As we know, the world is changing with every passing day, indeed, moment by moment. Marxists and Hegelian dialecticians, in general, see change quantitatively whereby when the quantity reaches a certain point, change becomes qualitative, necessitating adaptation and new modes of life. Others since Darwin would describe that culminating event as a mutation, signifying a radical transformation after which the world is no longer the same as it was before. This latter expression is often overused, to the degree that every major event seems like a cosmic turning point. This time, however, I believe we have reached such a point: a macromutation and qualitative transformation combined. This, even though its author or trigger had already been visited on the world for four years.
US President Donald Trump has reappeared on the American and global stage ready as never before to implement the thinking of an American ideological current that is difficult to peg. It is just as tempting to describe it as isolationist, bent as it is on building walls around the US, as it is to describe it as imperialist, because of Trump’s declared intent to annex the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland with the same ease with which he changed geography by executive order, renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America”. On his first day back in the Oval Office he set about changing history with 78 executive orders and has since continued to pen his name to radical changes in the federal government.
These changes have multiple impacts. First, they immediately throw all collective American dreams back onto the shoulders of the states. Second, they radically reduce public spending on anything that does not serve Americans exclusively. This includes spending on foreigners abroad or at home who burden the US through immigration and birth. Third, the US will also no longer have room for the liberal democrats’ gender additions, be they gay, same-sex marital couples or transgender. The world consists of a man and a woman and nothing else, and the family can only consist of one of each. Fourth, US bureaucracy has been reduced to a collection of liberal thieves who have controlled the country for decades and now is the time for their heads to roll. They are guilty of another no less grave sin: targeting Trump personally through the courts and “stealing” the elections that put him out of office four years ago. The changes tell us, fifthly, that all security institutions, from defence to the CIA and FBI, have been corrupted from within and that the time has come to purge them and put them in the iron grip of the head of state, Donald Trump, and his ideas for making America great again.
The world will also change with Trump’s bold signature. The age of reliance on the US for international security and economic prosperity has come to an end. Henceforward, every service will have a price. NATO and other US allies are advised to increase their defence budgets while purchasing oil and gas and technology from the US. This subject was brought up during and after the electoral campaigns. Now, apparently, the groundwork is going to be laid, beginning from within by stimulating massive domestic capital accumulation while getting rid of the “enemies from within” who “poison” American blood.
So far, Trump seems in no hurry to address the wars he had vowed to end during the campaign trail and before entering the White House. He has taken no significant action so far to end the war in Ukraine. Regarding the fifth war on Gaza, he dispatched his envoy Steve Witkoff to ensure negotiations succeed. Then, he stuns the world with a leaked “chat” to a journalist about phone calls he made to King Abdullah of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, asking them to accept the transfer of 1.5 million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt. Previously, Trump had suggested mass transfers to Indonesia or Albania, receiving rejections from these countries’ presidents and their peoples. President Al-Sisi suggested that instead of pushing for population transfers it would be more humane to push a peace process that resolves the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The response came through Witkoff who said that Trump would welcome ideas from the Arab side. That might sound positive but Trump began his term by lifting sanctions the previous Democratic administration had imposed on a couple of extremist settlers and settlements. Before that, he had suggested that Israel was too tiny and needed more room. This he plans to gift wrap in more Abraham Accords with other Arab countries. Get ready and fasten your seatbelts.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 February, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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