Merchant of mayhem

It is a ‘doom’ that was foretold, but America made its choice. Now the world, including a large segment of Americans, quakes from the tremor of his bullish swag. United States President Donald Trump is barely a month into his new term, but he has been a wrecking ball demolishing the global order as it was known, and stretching the constitutional borders of his own country’s governance model with imperial fiats. Call him the disruptor-in-chief and you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

For a country that for ages was perceived as some refuge for all shades of fugitives excepting criminal ones, Trump came into office promising the largest deportations of  aliens the world has ever seen. He’s been making good on his word. Going by way of executive orders, he has seen to it that many thousands of migrants were airbused away from the ‘land of liberty’ in chains and dehumanised. No fewer than 3,690 Nigerians are marked for that treatment according to a document from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which cited Nigeria as having the second largest African population facing deportation. Somalia has the highest number with 4,090 citizens, while Ghana holds the third place with 3,228 nationals.

Trump says the crackdown is against illegal immigration, but there are indications he has his sight set on a much wider target including genuine asylum seekers. And he is pushing to bypass the niceties of judicial arbitration and due process for which his country is famed. After taking office on 20th January, he ordered U.S. military and immigration officials to be ready to implement the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – a World War II enactment he invoked ostensibly to deport without court hearings immigrants accused of crime. But only ostensibly, because while the Act offers a leeway for rapid deportation of migrants deemed part of an “invasion or predatory incursion,” it also provides potential cover to sweep in people not charged with any crime. The policy option is almost certainly headed for legal challenges, though.

Not that Trump would be dissuaded by legal challenges. On the day he took the oath as the 47th US president, he signed a raft of executive orders including one that sought to revoke birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment and the executive order was temporarily blocked by a US federal judge who held it “blatantly unconstitutional.” But that hasn’t stopped the American leader from hardline policy drives. In a supercharged clampdown, he empowered immigration officials to raid hitherto insulated places like schools, churches and hospitals. Again, he has faced multiple contestations by civil and immigrant rights groups and will have to contend with overwhelmed immigration courts where asylum cases can take years to resolve. Court cases are being plied, only they simply can’t keep pace with Trump.

 Meanwhile, the American leader has expanded a fast-track deportation process known as ‘expedited removal.’ But this applies only to persons whose stay in the US is two years or under, and it still gives migrants an opening to pursue asylum. He is staging a more deliberate strategy, unlike his first term when he blocked entry by travelers from majority-Muslim countries and caused chaos in airports worldwide. That, perhaps, because he’s had a four-year hiatus to think through.

Another front where Trump’s disruption has altered the historical American persona is global humanitarian aid. The new administration in Washington imposed an aid freeze and gutted the implementing arm, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – pulling the curtains on decades of American ‘soft power’ through humanitarian intervention in needy nations across continents of the world including Africa. Just so we are clear, Nigeria used to be a beneficiary nation.

United Nations (UN) records showed that the US accounted for about 47 percent of global aid, making it the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally. Even then, American analysts noted that international humanitarian support constituted less than one percent of that country’s national budget. Since it was established by Congress in 1961, USAID “has brought lifesaving medicines, food. clean water, assistance for farmers, kept women and girls safe, promoted peace, and so much more over the decades, all for less than one percent of our federal budget,” Oxfam America President Abby Maxman was reported saying in a statement.

“At 78, Trump has proven the point that age isn’t a shackle. What is left is enshrining a reputation as the Bully of America”

Trump’s aid freeze is pulling the brakes on all that. Among others, there were reports of feeding programmes being shut down in places like war-ravaged Sudan, with food distribution elsewhere halted. Health services and support for medicare efforts like treatment of malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis have been pulled from many African nations, and that includes Nigeria where recent reports said these diseases are yet endemic. “Ending USAID as we know it would undo hard-earned gains in the fight against poverty and humanitarian crisis, and cause long-term, irreparable harm,” Maxman warned.

But there may well be something to thank Trump for, because his brash tackle on historical American largesse is forcing nations like Nigeria to become responsibly responsive. The American aid freeze formed part of discussions at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, last week, where the Bola Tinubu presidency approved N4.8billion to support HIV treatment in Nigeria. Health Minister Professor Muhammad Ali Pate told journalists that while government looked forward to continuing constructive relationship and partnership with the US, it was also looking inward to applying domestic financing and other sources of funding “to ensure that those who are in treatment do not lose the treatment that they are already on.”

The Trump turbulence is rocking Americans themselves, like in agencies of the US government where bureaucrats are being knocked out of jobs in a cost-cutting drive as the new power in Washington claws back spending already approved by Congress. The turbulence is also buckling the world order and busting international trade pacts. Nowhere is the turbulence felt more fiercely, for instance, than in international trade where the American leader has declared serial tariff wars. Shortly after returning to the White House, he called a trade war with his country’s immediate neighbours – Canada on the northern border and Mexico to the south – as well as new superpower rival, China. He threatened a punishing 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico allegedly for not strengthening their borders against influx of immigrants to the US, and for cross-border circulation of fentanyl – an illicit drug that reportedly has killed tens of millions of Americans. China was marked for additional 10 percent tariff on its goods for alleged unfair balance of trade. Those three countries are the top US trading partners, accounting for 40 percent of goods imported into the US last year.

And that wasn’t all. Trump hinted the European Union (EU) could be next to face punishing tariffs after he gets done with Canada, Mexico and China. Speaking when he arrived into Maryland from Florida early last week, he said harsh tariffs on EU goods imported into the US could happen “pretty soon” because “they don't take our cars, they don't take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them – millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products.”

On their part, Canada, Mexico and China vowed swift and commensurate measures in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs if he went ahead. “It's not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said while seeking to assure Washington that action was being taken to address concerns about the borders. The catch: if US imports from Canada and Mexico are hit with levies, it risks undermining Trump’s promise to bring down the cost of living for Americans. The tariffs he threatened were to take effect last Tuesday, but he announced pre-emptive reprieve, saying he’d won major concessions from the two countries. “As President, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL Americans, and I am doing just that,” he wrote on Truth Social after putting the tariffs on hold for 30 days to see how the “deals” play out.

The latest whim of the American leader is the possibility of taking over Gaza Strip in the Middle-East and turning it into some high end seaside resort after relocating the about two million indigenous Palestinian population. The idea, which plays well into his land grab fancies and makes what Russia’s Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine look saintly, was aired when he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington last week. It was not an idle coincidence, obviously, that Netanyahu will be a chief enabler and conspirator in the territorial dispossession of Gazarians. At 78, Trump has proven the point that age isn’t a shackle. What is left is enshrining a reputation as the Bully of America.