Letter to Editor

I was appalled at the headline in an article by Mr. Uditha Devapriya, “The US in a brave new world”, in the Sunday’s Island of February 16. Apart from the obvious misnomer of a world that Trump is transforming into a narcissistic, petty kleptocracy, Mr. Devapriya has made some blatant misstatements.

While Reagan started the process of dismantling a thriving middle class by tax cuts to the wealthy, I do not think “Washington did away with many of the domestic programmes set up by John F. Kennedy in the heyday of Keynesian economics”. I lived in the US during the Clinton and Bush years, and safety-net programs, especially welfare and healthcare, were not singled out for attack.

The statement that Elon Musk, the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) spends every hour on what institutions like US AID were spending money on, that critics contend that such programmes have served no purpose and retrenchment of these institutions would be in everyone’s interest, INCLUDING THE AFFECTED COUNTRIES (capitals mine), boggles the mind.

Elon Musk described US AID (United States Agency for International Development) as a “ball of worms” that needs to be “shut down”.

A few facts about Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. His companies like Tesla and Space X have billions of dollars in US government military contracts. Just last week, he opened a $200 million battery plant in Shanghai, China. It is not really known whether Musk is working for the American people or his own companies. Even who is in charge of DOGE is ambiguous.

Musk spends all his time with Trump at the White House, and joins Trump in press conferences, usually with his four-year-old son on his shoulder! Last week, he even attended Trump’s first cabinet meeting, dressed in a T-shirt, and did most of the talking, after Trump.

Musk spent $288 million and every minute of his time during the three months before the November election, making sure that Trump got elected. He has been variously called First Buddy, First Lady Elonia and Co-President Musk. He has been making numerous speeches endorsing Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, two rants ending with Heil Hitler salutes.

Musk is officially a “Special Government Employee” and he and his team of High School and recent college graduates between the ages of 19 and 24, some with known racist records, have offices at the White House and unlimited top-security clearance, with access to all Treasury and governmental records. This is terrifying to all Americans, whose most confidential personal information is now in the hands of private, unelected people with no security clearance.

Musk and Trump have claimed that DOGE has already saved billions of dollars, One such ridiculous claim by DOGE, confirmed by Trump, was that US AID had sent packages of condoms valued at $50 million to Hamas terrorists! A patent lie, later admitted to be “incorrect” by Musk.

When it was pointed out to Trump that this relationship constitutes a fundamental conflict of interest, Trumps reply: He trusts Musk to “police himself”. In a Fox interview with Hannity recently, Trump said that Musk “will not be involved” in any matters concerning his business interests, an obvious prevarication; Musk, who was also present at the interview said, “I will recuse myself”.

Forgetting the basic fact that self-determination of a conflict of interest is itself a conflict of interest!

US AID is a program that was started by JFK in 1961, responsible for the management, distribution and execution of more than half of all foreign non-military assistance given by the USA to developing nations. Officially, US AID is classified as an independent agency and has enjoyed a great deal of autonomy, although its programs are funded by Congress. For over six decades, US AID has been a pillar of soft power and the premier source of foreign assistance for coordinating the response to global food and disease crises. The current annual budget of US AID is $40 billion, with over 10,000 employees worldwide.

In perspective, Elon Musk’s companies have appreciated by over $150 billion since the November election.

US AID funds projects in some 120 countries, fighting epidemics, educating children and alleviating starvation. “In civil war-torn Sudan, grappling with cholera, malaria and measles, the Musk aid freeze means 600,000 people will be at risk of catching and spreading these diseases”. The immediate stoppage of all shipments delivering supplies of food and medication to distressed nations will cause starvation and intense suffering. The shutdown has forced the Agency to immediately lay off international US AID staff, reducing numbers from 10,000 plus to 290, and to close down most of their offices worldwide.

The international goodwill the United States has enjoyed by US AID activity over the years far outweighs the tax dollars spent on funding US AID.

Mr. Devapriya’s statement that, “in the US, the anti-woke right has been incensed by what they frame out as the doling out of taxpayer dollars to:

= Diversity, Equity and Resilience, his reference to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). DEI is basically an organizational framework that seeks to provide fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially on hiring, who have been historically discriminated and underrepresented. What is Mr. Devapriya’s concept of DEI “resilience” and how are taxpayer dollars being doled out on such programs?

