“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation,” says Adlai E. Stevenson, a former governor of Illinois (1949–1953) and United States of America’s ambassador to the United Nations (1961–1965). Stevenson, a two-term presidential nominee, described a politician who, while deliberately walking into error with eyes wide open, defends that error with gusto while dishing out lofty speeches about preserving what he or she might have destroyed or is in the process of destroying.
The self-styled ‘greatest President of the US’, Mr Donald John Trump, though he might not be categorised as a hypocrite (by my own assessment), may eventually fit perfectly into Stevenson’s description of someone who, while professing to be “making America great again”, may be pushing the once great country freely into the pain of isolation in no too distant future. Since his second coming in January last year, the US president has been working extremely hard at isolating his country from the rest of the world, including neighbours, ostensibly without realising so.
Meanwhile, this has not stopped some Nigerian politicians from ‘reporting’ their country to the US for adjudication for any little disagreement, including domestic arguments between husbands and their wives. Remember that Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde; presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar; Afrobeat superstar, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido; Christian bodies, and scores of civil rights organisations have cultivated the habit of calling on the US to ‘intervene’ in Nigeria’s elections and any developments that are alleged not to be in the interest of the people.
These Nigerians might have forgotten that the same man they call upon to intervene in Nigeria’s affairs, as if Nigeria is a subject of the Americans, has imposed a blanket visa ban on Nigeria like any other outcasts. Mr. Trump might not have been told that, though Nigeria has its problems, there is no nation on earth that can overlook Nigeria in any aspect as far as Africa is concerned and intend to make much progress on the continent.
Unfortunately, the emperor they call upon frequently hardly looks into such misdirected complaints (I believe he knows better than the complainants); he is more entrenched in the self-project of making America great again. The strategies of ensuring this much-trumpeted greatness are, however, a subject of great consternation to other world leaders, including Americans themselves.
From bullying some low-hanging neighbours to fishing in long-distance troubled waters, Mr Trump appears captivated by the idea that the world hasn’t learned any lessons from the body language he gainfully employed during his first term in office (2017–2021). Evidently, America was more divided than he met it when he reluctantly exited office in 2021.
Not far from controversy, the US president actually kicked off courting resentment by threatening to take over Greenland, a self-governing area under the Kingdom of Denmark, which is 3,950 kilometres away from New York. Trump had said the US would take over the land by force if negotiation and a peaceful approach failed. He had yet to do that.
The US interest in this European land is rooted in military strategy, with the Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) in northwestern Greenland as the US’s northernmost permanent military installation, including a ballistic missile early-warning system for North America. It is also economic, as Greenland is said to hold 25 of the European Union’s 34 critical raw materials, including rare earth elements and other critical minerals used for electronics, defence systems, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other green-energy technologies.
Despite its richness, must anyone traverse close to 4,000km to claim a foreign land under a sovereign government just to make his homeland great, no matter the opposition? As expected, this self-serving move has been stoutly resisted by both Denmark and the EU.
After subduing Venezuela and imposing crippling sanctions on Cuba, a neighbouring country, Trump, on February 28, embarked on a mission to annihilate Iran with the support of Israel, a mission which is gradually turning out to be a misadventure. Don’t get me wrong. It is common knowledge that sponsoring terrorists and extremists is a state policy in Iran. It is equally agreed that a nuclear weapon in the hands of such a state might pose a serious danger to humanity. It is, however, an ambush to launch massive attacks on such a state without informing other NATO allies, while a seemingly productive negotiation was said to be ongoing.
Trump had promised that Operation Epic Fury would bring Iran to its knees within four to five weeks. The reality on the ground shows that the military expedition is proving to be a costly mistake. After US initial setbacks in the war, NATO allies, especially Spain, declined to join the war or its naval bases to be used as a launch pad for attacks against Iran. The NATO allies do not love Iran; it frowns on the attempt of Trump to turn the allies to appendages of the US who did not seek their support before attacking the Middle East country, by the way.
The refusal of the NATO allies to support the war on Iran triggered Trump’s much–vaunted weapon – tariffs ranging from 25 per cent to 50 per cent and visa bans- all in a bid to make America great again. The allies and EU were called names, and Spain got a 25 per cent tariff immediately for its affront. If Trump’s tariffs have been as hurtful as he thought they would be, China would have collapsed long ago.
