Alienation is a major word in President Donald Trump’s vocabulary and in his brain.
Not only is he alienating a host of government employees and American scientists and health care professionals outside the government, he is now alienating the leaders of major nations who were neutral but leaning towards the United States. The two largest and most important nations whose leaders he has disrespected are Brazil and India by involving himself in their internal affairs. If he doesn’t give a damn about their reactions, he should. He’s driven them closer to China and Russia.
In Brazil, Trump is getting involved in judicial procedures that are none of our business nor his. His buddy, Jair Bolsinaro, the former president of Brazil and a right-wing leader, is being charged with trying to mount a coup and overthrow the legally elected government that came after him. Bolsonaro claims that the election he lost was rigged and that he should have won. (Sound familiar) The current Brazilian president, Lula Da Silva won the election fair and square and Trump has no reason to be offering Bolsonaro support except that he considers him a friend. Trump has raised Brazilian tariffs to 50 percent unless Brazil stops the legal proceedings against Bolsonaro and lets him go free. Brazil rightly sees this as an attack on its sovereignty and interference in its internal affairs and has refused Trump’s entreaties. So Brazil, our largest trading partner in South America will take a hit to its economy as will we because of Trump’s alienation of its leaders.
Trump has also alienated Narendra Modi, the leader of India because they are buying cheap Russian oil which is helping their economy. India had been slowly coming over to America’s side rather than Russia before Trump demanded that they stop buying Russian oil. Modi saw this as interference in India’s affairs and its sovereignty and refused to give in to Trump. So Trump slapped 50 percent tariffs on all trade with India, which will hurt American companies as well as India. A number of America’s major corporations, including Apple, have been moving manufacturing plants to India from China because of our trade war with China. Now these American companies will find themselves in a bind if Trump continues 50 percent tariffs on India.
Modi was seen cozying up to Putin and Xi at the recent Shanghai summit and who knows where this will go. India has been in a defense pact called the Quad with the US, Australia and Japan to stall Chinese expansion. But it’s now unclear what will happen to this pact with Trump alienating Modi. Trump doesn’t think before he acts and doesn’t seem to understand foreign affairs or economics. And alienating people is part of who he is.
www.robertlevinebooks.com
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Posted at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Bolsonaro, Brazil, China, India, Modi, Trump
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020