As the US Presidential election is inching closer, and Trump is again vying for another term, let’s look at his first term at the White House.
Yeah, it is a charge sheet against the incumbent president, and it is as ruthless as President Trump had been towards his opposition during his first term.
From the inaugural address of the president in 2016, all had seen it coming. However, the reality that was defined by Donald Trump by virtue of the office he occupied exceeded the worst expectations.
From the beginning, Trump outlined an inward-looking America by chalking out an “America First Policy”. In the time when globalization was deemed to be the highest virtue to hold the world together, Trump chose nationalization.
Instead of addressing the global issue as the world’s most formidable leader, the Republican President cornered all his Muslim voters, and their co-religionists around the world, by promising to unite the “civilized world against them.”
In 2017, Trump signed an order banning eight Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the US. He also signed several executive orders aimed at strangling migration laws.
Furthermore, it was during Trump’s incumbency the US faced frequent military as well as diplomatic embarrassment. First, Syria proved a total disaster, where a resurgent rival, Russia, seemed to defeat the US and its allies in the war-ravaged country. Then, President Trump’s authorized measure of a limited cruise missile on Syria was blocked by Russia at the UN security council.
Making America Great Again was never a questionable dream until Trump sought it by belittling the rest of the world. He did it on various occasions.
The year 2017 was eventful, and it also saw Trump announcing to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. It was a disregard of the 195-nation agreement under which the US was to limit its carbon emissions. Trump thought it would compromise US sovereignty and would harm its workers, arguing it would hurt the US economically.
The only exceptional epoch in the Trump era was perhaps his brief love affair with the North Korean leader. However, that too came after when the amorous proposal had become the sole option, especially when his “short and fat” friend had prepared a gift for the US, the inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Then, as part of Trump’s anti-immigration policy, he announced the winding down of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the measure which left around eight hundred thousand beneficiaries at risk of deportation.
Flirting with Iran
In 2017, President Trump initiated a foreign policy move that has since made the world less safe than it was ever before. He announced not to re-certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to Congress.
Yet one of the most controversial foreign policy initiatives was Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Moreover, his four-year reign also includes a return to hostility with China, beginning with trade war in 2018.
Eventually, Trump withdrew his country from JCPOA, the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Without citing any material proof of Iranian violation, the uncrowned emperor of the world reinstated sanctions on Iran.
In December that year, Trump announced the US would withdraw all of its troops from Syria, tacitly accepting defeat in a highly complex proxy war in Syria.
Then Trump faced impeachment over Ukraine dealings. He was accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine to pressure the European country into investigating Joe Biden, the ultimate political rival and a potential candidate to replace President Trump in the November election.
Instead of making America great, the first term of President Trump has made the world-power more divided, politically as well as racially. Even worse aspect of his rule is that the he falls short of the character that an average American expect from the person at the White House should be.
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