A Fiasco of an Administration

January 27, 2020

Published in El País
(Spain) on 22 January 2020
by (link to original link to original)

Translated from by Madeleine Ramsey. Edited by Helaine Schweitzer.

As Donald Trump completes three years in the White House, there is a noticeable difference between the success he claims and reality.

Donald Trump completes three years in office just as the Senate opens with the last, decisive phase of the impeachment proceeding. It is a period during which the White House and the way of doing politics in Washington has been branded by only one word: confrontational.

Far from lowering his tone when he took office as the most optimistic predicted, Trump has marked his term with grandiose pronouncements, threats, diplomatic incidents and controversies of all kinds.

But this barely scratches the surface of his much more troubling approach and its more serious repercussions. The president of the United States has polarized his public like no other, and has erased any notion of moderation that might have existed in the Republican Party. He has broken from important commercial treaties, put vital security alliances like NATO in doubt, and in short, has tried to dismantle the system of multilateral cooperation that, with its successes and failures, has striven to maintain peace and prosperity since the end of World War II.

Trump has done all of this by publicly despising any way of conducting politics which he considers too weak, and by ensuring that his successes support this outlook with contempt directed especially at the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and Obama’s multilateral strategy. But in fact, this is not as brilliant as the commander in chief claims. The treaty with China is the fruit of an unnecessary trade war. Iran has resumed its nuclear program with vigor. Washington has publicly lost the confidence of its European allies, the strategy with North Korea is demonstrably ineffective, the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to be unstable and the resolution of the Israeli-Palestine conflict appears to be even further away than before, as decisions taken by Trump have distanced the U.S. from the role of privileged mediator. His anti-immigration policies have not worked to stem the tsunami of people trying to cross the border, the Venezuelan regime continues to resist, and Trump has taken the U.S. out of the fight against climate change.

With this overview, let us turn to the last stretch in the impeachment process, the one he has called a witch hunt, and his campaign for reelection in November. He will probably overcome the first hurdle thanks to the Republican majority in the Senate, but whether he’ll succeed with the next step depends a great deal on the Democratic presidential nominee, and the Democrats’ capacity to convince the public the successful term that Trump claims to have had has not been anything more than a massive fiasco.

Un fiasco de gestión

Donald Trump cumple tres años en la Casa Blanca con una notable diferencia entre lo que proclama como logros y los resultados reales

Prácticamente ha coincidido en el tiempo la apertura en el Senado de la última —y decisiva— fase del impeachment con el tercer aniversario de la llegada de Donald Trump a la presidencia de Estados Unidos, un periodo que ha marcado la Casa Blanca y la forma de hacer política desde la jefatura del Estado con una sola palabra: enfrentamiento.

Lejos de rebajar el tono cuando llegó al poder, como vaticinaban los más optimistas, Trump ha caracterizado su mandato por las declaraciones grandilocuentes, las polémicas dialécticas de todo tipo, las amenazas y los incidentes diplomáticos.

Pero esto es apenas la superficie de un planteamiento mucho más preocupante y de repercusiones más graves. El presidente de EE UU ha polarizado como nunca a la opinión pública estadounidense, ha borrado cualquier atisbo de moderación pública que pudiera haber en el Partido Republicano, ha roto importantes acuerdos comerciales, puesto en duda vitales organizaciones de seguridad como la OTAN y, en suma, tratado de desmontar el sistema de cooperación multilateral que —con sus éxitos y fracasos— ha tratado de mantener la paz y la prosperidad desde el final de la II Guerra Mundial.

Todo esto lo ha hecho Trump despreciando públicamente una manera de hacer política que ha considerado demasiado débil y asegurando que sus éxitos avalan esta actitud. Un desprecio dirigido especialmente a la Administración de su antecesor, Barack Obama, y su estrategia multilateral. Pero la realidad no es tan brillante como clama el mandatario. El acuerdo económico con China es fruto de una innecesaria guerra comercial, Irán ha reanudado con mayor velocidad su carrera nuclear, Washington ha perdido públicamente la confianza de sus aliados europeos, la estrategia con Corea del Norte se ha demostrado ineficaz, la situación en Irak y Afganistán sigue igual de inestable, la resolución del conflicto entre israelíes y palestinos parece aún más lejos después de que decisiones tomadas por Trump hayan alejado a EE UU del papel de mediador privilegiado, su política antinmigración no ha servido para frenar las masivas oleadas de personas que tratan de cruzar la frontera, el régimen de Venezuela sigue resistiendo y Trump ha alejado a EE UU de la lucha contra el cambio climático.

Con este panorama debe afrontar el último tramo de su proceso de destitución —al que califica de “caza de brujas”— y, especialmente, la reelección en noviembre. El primer escollo probablemente lo superará gracias a la mayoría republicana en el Senado, pero lo que suceda con el segundo dependerá en gran parte de la persona que los demócratas propongan al electorado y de su capacidad de convencerle de que la exitosa gestión que reivindica Trump no ha sido más que un gran fiasco.

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