Sow the Wind and Reap the Whirlwind

Donald Trump sows the wind, adding one more negative record to his portfolio. According to Euronews, the U.S. government shutdown is the longest in U.S. history; about a quarter of the federal government is closed and more than 800,000 federal employees have gone unpaid for nearly four weeks. Congress refuses to approve the $5.7 billion Trump is demanding to finance a wall on the border with Mexico, and the conflict is not likely to be resolved soon. Obviously, for Trump, “others” are to blame: the Democrats who hold the majority in the House of Representatives and who are being stubborn. The president even announced that he would declare a state of emergency, in which case he could govern without the approval of Congress, resorting to an extreme measure to reopen the federal government.

But neither a state of emergency nor any other extreme measure can undo all the bad that Trump’s politics have done to Americans, politics based on racism, misogyny and inciting nationalism which, according to Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, has “unleashed dark and violent forces that have already begun to spin out of control.”

The U.S. federal budget deficit of $1 trillion is the largest ever recorded in any country in peacetime in one year. Major job growth and consistent income-generating investments have remained just promises. Big corporations have overestimated the fiscal weakening which led to this deficit and which, according to economic analysts, will eventually increase the cost of capital after taxation.

American corporations, financial institutions and the stock market are all driven by mistrust and too many uncertainties; the memory of the 2008 crisis is still vivid, and the deep wound provoked back then has not yet healed. Although he calls it “America First,” Trump’s policy has not increased the unity of the Americans; it has sowed mistrust and increased discord. When citizens no longer trust each other or the state, society can no longer function, and the chaos spreads. But Trump thrives in chaos, Stiglitz says. The day of political reconciliation is approaching, and this year, the U.S. economy will show how much whirlwind Trump will reap.