Trump’s dementia destroys time-honoured global alliances

Last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting exposed rifts between allies that are unlikely to mend. Alan Austin reports from Europe.

CANADA’S GLOBAL trade pacts are changing dramatically. Since the mentally declining U.S. President Donald Trump denied Canadians free trade with the USA, they are seeking it with China.

This replicates Australia’s experience some decades earlier — although Australia’s pivot towards China was more gradual and voluntary than Canada’s. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney noted in his celebrated speech at the WEF meeting in Davos last week, this is “a rupture, not a transition”.

Canadians can be encouraged that this is safe and beneficial, as Australia has proven it to be.

Carney confirmed that:

“We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines and Mercosur.”

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Shifting global alliances

The current realignments are arguably the most significant since the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949, shortly after the United Nations began.

As most NATO countries are shifting trade away from the USA, Trump is moving closer to authoritarian regimes that share his desires for repression, violence and dictatorship. His new Board of Peace has been joined by Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, Vietnam, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Uzbekistan. Russia intends to buy a permanent seat with funds now frozen in the USA.

Real and present danger

The immediate global threat remains having an increasingly erratic despot controlling the world’s most powerful military. Trump has proven he does not care about loss of life. His decision to abandon USAID’s health programs in poor countries will leave millions to die. He has dismissed objections to his military murdering surviving sailors in the Caribbean last September. His invasion of Venezuela to capture President Maduro caused 80 fatalities, which he did not mourn. His refusal to heed the advice of health experts in his first term caused more than 800,000 unnecessary American COVID deaths.

This is why European leaders took Trump’s threats to invade Greenland seriously and were immensely relieved when he backed down.

Unity in rejecting the international gangster

Although that threat has subsided, at least for a while, the USA is no longer trusted.

UK leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey spoke for many in Britain and beyond last Wednesday:

By demanding control of Greenland and threatening economic warfare on allies who support its sovereignty, Trump risks ending NATO which has kept us safe for 75 years.

Trump is a bully, behaving like an international gangster.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “shift towards a world without rules. Where international law is trampled underfoot” and urged the world to reject “the law of the strongest”.

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Calls for Trump’s removal

There is hope that the established international rule of law can be restored, but it is a long shot.

Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and others have urged Congress to remove Trump immediately via the Constitution’s 25th Amendment. This applies when a president dies or is incapacitated.

In this instance, Trump’s advanced dementia would be the trigger, evidenced by his multiple unhinged invasion threats, incoherent speech such as confusing Greenland with Iceland multiple times at Davos, the constant wearisome stream of easily-debunked lies about his non-existent achievements – for which he childishly and incessantly demands global prizes and awards – and his countless irrational verbal attacks against foreign heads of state, public figures and allied soldiers.

Prominent psychiatrists and medical authorities who have confirmed Trump’s advancing decline include John Gartner, Vin Gupta, Elisabeth Zoffmann, Lance Dodes, Vince Greenwood, Harry Segal and the 27 contributors to the volume The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, edited by psychiatrist Dr Bandy Lee.

The alternative is impeachment by Congress, which, according to the U.S. Constitution, can remove the president for ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours’.

Supporters of impeachment have abundant grounds. They claim undermining the NATO alliance via threats to invade allies constitutes treason, as does Trump’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist plans in Europe.

Instances of bribery include lavish personal gifts or cryptocurrency donations from billionaires and governments, foreigners renting floors in Trump hotels and, most recently, selling permanent seats on Trump’s Board of Peace for one billion dollars — controlled by him personally as chairman for life.

High crimes and misdemeanours are serious abuses of public trust, not necessarily criminal offences.

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Those alleged, now numbering more than 15, include:

war crimes committed with illegal strikes in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere and the murder of helpless sailors;
abusing the pardon power for personal enrichment, resulting in thousands of criminals released;
thefts from Treasury, including demanding $230 million compensation for criminal trials in which he was found guilty, but no penalties imposed;
ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) troops to arrest, injure and murder American citizens and others;
causing millions to die via the callous closure of USAID programs;
flagrant persecution of public servants, lawyers and judges whose duty required them to prosecute Trump and his associates for their manifest crimes; and
defiance of court orders.

Implications for Australia

Australia is largely insulated from the fallout from Trump’s criminal perfidy, having strong trade links already with Japan, South Korea and China. Australia exports more to each of these than to the USA.

A rupture may arise in defence, depending on Trump’s tenure. Should he end the alliance with Britain, then AUKUS is doomed.

For reasons elaborated earlier, this would be disastrous for Australia’s medium-term security, but advantageous in the long run.

If this propels Australia back to Labor’s 2013 plans to build daughter-of-Collins submarines in South Australia, that would have enormous upside. That proposal requires collaboration with another ship-building nation, such as Sweden, Japan or Germany. Canada could join as well.