TRUMP'S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY WORLD TOUR: By Ghassan Kadi, 2 June 2017

 TRUMP'S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY-WORLD TOUR: By Ghassan Kadi, 2 June 2017

Recently Ghassan has written many articles and some of them were seen as more urgent than others for publication on The Saker. This one was in the queue but keeps dropping out! It's here for anyone interested.

TRUMP’S SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY WORLD TOUR:
By Ghassan Kadi

2 June 2017

In my previous article titled “Al-Saud’s Only Gamble Option”, the focus of the analysis was Saudi Arabia, and how it was coerced to pave for Trump a golden highway or face dire consequences. But the game that Trump has more or less successfully played in Riyadh (pending Congress approval to the huge arm’s deal), is only a single act in a multi-act play that Trump is trying to enact with the rest of the world. For some reason however, the world does not seem to be reading Trump correctly.

As more evidence emerges, it is becoming increasingly clearer that the twists and turns that we have learned to experience from Trump are all financially motivated. The odds that favour any other speculation do not stack up in a manner that forms a comprehensive view.

Certainly, some analysts and observes are happy to simply see Trump as a madman and that he doesn’t know what he is doing. I beg to differ, and I see clear and obvious footprints in Trump’s recent overseas tour, and which should for fairness be dubbed; Trump’s show-me-the-money world tour.

It wasn’t by accident that Trump made of Riyadh his first stop. That strategy boosted the pathetic vulnerable ego of the Saudis. On the negative flipside of this, they were put on the spot, unable to gauge what reaction to give to his request of a whole third of a trillion dollar arm’s deal other than submission, with a smile, because they need those weapons to finish the war in Yemen and be able to stand up against Iran. 

In choosing Saudi Arabia as his first stop, Trump was also using his unsuspecting hosts to send a message to his future hosts; EU/NATO partners. The message was: You’re next.

His request that other NATO members lift their contributions was not received very warmly. The fact that Merkel was quick to announce that the EU should rely more on itself for its own defence, comes with a clear message that behind the scenes; Trump’s price was higher than a home-grown force to replace NATO down the track.

Then came Trump’s renegement of the Paris climate deal. This is yet another mere economic decision that will give American industries and economy the benefit of unfair advantage. But Trump cares only about money. This is how he led his life and succeeded in business.

Certainly, the EU/NATO leaders are not as foolish and/or desperate as their Saudi counterparts. They can and did give Trump the cold shoulder.

In every stop he made, every step he takes and every promise he breaks, every twist he makes, Trump’s actions and inactions are all centered on one single issue; financial pragmatism as perceived by the eyes of a businessman. This again points to the state of desperation of the American economy and its uncompetitive status quo.

America is no longer able to excel on a level playing field in its trading with other nations. It must therefore capitalize on its remaining edge; military prowess and hardware industry. It will use those advantages to put itself in positions of unfair advantage, and to bully other nations into doing military business with them.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that America sees Russia as a huge threat, not because Russia is interfering in Ukraine and/or American elections as alleged, but because America can only bully its way in by means of maintaining what is left of its status as the single superpower of the post USSR ‘New World Order’. But that order is no more, and the USA must always conjure up new ways to stay on top of the military industries.

China is Trump’s other huge nightmare, because China is not only an emerging military giant, but certainly an economic one. 

It is most ironic that America’s stand on South China Sea is done in the name of protecting trade routes. No nation on earth has a vested interest in protecting those particular routes more than China itself; after all, they are China’s trade routes, and for every shipping container that moves across those waters into China, at least ten move the other way, brining China wealth and more global significance.

To be fair to Trump, if he deserves any fairness at all, he has come to the stark realization that the innovative nature of American industrial economy is a thing of the past, and for him to stick to the election promise of jobs, jobs, jobs, he has to play dirty. With a decaying infra-structure, rusted factories and insufficient number of highly qualified and self-motivated young technicians, an American techno resurgence is unfathomable, and for Trump to create jobs and put the economy back on track, the only trick up his sleeve is to be a bully.

Given that America has no concrete reason for its anti-Russia and anti-China moves, it must create some to feed the media and the masses. This is a new-age unprecedented form of piracy. In the past, up till recently, nations were at least more transparent in demonstrating their reasons for war against each other, and the rule of the game was always for the stronger and more advanced nation to be in the position of having the upper hand. America however is not in a position to make admissions that it is in the process of conjuring up stories against Russia and China because it has lost its competitive edge; not whilst Trump is claiming to be making America great again. Such an admission would be tantamount to an athlete admitting that he cannot win without performance enhancement drugs. But such actions are actions of desperation and they cannot go very far. 

A few years ago, I wrote an article titled “How Far Will a Desperate Radical America Go?”
(http://intibahwakeup.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-far-will-desperate-radical-america.html). I predicted that such an America will likely blackmail other nations in a manner that coerces them to do business under the threat of nuclear attacks should they refuse. We have not seen this come to pass, but down the track, with more audacious advances from Trump and future presidents, this possibility cannot be zeroed out, because America will not sit down and watch its economy and world domination fall to pieces.

A few years ago also I predicted that one day America will elect a president that will make George W. Bush look like mother Teresa. I am not sure if Trump is that president, perhaps close. And now, it is not hard to predict that one day America will elect a president that will make Trump look like Socrates.
Editor's note:
Hear Trump for yourself

https://twitter.com/SamiRamadani1/status/879467761398943745