Trump trailed 7-8. June to Canada to attend the G7 Summit. This came in the shadow of the fact that a week earlier the United States had launched the trade war against the EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan and China with penalties on, among other things. steel and aluminum. The other G7 leaders tried – in vain – to explain to Trump that the trade war was not very smart. This one again responded with a proposal to again include Russia in the G7/G8 family and then went to summit with North Korea’s Kim Jung-Un in Singapore. The EU again responded to the US tariff with tariffs on, among other things. Harley Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky whiskey. Harley Davidson had 20% of its sales in Europe and responded defensively by announcing that it was considering moving parts of its production to the EU. This triggered a swoon of you from Trump.
According to agooddir, the Singapore summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jung-Un ended with a statement of just a page and a half. An indication that the prior negotiations had not resulted in any agreements that could be signed. It was merely a declaration of intent on nuclear disarmament in the Korean peninsula. At the same time, the parties gave some concessions that could pave the way for a relaxation of the situation between the two countries. North Korea pledged to extradite the terrestrial remains of captured US soldiers from the Korean War, and the United States pledged to suspend military maneuvers in South Korea, where the United States and South Korea have trained several times a year on the north. In the United States, the right-wing Cold War warriors were not interested in peace, and in the rest of the world commentators were confused about how the “deal” should be interpreted. Only a few weeks passed before the Cold War presented “evidence” that North Korea, rather than dismantling its nuclear arsenal, was accelerating the production of nuclear bomb material. The war industry earns better on weapons than on peace. The previous months, North Korea had otherwise been dismantling its nuclear test facility in Punggye-ri.
As part of its growing isolation from the rest of the world, the United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council in June. The regime stated that the reason was the Council’s frequent criticism of Israel. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regretted the US decision, and Council President Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein stated that: “When considering the state of human rights in the world today, the United States should step up, not withdraw.” (US quits UN human rights council – ‘a cesspool of political bias’, Guardian 19/6 2018)
At the end of the month, the Supreme Court issued a ruling approving Trump’s entry ban on people from 7 Muslim countries. At the same time, Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy announced he was retiring. It allowed Trump to place a new young right-wing judge in the Supreme Court, making it likely that even the limited right to abortion in the United States would be rolled back.
In early June, Amnesty International published a report documenting the US war crimes in connection with the Raqqa conquest in Syria. 90% of the buildings in the city had been leveled to the ground by the US bombings and 1400-2000 civilians killed during the terrorist bombings. In one single family, 39 had been killed by US bombs. IS committed serious war crimes during its occupation of Raqqa. America’s war crimes during the recapture were far worse.
In the beginning of June, Israel executed 21-year-old Palestinian nurse Razan al-Najar with a gunshot wound as she ran toward the Israeli-built fence around Gaza to help a protester wounded by Israeli snipers. The murder brought the number of victims of the Israeli bullets to 123 since the end of March. In the United Nations Security Council, Kuwait presented a resolution calling for the protection of Palestinian civilians. The resolution was endorsed by almost all council members, and was subsequently removed by the United States, which vetoed it. UN Ambassador Nicky Haley characterized it as deeply one-sided and morally decaying.
Environment Minister Scott Pruit resigned in July. Not because of his office and its disastrous consequences for climate and the environment, but because of a public scandal surrounding his personal over-spending of state funds. Pruit had expected to take on Justice Jeff Sessions’ post when fired by Trump, but now even quit before it happened. Still, his tenure reached disastrous negative consequences: US withdrew from COP16 climate agreement, denied global climate change, rolled back regulation of drinking water protection, halted collection of methane emissions data and blocked circulators that could have reduced CO 2 emissions from cars and power plants.
