The Donald has had hectic few weeks since he entered the
White House. (His Slovenian wife will join him in the White House in summer).
The Donald has been busy and he has kept everyone busy.
Let me see. The Donald has quit the Trans-Pacific
partnership (Ok, in reality it was mostly a symbolic gesture, as the Republicans
were blocking it even before The Donald launched his assault on the White
House). He is demanding a radical renegotiation of the North Atlantic Fair
Trade Treaty (NAFTA), and, if his demands and authority are not respected, will
pull out of that treaty, too, faster than a sailor out of prostitute. He is trying
to impose a travel-ban on seven countries (not exactly beacons of democracy, it
has to be said), the citizens of which, he is insisting, are waiting to enter
America, explosives tied to their genitals, with the sole aim of wreaking
havoc. The Donald was not pleased when a ‘so called judge’ had the temerity to
put a halt to The Donald’s attempts to make America safe.
What else? Oh the wall. Let’s not forget The Wall. The
Donald was not speaking metaphorically when he promised to build the wall between
America and Mexico during his election campaign. He was as concrete as the wall
he is going to build. Rather the Mexicans are going to build. The Mexicans are
certainly going to pay for it. They think they won’t, but The Donald knows
better. He will make the Mexicans pay for the wall. (He will probably also need
Mexican labourers to build it.)
The Donald may or may not start trade-wars against an
indeterminate number of countries (which may or may not include China). He has
successfully bullied a handful of organisations from taking jobs out of
America. Jolly good.
The Donald slammed the phone down (allegedly) on the
Australian Prime-minister (not before shouting at the Aussie, allegedly) during
a courtesy call, when the Australian Prime-minister had the temerity to suggest
that The Donald honour an agreement about taking into America Muslim refugees
(whom no one wants, least of all their home countries, it would appear) agreed
by The Donald’s predecessor, Obama Barak. I should hazard a guess that
interpersonal sensitivity is not a signature trait of The Donald.
I have a feeling that I am forgetting something. I know: global
warming and climate change. The Donald, I can inform you, does not believe in
man-made global warming; nor is he worried about climate change. That is not
quite correct. The Donald is concerned about climate change only to the extent
that it might make the American businesses uncompetitive. What has climate
change got to do with the competitiveness of American business? The Donald can
explain. Climate change, The Donald twitted back in 2012, is a conspiracy
created by and for the Chinese to make American businesses weak and
uncompetitive.
As regards global warming, The Donald says, “Relax!” There
is no global warming. It is going to start cooling down any time now. In the
1920s (The Donald educated in an interview in 2015) people were talking about
global cooling; they were worried that earth was going to cool down. Now some
ninnies are beating their breasts about global warming. You can’t take any of
this seriously. Life is too short to worry about this. We are all going to
perish anyway, when the sun dies. What is a few millennia here and there?
As for the Europeans, if they thought that they could fool
The Donald into supporting their free-loading life-style by namby-pamby notions
of defending democracy, free world etcetera, just forget it. Europeans must
learn to look after themselves. The Donald is going to make them cough up more
money for NATO, if they want Americans’ cooperation. They can no longer expect
America to bank-roll their security, that’s not gonna happen. There is an
internal logic in The Donald’s thinking (he does that sometimes, the thinking).
He thinks NATO is obsolete. He does not think that Russia poses great threat
either to America or to the world peace. Putin, The Donald has declared, is a
smart guy. So why pour money into NATO? You might as well flush it down the
toilet. The shitty Baltic countries can look after themselves. If they can’t,
well, that is just too bad. There are bigger enemies The Donald wants to
dispose off first. Such as the Jihadists. The Donald is convinced that the
Islamists pose the greatest threat to America. And he might need help of the
Ex-KGB psychopath in getting rid of them. Together The Donald and Putin are
going to smash the Allah brigade. The Europeans had better wake up to this
reality, and adjust. If they want to carry on with their silly feuds with
Putin, well, don’t expect The Donald to side with them just because all the
previous American presidents did. Have they not yet got into their brains? The
Donald is anti-establishment. Before he smashes up the camel-jockeys he is
going to smash the American establishment and its liberal mentality, which
brought nothing but strife to the rednecks. (On the plus side it also brought
The Donald to the White House).
It has to be accepted that The Donald has brought with him
(at least for the time being) a degree of optimism; and not only amongst the
hill-billies, but amongst the American businesses as well. This confidence is
reflected in the impressive 6% rise in the S & P 500 index since The Donald
stormed into the White House. No doubt the hope is that there would be tax
reforms (read: cutting of corporate taxes). The companies would bring home
profits stolen in the past few years by the Asian economies because Obama et al
did not have the balls to tell these thieves where to get off. Once that
happens what is to stop a domestic spending boom? The Donald has already
promised investment in the infrastructure. The wages which have been stagnant
for years will at last increase.