Trump’s state visit to China on May 13 – 15 this year was not to strengthen economic and political relations. It was to crack a hard nut in the war against Iran, which has made the superpower very pedestrian militarily in the Middle East. It was alleged that China and Russia have substantially helped Iran with advanced technology and weapons to counter the US and be able to launch counter-offensives against US military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and a few others in the region.
Unfortunately, Trump didn’t get any positive commitments from China, a country he had repeatedly imposed ‘additional tariffs’ on. A projected ‘four-to-five-week’ war, which is dragging into its eighth month (without an end in sight), is not a victory for the US, even if it’s not a defeat yet. The critical Strait of Hormuz is said to be in firm control of Iran, contradicting the claim of the US.
Are you then surprised that other countries in the Middle East, which have all along been allies of the US, are not rushing to sign peace agreements with Iran after the superpower has left them to their own fate? The world was in a panic 10 days ago when Saudi Arabia shut the East-West pipeline, which carries crude from the Persian Gulf side of the Kingdom to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, after it was struck by missiles in no fewer than three stations. This 1,200-km pipeline carries an estimated five million barrels of crude daily, with no superpower in sight to intercept any missiles. The impact of rising crude oil prices has continued unabated because of one man’s obsession with making America great again.
Is it not comical that the US, which sustained apartheid South Africa (along with Israel) economically, diplomatically, militarily and politically before 1990, is imposing visa restrictions on officials of a freed South Africa? In case you don’t know, these are SA’s offences — uncompensated land seizures/expropriation without adequate compensation; race-based discrimination; and incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups – in the same South Africa.
The September 15 visa restriction, on the face of it, is to protect the rights of the white minority group, which was once protected by the US when it subjugated the majority blacks in their homeland when the apartheid whites were in power in South Africa. Did anyone shout double standards? The real reason for the restriction, however, is SA’s membership of BRICS, an emerging global economic power consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, founded in 2006.
Currently, 11 nations are members, with SA and Egypt as Africa’s representatives, while Nigeria is an observer member. Nigeria’s serial visa restrictions and the genocide claim followed the same pattern after President Bola Tinubu attended the BRICS summit in Brazil last year.
A week ago, at the 18th BRICS Summit held in New Delhi, India, between September 12 and 13, BRICS, which boasts of 45 per cent of the world’s population, made a landmark decision (among its nine-point agreement) to trade in each member nation’s local currency (among themselves) without resorting to the almighty dollar. In fact, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkia attended the BRICS summit in India, after which he declared that the Middle East did not need a policeman.
Trump’s reaction was swift and threatening as usual. He threatened to impose 100 per cent tariff on BRICS members who dared to do so. If any nation is not doing business with Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria – three of the major economic powers in Africa – which country is it doing business with on the continent?
Trump may need to be told that international trade transactions in dollar have been declining since 2017. They have fallen by seven per cent — from 64 per cent to 57 per cent between 2017 and now. With more grandstanding, especially to make America great again, and the imposition of more tariffs, the standing of the dollar as a currency of international transactions may suffer more knocks.
While BRICS was plotting how to move on without the almighty US in India, Trump was busy attacking NATO, the EU and the United Kingdom for their refusal to join his self-serving military misadventure in the Middle East, where America has been badly bruised.
The most ridiculous fight of isolation Trump is engaged in currently is against a long-standing ally and neighbour, Canada. He has said it several times that the US is the one protecting Canada. Did you ask ‘what from’? US got a double dose of the 25 per cent tariff it imposed on its neighbour after Canada walked away from the trade talks in Washington three weeks ago, where the American President expected the Canadian to ‘beg’ to continue as its ally and make injurious concessions so that America will be great again.
Until the face-off between the two nations, I didn’t know that Canada exported power to the US – in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Washington and California. I didn’t know that Canada supplied an average of four million barrels of crude oil to the US daily, among other critical minerals. I never heard that Canada exported about $5.6bn worth of steel and iron ore to the US in 2025.
You might not have heard that US airlines and aircraft need to fly through Canada’s airspace on their way to Europe, and they have been doing so for a long time without paying. Is that a neighbour a sensible nation would want to fight or isolate in the name of making a nation great again?
I was not a little surprised, therefore, when I read that Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, attended the EU meeting in Brussels last week, where the North American nation was made an ‘associate member’ of the EU. Can you beat that? I was equally not surprised that Carney paid a four-day visit to Xi Jinping of China between January 14 and 17, 2026, the first by any Canadian PM since 2017. Talk of looking for new, more productive partners.
Let’s look at who this war of isolation to make America great again may hurt most.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
