The battle for the most powerful position in the world- the presidency of the America has been won and lost. Donald Trump against all odds decisively defeated Hilary Clinton with popular and electoral votes. The victory comes along with a lot of negatives which are: the language of the campaign was nasty and divisive, the candidates were adjudged as the most unpopular in the history of American politics and this came along with dividing the country along race, class and religious lines.
With this victory, Trump has an uphill task to execute his policies which are more of rhetoric than actual reality. These are the synopsis of the challenges he will face in his presidency and obstacles therein in implementing them.
He has alienated the elites, the business class, the politicians in all major parties. How he is going to carry along these people in his anti Washington policies is a matter of conjectures.
He has consistently said he was going after the immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, in fact he was categorically that he would deport them. There are 11m undocumented immigrants in America. He had shown total contempt and disdain for Latinos and African Americans. He described the Latinos as rapists, drug addicts. For the African Americans, he described them as beside being very lazy, they are only good in love making and drinking. These group constitute about 25% of the total registered voters. His policies on these segments of the people will create social upheavals if diligently executed.
In the international arena, he made it clear that he would ban all Muslims in entering America. How is going to do it i don't know. But these are stark realities he would faced in his relationship with Muslims. America is the strongest ally of most of these Muslim countries and the relationship has been of tremendous economic benefits to America. One example will drive this point home. Saudi Arabia is the 10th largest goods trading partner with USA. As at 2014, the trade between the 2 countries is put at $71b. This is just one Muslim country. This policy of Trump if not properly handled will move most Muslims in Middle East and other countries to other world powers such as China.
On keeping the World safe, Trump said he would go after Muslims extremists and had condemned the Obama policy of moving out of Iraq and thereby creating conducive atmosphere for ISIS to blossomed and threatened world peace. So from this position, Trump will likely therefore discard the policy of no boots on the ground of Obama and commit troops in all areas that Islamic extremists are causing mayhem. Trump also had shown his support for Russian alliance with Asad in Syria which had destroyed about 400000 lives in Syria and 4.8m have fled the country, while 6.6m are internally displaced in Syria. Well Trump should be reminded that boots on the ground policy of Bush which took a lot of American troops, armaments and logistics support in Iraq and Afghanistan, cost the American tax payers more than $2trillion and this contributed to the economic depression in America which took Obama 8 years to bring the American economy back to life.
With regard to his military alliance with Europe known as NATO, Trump was very critical and would review it and that the 28 member nation might only be supported if they were up to update in payment of their financial contribution otherwise they would be left alone to defend themselves against any military aggression. This will mean yet another weakening of US relationship with its major allies and it may be counterproductive in the long run.
While the whole world is against nuclear proliferation to make the globe safer, Trump said he would encourage countries such as Japan, South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons.
Trump position on press freedom was quite alarming as said he would press for legislation to curb press freedom!
His policy on Africa is practically non existence, but based on his statement that Africans are only good in merry making, love making and very lazy, we are therefore in his bad books. It is therefore foolhardy to expect aids or policies and programmes that will encourage economic, political and social advancement of Africa. His immigration policy will send a lot of the Anayo's, the Chukwus etc back home. They will also come and join us in trying to make ends meet In our cursed and beleaguered nation.
Some of us that are opposed to Trump are not doing so because of any sentimental reason. Some of us find it difficult to swallow his arrogance, contempt for people generally and his pursuance of policies that will undermine world peace, creating more cleavages along fault lines as we are now facing in Nigeria.
We are therefore watching with keen interest to see how this modern day Hitler will influence the world with his dangerous, hawkish, ill digested policies.
By: Fenny J. Fwa
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