= What does Mr. Devapriya mean by “climate resilience”? Is he of the opinion that the resilience of the planet will combat all the pollution caused by, inter alia, the continuing use of fossil fuels, that there is no need to reduce such pollution because the resilience of the planet will take care of this problem? In other words, does he subscribe to the Trump concept that climate change is a hoax, a concept that has been rejected by 97% of the world’s climate scientists? And how are tax dollars doled out on such “climate resilience?”

= Mr. Devapriya talks of US tax dollars doled out on “gender initiatives IN COUNTRIES LIKE SRI LANKA” (capitals mine). I have never heard of a “gender initiative” in Sri Lanka, nor do I know what the term “gender initiative” means.

Mr. Devapriya has taken the views of right-wing dictators like Hungary’s Orban and Russia’s Putin, that “organizations like US AID were used as tools and instruments of US foreign policy, as a means of entrenching American hegemony”, that these views have some merit. Of course, M. Devapriya is entitled to his opinion. However, the opinion of much of the world, and not just the “anti-imperialist Left”, where the First Amendment is taken seriously (Hungary and Russia do not fall into this category), is that US AID has been the leader in international humanitarian aid, the key funder for major UN humanitarian aid agencies, and has saved millions of lives worldwide.

The use of a FICTIONAL US AID employee who taught torture and interrogation techniques to Uruguayan police being killed by left wing guerillas, which I assume is an attempt to cast aspersions on US AID programs, is despicable and probably taken straight out of a Russian newspaper.

Trump recently agreed with Putin’s lie that Ukrainian President Zelensky is an unelected dictator who started the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, while refusing to so describe Russian President Putin, a known murderous dictator. More anti-imperialist Left propaganda?

I am unable to make comments about Mr. Devapriya’s concluding arguments, as I am unable to understand the points he is trying to make.

It is doubtful whether either Russia or China will have the resources to fill the international donor gap left by US AID. In my opinion, however, Trump’s foreign policies have already handed over the role of the World’s Leading Superpower to China, and reduced the United States to the status of subservience to Russia.

To my limited knowledge, pre-Wilsonian foreign policy was to “fulfill the country’s manifest destiny and to remain free of entanglements overseas”. If that is so, Trump is certainly not such a symbol of pre-Wilsonian foreign policy.

Trump plans to invade Panama, annex Greenland (one Trumper has already named that area which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark as the American-owned “Redwhiteandblueland”. Seriously). Just as Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, with a stroke of a Sharpie. Perhaps he will consider renaming the American state of New Mexico as the state of Old America! He also plans to invade and acquire for the US the Gaza Strip, the homeland of the Palestinian people, and convert it to a cross between the French Riviera and Las Vegas.

Mr. Devapriya says that Trump’s Brave New World is “a return to the days of big stick diplomacy”, with Trump as its symbol.

Trump is the complete antithesis of “big stick diplomacy”, a political approach favored by President Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”. A style of diplomacy which Roosevelt described as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis”.

Trump speaking softly? He blusters his way with petty acts, sans any “intelligent” forethought, that only serve to massage his ego. Like renaming the Gulf of Mexico and closing down the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston; bullying weaker nations by threatening to acquire by military force parts of their sovereign territory, like the Panama Canal from the Panamanians, Greenland from the Danes, creating crises where none existed. Making an existing crisis even more dangerous by threatening to acquire Gaza from the Palestinians. And abandoning long-standing allies and sucking up to “strongman” adversaries like Putin, Orban and Kim, whom he adores.

Trump is creating a Brave New World of the USA that is gaining the contempt of the rest of the world. A Brave New World which just last week created history by the United States breaking away from its traditional allies and voting with adversaries like Russia and North Korea, for the first time in 80 years, on a UN Resolution to hold Russia accountable for the invasion of Ukraine. A Brave New Nation, toeing the line of Russia and Trump’s mentor, Putin, that Ukraine forced Russia to invade Ukraine!

Vijaya Chandrasoma