The Destruction Of America's Soft Power

 

When South African fascist, megalomaniac and unelected President Elon "Kekius Maximus / Maximus Anus" Musk had his software sociopaths barge into the offices of USAID and illegally order its shutdown (or "feeding USAID into the wood chipper"), he signaled a determination by the Malignant Fascist's regime to undo 70 years of our foreign policy which has served to advance our international interests -- and counter those of our adversaries. "Soft power," the provision of food and medical aid, cultural and diplomatic exchanges, has been a major factor in spreading democratic ideals and burnishing our reputation as a humanitarian super power. That's is in crisis now, as Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman writes in today's Substack posting:

"Elon Musk — with Donald Trump’s acquiescence, but clearly Musk was calling the shots — has effectively destroyed USAID, the aid agency that was, aside from its humanitarian role, a major pillar of US foreign policy. This move was clearly illegal, and a court has already put a hold on some of Musk’s actions.

But it may already be too late. The destruction of USAID is a prime example of what Dan Drezner calls Humpty Dumpty foreign policy, as in, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again. By furloughing the agency’s employees, ordering those working abroad to come home and canceling crucial programs and grants, the Musk/Trump administration undermined decades’ worth of relationship-building. Even if the courts eventually order everything the wreckers did reversed, it will be hard if not impossible to put the structure back together again."

The wrecking extends to the MF's tariffs on our neighbors and allies, including those covered like Mexico and Canada with trade agreements signed by the MF in his chaotic first term, as Krugman notes. Trust is the basis for any international agreement, and the MF is proceeding to undermine that with his reckless threats and actions. Krugman concludes his posting:

"So this is a really bad time to be alienating democracies around the world and destroying America’s reputation as a trustworthy partner.

I mean, what we’re seeing is what you’d expect if China and Russia had somehow managed to install people who wanted to sabotage America’s international position at the highest levels of the U.S. government." (our emphasis)

We wonder even more what those telephone conversations were about between Musk, the MF and Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin.