In the first few months, Trump ruled almost exclusively by decree, but this form of government had its limitations. He had the constitutional right to declare war on Mexico, but not to build a wall, for it would require appropriations through Congress. The masonry project could therefore not be started. But he could well issue decree on entry bans. However, this could be rolled back due to the balance built into the United States Constitution between the presidential office, legislation and Congress. The Republican majority in both congressional chambers was ambivalent about the president. Formally, enough were Republicans, but first and foremost he was Trump, and the primary consideration of Republican politicians was their own re-election. It was therefore extremely difficult to find common ground between Congress and the President. It didn’t get any better in May, when the president fired FBI Director James Comey. The reason was that in January, Trump had tried in vain to get the FBI to stop the investigation of political relations between Trump and Russia. These connections already cost February Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn the job. The firing of the Republican FBI director was not popular in the Republican Party. If it could be proven that Trump had tried to halt the investigation into his relations with Russia, it would be “obstruction of justice” and would trigger a court case. Michael Flynn worked. The firing of the Republican FBI director was not popular in the Republican Party. If it could be proven that Trump had tried to halt the investigation into his relations with Russia, it would be “obstruction of justice” and would trigger a court case. Michael Flynn worked. The firing of the Republican FBI director was not popular in the Republican Party. If it could be proven that Trump had tried to halt the investigation into his relations with Russia, it would be “obstruction of justice” and would trigger a court case.
In foreign policy, Trump systematically embarked on rolling back Obama’s actions. According to a2zdirectory, the US withdrew from the Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TPP), pausing the TTIP negotiations with the EU. He made up 50 years of US policy and terminated support for a two-state solution in Pallastina. He withdrew the United States from the UN Climate Agreement and again put the Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects on rails. He rolled the thaw of relations with Cubaback. Security policy was a difficult issue for Trump, and so he gave the United States military free rein to conduct operations anywhere in the world. The first took place in Yemen a few days after his deployment. It was a disaster: it killed dozens of Yeminites and a U.S. commando soldier. In Iraq and Syria, the bombings escalated irrespective of the civilian population. During the first six months, 4-5,000 civilians were killed during these bombings. In April, he sent 58 cruise missiles against an air base in Syria. The allegation was that the Syrian regime was behind a poison gas attack in Idlib province that allegedly cost 80 civilian lives. The real reason, however, was that international attention should be turned away from the fact that two days earlier the United States had killed over 200 Iraqi civilians during an air raid on Mosul. For the first time, the president received international support and even from his opponents in the United States, so he followed up by throwing history’s largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan and threatening North Korea with war. He allegedly sent an aircraft carrier group to North Korea. However, after a few weeks, military sources revealed that group was sailing from, not to North Korea. In July, he and his UN threatened North Korea with nuclear war. The background was a North Korean trial of an intercontinental missile. There was a mad man in Pyong Yang, and an even more mad man in Washington. South Korea and the rest of the world prevailed.
Trump’s policies helped accelerate U.S. geopolitical marginalization and move the global geopolitical center of gravity into Asia, midway between Africa, Europe, Russia, India and China. However, the Twitter man in Washington still had the codes to launch global nuclear war.
The number of migrants who died while crossing the Mexico-US border in the first 7 months of 2017 increased 17% from 204 in the same months in 2016 to 232 in 2017. In July alone, 50 migrants died. The increase in the death toll occurred at the same time as a dramatic decrease in the number of migrants affected. While during the first 6 months of 2016, the US migration authorities arrested 267,746 migrants, the number in the same months of 2017 had fallen to 140,024. Historically, the number of dead migrants tends to rise as anti-migration rhetoric grows in the United States, which it did especially after Trump’s inauguration as president. However, the death toll remains below the many thousands who die each year during attempts to reach the EU from the Middle East and Africa. (Migrant deaths at US-Mexico border increase 17% this year, UN figures show,Guardian 5/8 2017)
