The President Appears to Be Hell-Bent upon Isolating the United States from International Treaties and Memberships
Those include the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Open Skies Treaty, World Health Organization, Paris Climate Agreement, Iran Nuclear Deal, UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Global Compact on Refugees, and Arms Trade Treaty.
His latest is boycotting the G20 conference in South Africa.
In yet another otherworldly scene unfolding in the Oval Office, as the president hosted South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Orange Man blindsided Ramaphosa by playing videos that he says prove his claims that South Africa is committing genocide against white farmers there. The South African delegation pushed back and denied the claim in a historically tense meeting. And, of course, it was performed in front of a large audience, with cameras catching the entire embarrassment.
Taking this extraordinary (and unfounded) accusation as an excuse, the Orange Man withdrew all American delegates to the G20, including His Orangeness, who is supposed to host its next meeting. The irony of refusing the G20, while supporting an actual genocide in Israel, was not lost by anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see.
The Oval Office has become the venue of choice for entrapments.
And they are not chance encounters, but well organized in advance, to embarrass and undermine the very reason behind such invitations. The Oval Office has always been a venue for welcoming honored guests into our nation’s home, as one would in their own living rooms. It’s beyond comprehension that a president would use the nation’s White House to embarrass and intimidate a foreign guest, but he’s pulled it off twice now, in a not yet completed first term of his second presidency.
A very slow learning curve, indeed.
The Orange Man must surely have been bullied as a child.
And, like so many who have suffered that intimidating public cruelty, once he has power, he becomes a bully himself. We see this in the corporate world as well. The world’s richest man is a current example and, interestingly, also a native of South Africa. Perhaps different rules apply. Who knows what goes on behid the makeup?
Throughout his business career, the Orange Man bullied anyone to whom he owed money, bullied the girls competing at his various beauty contests, built a television show based on bullying, and carried that modus operandi into the presidency.
While occupying the nation’s highest office, he bullied by threat of tariffs, by instructing the Department of Justice to indict his political ‘enemies,’ allowing masked ICE agents to kidnap suspected aliens off the streets with no judicial restraints, and bullied the media (charged with his oversight) by means of extravagent lawsuits. Universities and law firms are his current victims.
But not all. Just as bullies seldom confront other bullies, he is soft on Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Birds of a feather, as they say.
And now, in an uncontrolled and unproven hissy-fit, he has withdrawn the United States from an annual G20 meeting in South Africa.
The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum, comprising 19 sovereign countries, the European Union, and the African Union.
It’s purpose is to provide a forum for major industrialized and emerging economies to cooperate on global economic and financial issues. It began in 1999, as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, following the late 1990s financial crises. It was elevated to a leaders’ summit in 2008, during the global financial crisis to address urgent, high-level issues. It has since become an annual fixture for leaders to discuss a wide range of topics, including trade, climate change, and sustainable development.
Until now.
This year, the Orange Man threw all that multinational cooperation into the nearest recycling bin.
In a check-your-facts-before-accusing moment, the Orange Man played a video clip that showed a long line of white crosses on the side of a South African highway, which he said were “burial sites“ for white farmers. The crosses merely represented farmers who had been killed over the years, and were not graves at all.
No matter. Never disturb a good story.
Our president then held up a picture of people lifting body bags and said, “These are all white farmers that are being buried.“ The photo actually showed humanitarian workers burying bodies in the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was a screengrab, taken from Reuters video footage in early February, following deadly battles against Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who had captured the city.
Details, those damned details. The prez doesn’t read his Daily Briefs by the CIA either.
Without evidence, our president claimed, before international television coverage, that “there is a genocide of white farmers in South Africa.” Yet, as mentioned, with enough evidence to cause a UN finding and worldwide shame, there actually is a genocide occurring in Gaza…by an Israeli Prime Minister who was a recently honored guest in the Oval Office.
No ‘gotcha accusations’ there, but that’s another story, and we needn’t interrupt this one.
And so, without even so much as a note under the door from Laura Loomer, the Orange Man withdrew America from another alliance of Western nations.
The G20 (or 21, as it now exists) includes the African Union and the European Union, as well as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Not a bunch you’d want to stick in the eye by insulting their 2025 host and staying home.
Also of interest, is the fact that six of the twenty-one G20 national members are also BRICS members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (this year’s G20 host), and Indonesia.
BRICS, for those who are not aware, was formed gradually; first as an idea, then as a diplomatic coalition, and finally as a formal bloc. Its development is said to reflect a major shift in global economic power away from the traditional Western-led institutions and toward rising economies.
I’ll leave you to guess which traditional Western-led institution is targeted.
It would seem that the Orange Man’s total disdain for his own major trading bloc, would crack a few smiles over at the rising economies, although China is far more of a major economy than a rising one.
So, our president is two-thirds of the way to a hat trick (three goals by a single player in hockey).
And the completion of that hat trick may come as a handing-over of the present G20 host nation to its successor, who happens to be the President of the United States. Ramaphosa referenced the U.S. boycott on Thursday, when he said that the G20 meeting would issue a joint declaration, despite pressure from Washington not to do so. The U.S. had apparently sent a diplomatic communication to South Africa, advising that there should be no declaration adopted at the summit, because the U.S. wasn’t there and therefore there would be no consensus.
backpedaling, the Orange Man now wants a toned-down statement from South Africa, only to cap the summit, which is a culmination of more than 120 meetings that Africa’s most advanced economy has hosted since it took over the G20’s rotating presidency this year.
Nope.
‘We will not be bullied,’ Ramaphosa said. “We will have a declaration. The talks are going extremely well. I’m confident we are moving towards a declaration, and they are now just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Without the United States, the whole process of the G20 is moving forward. We will not be bullied. We will not agree to be bullied.”
Other leaders have expressed hope that the summit results in a declaration. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that he hopes for “joint decisions,” but conceded that “that is not entirely certain.”
Trump says he’s “sending a delegation” for the turnover. Ramaphosa says he will only turn over to the next host in person.
There is a cost to a public shaming.
That cost will no doubt be further charged against America’s Mastercard in Ukraine and Gaza.