miércoles, 16 de noviembre de 2016

The last tour of Obama to Europe before the new era of Trump

Now that the world has slowly got accustomed by the fact that Donald J. Trump is the president-elect of the United States of America, it seems reasonable to think that the international has shifted , or will so, beginning on the 21st of January 2017, when he will make his oath as the 45th president. Until then the outgoing lame duck Barack Obama will be making his last moves as a Democratic leader in the White House. One of them being his last trip to Europe, which started in Greece, where he met Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras, surrounded by a massive rally protesting against his visit. His trip which started in Hellenic soil, will lead him further to Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

For his farewell tour, Obama comes with a lot of assuring messages for his European counterparts, within a very delicate timeframe. The electoral promises held by the republican president-elect have raised some eyebrows in several capitals, and also at the NATO, led by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who seems particularly concerned about the future of the organization he represents. If the new policies of Washington, under this new administration was to severe the expenditures into the organization, as being its main contributor, it could call seriously into question its permanence as such, and its viability militarily speaking. Thus the worries which Barack has to try to appease somehow in this last tour.

The Trade Agreements between the US and the European Union also went sour lately, again putting the feasibility into doubt, if ever the biggest consumer market, made up by both of them, were to be merged. This seems more remote than ever, considering the new ideas of protectionism rising in the Northern American nation.

Hence the new uncertainty remains whole, as of the state of affairs worldwide and in the US in late January of next year. Will there be the massive expelling of illegal aliens back to Mexico and Central America? Will the border be effectively be sealed off by a gigantic Wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico? Who will be paying for its expenses? And furthermore, who will be in charge of what on the Hill? Obama meanwhile takes advantage of the time remaining as a head of state, and will try to reach whatever intermediary result he can achieve, whether it may be in Syria, Yemen or elsewhere, before the new team will take over the controls. 

It seems as if the nominee for the post of Secretary of State has been between the former US Ambassador John R. Bolton, having served shortly before the United Nations under the administration of Georg W. Bush, or Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York. Both of the have had hard stances regarding international affairs, but certainly the one more embedded into this is Bolton. He not only withdrew the signature of the Rome  Statute of the International Criminal Court on behalf of the US, but he also claimed several times his personal considerations about the UN, which he despises as a whole.

He dismisses the international law as such, seeing before anything else, the sole interests of the United States. As much as this can be of help to that purpose the UN is welcome to coexist in the world affairs. But beyond that it is as insignificant as can be. Combining the viewpoints of Trump himself, added to the likely Secretary of State Bolton, things might get sour in years to come.

Whomever shall step into these shoes, the new era has started worldwide. The former establishment, warrantied by the continuity of Clinton dynasty, has since decades set the rules to follow. It may be risky to try speculating about the contours of this new age to come. What is sure is that nothing is the way it used to be anymore, or will be.

This is a time of shifts and turns, which could take by surprise everyone. While waiting for the dust to settle, when everything will be clear to see, changes are being made as we speak within the team in the making of president-elect Donald J. Trump. Wait and see.  

miércoles, 9 de noviembre de 2016

The land sliding victory of Donald Trump in the midst of the fall of Hillary Clinton

The ballots in the US elections have spoken and since today the winner is known: Donald J. Trump. As it looks, the people of the USA, -or rather its biased electoral system-have resolved to make the republican nominee the 45th President of the United States.The now president-elect has stood tall all the way up to the White House, despite all the resistance coming from within the Republican Party, and from the Democratic campaign of Hillary Clinton, among other dissident voices from smaller formations. The media as a whole were frankly speaking if not with the former Secretary of State, but certainly against Donald Trump. This included the circle of artists, singers, the mainstream media, the academics, etc., who were mostly united against a common foe.

Notwithstanding the storm, on the past 8th of November the voters, the US-Americans showed off, at key states such as Florida or Ohio, which all of a sudden fell –at times by very slim margins- in favour of Trump. Seemingly the voting polls were either totally wrong, or they never reflected the whole horizon of how society was at. The persistence of an establishment, blended together among politicians, businessmen, members of Congress or Senate, and on top of this network the dynasty of the Clintons. Those two privileged members of the Hill, which since the election of Bill Clinton back in 1993 lasting over two mandates. Since then Hillary Rodham Clinton had taken the lead, being nominated under the first mandate of Barack Obama Secretary of State. Henceforth the presence and influence, let it via the Clinton Foundation, the US diplomacy, or by connections within society, has grown at least until the incident of the US Consulate of Benghazi, Libya, and Clinton leaving her office.

The political breach that Trump opened on his unusual campaign using a selection of the finest of his personality: misogynist, sexist and/or xenophobic comments, incitation towards violence, political intransigence and attacks ad hominem to anyone who happened to be in the way of the tycoon in the rise. His most concrete political ideas, which came quite late in the run, defined him as someone willing to break the seal of the current state of affairs. Renegotiation of Free Trade Agreements, i.e. NAFTA; TTIP, etc., ceasing to be the NATO main actor and material supplier, closing the borders, thus introducing trade barriers, which have been eliminated by the two-decades-old NAFTA Treaty, amongst other actions. Also there is a different view upon the foreign relations, as it seems, where the Russian president is treated in a totally new light, away from the sanctions and containment policy upheld by the current Secretary of State John Kerry.

In general the business world has woken up in shock by the news of the president-elect Donald Trump. When the economy today relies heavily on the fluctuations provoked by political events, here it has not been any different. As Wall Street saw a phase of recovery in the last days of campaign, now what is to be seen is the total opposite. Elsewhere in the world, especially in areas under its economic hegemony such as Mexico, it has provoked not only a lot of shock on behalf of most Mexicans, but also an historical low in the exchange rate of the Mexican currency since 1995.

Hence it is only natural that for instance the Mexican government has stated measures to be taken, if the economic ties should weaken or break between Washington and Mexico City, as it offers an historic opportunity to have trade with some Asian emerging economies, for real. Not only on a written paper, whereupon Mexico should and could have trade with around forty nations worldwide. Yet it depends still in over 80% of its international trade on the US, let it be in its exports as well as the imports. Now we have the chance to see elsewhere, maybe even into South America, a long time unseen area for the Mexican economy, despite being part politically of Latin America.

We are facing a new age, most probably having witnessed the last democratic president, now with a country in which the Senate and the Congress are under the control of the Republicans. Such conditions will give the presidency of Donald Trump margins for governing, unless the very own Republican Party becomes his adversary when passing his policies, whichever they may be. The president-elect Donald Trumo will be sworn January 2017, leaving Obama the time to make way in the White House until then.