PRESS RELEASE: Trump’s America: An Increasingly Unreliable, Untrustworthy and Unprincipled Partner
In the 1930s, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain allowed Adolf Hitler to expand German territory, unchecked and with impunity. The discredited policy of appeasement emboldened Hitler, and helped to stoke war across Europe and beyond between 1939-45.
Ongoing geopolitical indecision and inaction has strengthened President Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions for a greater Russia.
It seems US President Donald Trump intends to appease Putin, by muscling Ukraine to hand over approximately twenty per cent of its sovereign territory to Russia and much of its rare earth minerals to the US. That’s without providing robust security guarantees, ensuring financial reparations or other enforceable consequences to deter Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine.
Trump’s retreat from defending democratic principles of freedom, decency and justice, tellingly indicates that no nation can rely upon the US for either diplomatic or military support. He uses punitive tariffs to wage war on nations, irrespective of whether they’re friend or foe, and in violation of free trade. Trump also threatens allies with US territorial expansion – Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.
Recently, Trump promoted the forced displacement of around 2.1 million Palestinians from Gaza, in particular to Jordan and Egypt. Incredulously, we’re told Palestinians wouldn’t have a right to return to their homes under Trump’s plan for US ownership of Gaza. The President’s real estate plan exists without agreement from its Arab allies and is in contravention of international law and the UN charter.
If self-defence is the only reliable defence of sovereignty, then citizens will demand governments significantly upscale their national forces, including having a strong nuclear deterrent.
When nations don’t have the cards about which Trump recently berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office, then by association leaders had better urgently gather their strongest hand. Conventional weaponry won’t deter or prevail against powerful leaders, who exhibit a resolute pattern of unlawful territorial expansion that’s assisted by a wartime economy.
Western leaders’ goldilocks approach to limiting Ukraine’s sovereign defence in the face of Russia’s brutal and overwhelming aggression, highlights democratic weakness to enforce red lines and a US in decline.
Well may we question who’s worse, the perpetrator, enabler or bystander?
US security guarantees are neither iron clad nor enduring. For example, in 1991, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. Although, hollow security assurances explicitly given under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum from the US, UK and Russia, for Ukraine to become a non-nuclear state, has since left it hostage to Russia’s devastating aggression. Geopolitical leaders are unlikely to make Ukraine’s error of judgement about unreliably outsourcing their national security.
As the US withdraws from the international community, it can reasonably expect the People’s Republic of China will expand its sphere of influence. And develop economic, security and diplomatic partnerships with nations, including across the Pacific.
Furthermore, if a sovereign Ukraine belongs to Russia, then will Trump question or defend against Taiwan’s return to Beijing?
Cowardice currently runs across the ideological sky of democracy. Shamefully, some leaders have thrown their democratic principles into the fires of hell.
Humanity is as vulnerable as the inhumanity it’s willing to accept.
Dr Michael Walton, Clinical Psychologist, New South Wales, Australia
Reference
Walton, M. T. (2024, November 5). Will Americans elect convicted felon Trump? South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/opinion/letters/article/3285077/just-low-taxes-and-good-food-wont-make-hong-kong-talent-hub
Walton, M. T. (2024, November 4). US Presidential Election 2024: A Divided States of America. Get The Word Out. https://getthewordout.com.au/press-release/press-release-us-presidential-election-2024-a-divided-states-of-america/
