You’re not engaged in routine business negotiations, Mr. Trump. Your decisions impact the lives of millions across the planet. Feeling like the U.S. was getting ripped off by various foreign nations, you abruptly cancelled 83% of all USAID programs in Jan. of 2025. In Africa, it is estimated, more than 500,000 died in the ensuing year, many of them kids under the age of 5 who simply starved to death. Is the U.S. obligated to feed the many impoverished nations of the Third World? Of course not. But was Trump’s decision heartless and ill-considered? Obviously!
Approximately 280,000 world-wide lost their jobs when Trump cancelled the USAID, transferring its services to the State Department. Law suits of course ensued from many quarters which argued that he had no right to simply terminate a program which had been ratified by Congress. The results of these suits notwithstanding, the U.S. is presently negotiating with several nations, promising to grant them millions of dollars in aid on the condition that their governments take a more active role in caring for the welfare of their own citizens. Such negotiations would have seemed perfectly reasonable in Jan. of 2025 as an option to the decision made by Trump. It is estimated, by the way, that without foreign aid, approximately 4.5 million kids under the age of five could die in Asia, Africa, etc., by the year 2030!
Trump’s cancellation of the USAID was prompted by fiscal concerns which had some legitimacy. Quite aside from being exploited by foreign governments, the program was apparently rife with corruption and wasteful spending. But while his typically Republican concern with ever expanding deficits certainly made sense, his manner of dealing with this issue was grossly simplistic and ultimately devastating. Indeed if fiscal responsibility is among his priorities, why would he offer all voting Americans $5,000 each [Sept. 9] in an attempt to buy the upcoming midterm elections? Quite aside from being brazenly anti-democratic, it was a proposal which would have added more that a trillion dollars to the country’s already insane deficit!
Among the contemporary Left’s most obnoxious proclivities is its tendency to cancel all opinions with which it does not agree. In academic circles across North America, for example, Free Speech has virtually been obliterated. Express an opinion not in line with the Inclusive Left, and you may very well be fired. Sadly, however, Donald Trump has resorted to the very same tactic, announcing on Sept. 18 that reporters from CNN, MSNBC and Politico will no longer be allowed to attend White House press conferences because of the obvious biases of their employers. I understand Trump’s disdain for the networks in question, but Free Speech is deemed essential to the Democratic Process on the assumption that Man, as an Intelligent Being, will, if given all the facts, inevitably come to discern Truth from mere Nonsense. The multitude of rational, intelligent conservatives I admire are forever exposing the inanity of many of the Left’s Ideas and Values. Let that process continue, Mr. Trump. Your propensity for using Force rather than Reason to achieve your goals makes you little better than those you so despise. While I fully agree that those you have banned from the White House are prone to pathetically biased reporting, your response to them is brazenly Authoritarian rather than Democratic. Two Wrongs do not make a Right! Moreover your ignorant manner of pursuing your goals does nothing but alienate liberals wrongly convinced that it is conservatives who represent the greatest threat to America’s Democracy!