Pox Americana
A centerpiece of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been a commitment to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all, backed up by a promise that all members would jump to their defense. It has only been invoked once in more than 75 years.
But history, not to mention facts or truth, has no meaning for Donald J. Trump, who berated world economic and political leaders by insisting:
“So what we have gotten out of NATO is nothing, except to protect Europe from the Soviet Union and now Russia. I mean, we’ve helped them for so many years. We’ve never gotten anything.”
Tell that to the families of the 3,621 NATO coalition soldiers who died in Afghanistan between 2001-2021.
Trump bears a strong resemblance to the American ambassador to the fictional land of Sarkhan in the 1958 novel and 1963 movie “The Ugly American.” In the scripted words of an unnamed Burmese journalist:
"For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious."
The pretense and ostentation was on full display as he unsteadily descended on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, although he largely appeared to mimic behaviors he mocked in 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb “Low Energy” Bush or his bête noire “Sleepy” Joe Biden.
And after blustering about his “psychological” need to possess Greenland (or was that Iceland?) — belittling Canada and Denmark and threatening a 200 percent tariff on French wine — he reverted to TACO form with promises not to attack Greenland or impose escalating tariffs on eight European nations for not bending their collective knee.
At least for now.
What has long been known as Pax Americana — a relatively peaceful world order under United States leadership — can now fairly be called Pox Americana, as in a pox upon your house.
Except there is no vaccine for this disease thanks to the effort of the Trump regime’s anti-vaxxers.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been a leader of the “middle powers,” standing up to the Bully from the South, who entered office for the second time proclaiming his desire to make the nation of 41.5 million people the 51st state.
“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,” Carney said at his Tuesday speech in Davos. “And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”
That attitude was on clear display as Trump fabricated face-saving lies to counteract the stinging rebuke from long-time allies.
First, it was the “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” he claimed to have worked out with NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte over what is already a broad US right to maintain a military presence on Greenland.
It strongly resembles the “concept of a plan” Trump has been promising for years over the American health care system.
Rutte did not release details of the possible framework. His spokesperson said that he “did not propose any compromise to sovereignty during his meeting with the president in Davos.”
Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, was less, um, diplomatic.
“What we are witnessing these days in statements from Trump is completely absurd. NATO has absolutely no mandate to negotiate anything whatsoever without us in Greenland,” she said in a post on social media.
French President Emmanuel Macron was equally caustic in rejecting the claim he raised drug prices in his nation as part of Trump’s quest to obtain “Most Favored Nation” status to lower prices in the United States.
"It's being claimed that President @EmmanuelMacron increased the price of medicines," the French president's office wrote on X. He does not set their prices," it added, in a post accompanied by a meme of Trump with the words "fake news".
"They are regulated by the social security system and have, in fact, remained stable. Anyone who has set foot in a French pharmacy knows this," it said.
Left to lick his wounds, Trump staged another low-energy event to mark the inauguration of his “Board of Peace” to oversee rebuilding Gaza. Price tag for joining was reported at $1 billion each — to be overseen by Trump.
Not surprisingly, many “middle powers” among the reported 60 nations invited to join saw it as an offer they could refuse. The list of signers included Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Vietnam — a mix of autocrats and “lower power” nations.
While it is more important to take Trump both literally and seriously it is equally important to recognize his words are never to be trusted. His pledge to not send the U.S. military into Greenland did not close the door on other forms of intimidation.
After all, the island is virtually all ice. What better location for his eponymous band of masked paramilitary thugs?
But more seriously, the words to which everyone, foreign and domestic, should pay close attention to came after that poorly received Davos rant:
“Usually they say, ‘He’s a horrible dictator-type person,’ I’m a dictator,” Trump said. “But sometimes you need a dictator. But they didn’t say that in this case.”
Pay close attention to that increasingly unstable man in front of the curtain.