Why the world should boycott Trump's America
The United States under President Donald Trump is a five-alarm fire. Fascism is ascendant. Education, art, culture, science, social welfare, humanitarian and healthcare systems are being dismantled. An entire national infrastructure nurtured for 250 years is dissolving before our eyes.
No one appears capable of stopping it. Resistance, such as it is, seems futile.
Democratic leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer are rolling over and playing dead in the face of Trump’s legislative agenda. University presidents and trustees cower in fear. Major law firms line up to kiss Trump’s ring. Tech bro titans pledge fealty, favouring their bottom line over their own consumers.
Foreign students are detained and disappeared into concentration camps. The federal judiciary, even when it issues rulings against the Trump administration, offers no substantive resistance.
Many Americans support Trump’s priorities. His approval ratings have held steady, despite widespread disapproval of the slash-and-burn tactics of his dark prince, Elon Musk. Fifty-four percent of Americans believe Trump has done a better job as president than his predecessor, Joe Biden.
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Trump has destroyed relationships with many nations that have long been close allies. He has threatened to invade Greenland and Canada, and to wrest control of one of the world’s most important shipping routes from Panama.
He has tossed historic diplomatic treaties out the window, and attempted to bully foreign companies and academic researchers to drop diversity, equity and inclusion programmes - or face exclusion from American markets and research collaborations.
Liberation Day disaster
Then there are the tariffs. On “Liberation Day”, Trump took the axe to international trade by levying punitive taxes on foreign imports. Chinese imports will be heavily punished with a 54-percent tariff. But these are not selective or targeted duties; they will hurt virtually every country exporting to the US.
As a result, markets have crashed, losing $11 trillion since Trump’s inauguration in January - more than half of it in the past few days. Traders are calling it “carnage”, a “bloodbath”.
All this in a hopeless attempt to jumpstart the US manufacturing base. This economic policy will bring foreign and domestic companies, along with entire economies, to their knees. Industries could shrivel and die.
Give up on the US. Treat it as the pariah it deserves to be. Make Trump pay for his crimes. Don't let the bully win
The most vulnerable, the working class, will lose jobs both abroad and in the US. Last month, 275,000 people were laid off due to Trump’s chainsaw economics - a level not seen since the Covid-19 pandemic. The wealthy elites, Trump’s natural allies, will escape unscathed. In fact, with the president’s new tax policy, they will reap huge rewards.
Trump has abandoned military alliances that provided critical global security and stability for generations. He has left Europe alone to face the Russian threat.
But unlike domestic institutions at the mercy of federal power, foreign nations are not so easily bullied. They must act. They must resist. Bullies rely on fear to succeed, and on force to achieve their interests.
Some countries believe their best recourse is to capitulate and cut a deal, lifting tariffs on US imports. They are purportedly lining up to beg for relief. But trusting Trump to make and keep a deal is a dubious proposition.
Solidarity is one of the best weapons against a bully - concerted, coordinated resistance. Show the thug that together, you and your allies have more power than he does, and he will invariably stand down.
Uniting against the bully
This is a complicated process. Europe has never spoken with a unified voice. It has never been faced with the betrayal of its closest ally and global power. Can these disparate states with sometimes conflicting interests unite in common cause? Can they abandon their historical consensus protocol in regional decision-making, in order to bypass recalcitrant states like Hungary?
The answers to these questions are crucial to the fate of Europe. If these states fail, some are in danger of becoming Russian vassals, facing the same type of threat that Trump is exerting on Greenland, Mexico and Canada.
The legacy of Hitler’s conquest of Europe and imposition of fascism overshadows the continent today. What happened once can happen again.
Europe and other threatened states have several powerful forms of resistance at their disposal. One is a tool developed by the South African anti-apartheid movement and the Palestinian resistance: boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). While efforts to boycott South Africa and Israel aimed to overturn unjust national systems, US policies will cause damage globally.
Targets of US sanctions should organise a BDS movement against the American government, companies and universities. They should also sanction Trump administration officials individually.
The world must stop importing US products to whatever extent possible. Other countries must ostracise US political leaders, downgrade diplomatic relations, end research collaborations and cultural exchanges, and sever financial networks.
The world must shift away from the dollar as an international currency. It must develop alternative institutions and protocols to cut such ties, while minimising disruption. The world must hold Trump accountable for the carnage he is causing. It must transform the US into a pariah state, go its own way, and leave Washington behind.
Global markets bind the world together and make us interdependent. But globalism has become a curse: when one member of the network decides to opt out and destroy it, the entire system is threatened with collapse. The remaining members must determine how to protect themselves and survive.
If Washington’s former allies do not adapt or resist, then their adversaries will pick them off one by one, as Trump is doing to his enemies at home, and as Russia threatens to do. This is an existential crisis. It requires leadership and resolve. The world cannot wait four more years for this country to come to its senses. If it does, Russian tanks could soon be rolling through Poland and the Baltic states.
Give up on the US. Treat it as the pariah it deserves to be. Make Trump pay for his crimes. Don’t let the bully win.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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