of the American empire: the US regaining
economic health but losing its insidious hold over the world.
This diminishing influence was highlighted
when India and seven other countries geared up to defy Washington’s
re-imposition of its unilateral, illegal sanctions against Iran, starting
Monday.
The US State Department granting “permission” on the weekend to
the eight countries to buy Iranian oil was akin to waving the green flag at a
train that has already left the station
The US State Department granting “permission”
on the weekend to the eight countries to buy Iranian oil was akin to waving the
green flag at a train that has already left the station.
The law of cause and effect unavoidably delivers. The Roman
Empire fell after wars of greed and orgies of consumption. A similar
nemesis, the genie of Gorbachev, stalks Pennsylvania Avenue, with Trump
unwittingly writing the last chapter of World War II: the epilogue of the two
rival superpowers that emerged from humanity’s most terrible conflict.
The maverick 45th president of the United
States may succeed at being an economic messiah to his country, which has
racked up a $21.6 trillion debt, but the fallout is the death of American
hegemony. These are the declining days of the last empire standing.
Emperors and mafia godfathers knew that
wielding great influence means making payoffs. Trump, however, is doing away
with the sops, the glue that holds the American empire together, and is making
offers that he considers “fair” but instead is alienating the international
community– from badgering NATO and other countries to pay more for hosting the
US legions (800 military bases in 80 countries) to reducing US aid.
US aid to countries fell from $50 billion in
fiscal year 2016, $37 billion in 2017 to $7.7 billion so far in 2018. A
world less tied to American largesse and generous trade tarrifs can more easily
reject the “you are with us or against us” bullying doctrine of US presidents.
In the carrot and stick approach that largely passes as American foreign
policy, the stick loses power as the carrot vanishes.
Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in The Godfather. Big payoffs
needed for big influence. A presidential lesson for Don Trump
More self-respecting leaders will have less
tolerance for American hypocrisy, such as sanctioning other countries for
nuclear weapons while having the biggest nuclear arsenal on the planet.
They will sneer more openly at the hysteria
surrounding alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential elections,
pointing to Washington’s violent record of global meddling. They will cite
examples of American hypocrisy such as its sponsorship of coups against elected
leaders in Latin America, the US Army’s Project Camelot in 1964 targeting 22
countries for intervention (including Iran, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia), its support
for bloodthirsty dictators, and its destabilization of the Middle East with the
destruction of Iraq and Libya.
Immigrant
cannon fodder
Trump’s focus on the economy reduces the
likelihood of him starting wars. By ending the flood of illegal immigrants to
save jobs for US citizens, he is also inadvertently reducing the manpower for
illegal wars. Non-citizen immigrants comprise about 5% of the US Army. For its
Iraq and Afghanistan wars, US army recruiters offered citizenship to lure
illegal immigrants, mostly Latinos.
Among the first US soldiers to die in the Iraq
War was 22-year old illegal immigrant Corporal Jose Antonio Gutierrez, an
orphan from the streets of Guatemala City. He sneaked across the Mexican border
into the US six years before enlisting in exchange for American citizenship.
On March 21, 2003, Gutierrez was killed by
friendly fire near Umm Qasr, southern Iraq. The coffin of this illegal
immigrant was draped in the US flag, and he received American citizenship –
posthumously.
Trump policies targeting illegal immigration
simultaneously reduces the availability of cannon fodder for the illegal wars
needed to maintain American hegemony.
Everything comes to an end, and so too will
the last empire of our era.
The imperial American eagle flying into the
sunset will see the dawn of an economically healthier US that minds its
own business, and increase hopes for a more equal, happier world – thanks to
the unintentional Gorbachev-2 in the White House.