That is the hope. Let’s see how The Donald executes this. The
world will know about it on the twitter before probably the Federal Reserve
does.
Where does all this leave Great Britain, heading inexorably
towards what Theresa is now calling a ‘clean’ Brexit? The British have decided
to leave the Single European Market; and they will have to leave the customs
union so that they can negotiate individual treaties with individual nations.
(With Dr Liam Fox, the trade secretary, in charge what could possibly go
wrong?) We shall see. The Brexiters doled out copious (and inherently
contradictory) promises (as opposed to the abundant threats issued by the Remain
camp), and now it is May’s job to execute the will of the British public. Call
it a wide guess, but I don’t think that the majority of those who voted for
Brexit for myriad reasons (including but not limited to their hatred for the
foreigners) would accept becoming poorer as a result of their stupid decision. And
if they do, May will pay for it. (Except she won’t, as we have a useless
crumpled suit as the opposition leader, who has made the Labour unelectable
till 2030. He told Jon Snow of Channel 4 in an interview that, of course, he
wants to be the prime minister, with all the enthusiasm of a man ordered to
approach a poisonous rattle-snake.) On the evidence so far, May will find cards
overwhelmingly stacked against her when the negotiations begin. Many in
Britain, both who voted for Remain and Brexit, alike, appear to labour under
the belief that the UK will be in the driving seat while negotiating Brexit,
which, I think, is a bit like hoping that goat sent into the Lion’s cage will
have negotiating powers. And I am not sure that issuing crude threats to the EU
leaders, as she did in her speech in January 2017, when she at last made her
vision for Brexit clear (immigration control and controlling the border were
more important than staying in the single market), is likely to yield the
desired results.
However, May and her colleagues can take heart from the
knowledge that The Donald approves wholeheartedly of Brexit. He predicted it,
remember? He can’t wait to sign off a trade-deal with Great Britain, which, the
great protectionist The Donald is, would be entirely fair, rest assured. There
would be no winners, and the trade agreements would be mutually beneficial to both
the countries. I listened to BBC Radio 4, the other day, to the nasal twang of
an American dude from the farming industry, a big-shot, apparently, somewhere
in the South, assuring Sarah Montague (who refused to be assured) that there
was absolutely no problem in eating chickens that had basinful of hormones
injected into their asses—he grew up eating the hypertrophied thighs and
breasts of these animals, and he turned out all right, didn’t he?—or chomping
on pig’s scrotum (or some such body part) bathed in chlorinated water. The
American was followed by a British farmer, who, true to form, displayed an
impressive talent for moaning. He fretted that the Americans would have undue
advantage over the British farmer if the British farmers were not also allowed
use hormones in doses high enough to give the chickens tumours. Did he have any
evidence to support this? Of course not; he was just concerned. In anticipation.
As I listened to the moan-fest, I wondered about the possible difficulties the
British farmers were going to face if they were expected to compete with the
American farmers for the domestic market, being forced to use the same methods
as those of the American farmers (not that the British bloke had any qualms
about it) and having to export meat to the EU, with its regulations longer than
the treaty of Versailles. (This, of course, assuming the Americans are allowed
to export the tortured carcasses of farmyard animals to the UK.)
May was the first world leader to visit after The Donald was
ensconced in the White House. She crossed the Atlantic, more needy than a
smack-head desperate for a fix, for rendezvous with The Donald. She tried not to retch as The Donald grabbed
her hand (he was going to grab something; we are releived that it was only the
hand). The UK was never more in need to be reassured of the special
relationship than now. The Donald was as reassuring as his nature would permit.
Trade deals? No problem. We will wrap it up in no time. Just as he had promised
a hotelier in Scotland that he would lift the ban on Haggis (“Consider it done!”)
It is not clear how far up The Donald’s list of priorities Britain is,
though, considering less than one sixth of America’s import come from Britain. Britain
exports far more to the EU than to America at present. So, when we crash out of
the EU we had better hope that The Donald’s attention span will be long enough
to remind him that the tiny island has a special relationship with America.
Deciphering The Donald is not easy. Like that intellectual
giant, the last Republican president, George W Bush, The Donald deals in
absolutes. There are good guys and bad guys. And The Donald is with the angels on
every issue. And he is here to stay. At least for the next four years, unless
he loses interest and jacks it in (no, he will not be impeached; don’t raise
your hopes). As Cassius Clay once said, he ain’t half as dumb as he looks.
