Its has been a little over five weeks, since Trump took over the White House from Joe Biden. He has appointed all ministers of his choosing, albeit many projections and protests from democratic senators over their qualifications to serve in positions of power.
Just to take stock of a few of his estranged decisions, he proceeded to exit from the World Health Organisation (WHO) amid a potential outbreak of measles and another SARs like disease. He quit the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. It was adopted in 2015 and entered into force in 2016. With global warming getting worse and climate change heading south, it might have disastrous consequences for the world as a result of one mistake by one key person from the second highest greenhouse gas emitting country globally.
Other executive orders worthy of note included stopping $80 billion a year USAID, stopping security clearances of the previous presidents, and imposing tariffs on friends and foes alike. Gulf of Mexico has been renamed as Gulf of America and news agencies that refused to follow suit were thrown out of the white house press corp.
Among the threatening warnings that have the whole world up in their arms included the intention to make its northern neighbour and long-time steadfast ally the 51st State of America. And taking over the Panama canal is another one of that. Denmark too, has to kowtow somewhat to Trump, by offering him more cooperation and space for military bases, after he threatened to take over the former’s territory Greenland. Gaza was not spared either. Trump suggested that US should takeover Gaza to turn it into a resort after sacking all Palestinians out of the land.
Global economy is not spared either. With the introduction of tariffs even on its staunch neighbours such as Canada, Mexico and EU, and also on its biggest trading partner, China, Trump is creating chaos in global economy as these nations scrambled to put forward a slew of retaliatory measures to counter Trump antics.
Role of Musk
Musk funded Trump elections campaign in a significant way. Using his enormous wealth and technology assets, he turned the election in Trump favour and Trump owed him big. The founder and CEO of Tesla and Starlink, is now the person in charge of DOGE – Department of Government Efficiency, trying to cut as many government jobs as possible.
He sat in cabinet meetings, he was with Trump on important outings, held press conferences together and hold enormous sway over Trump, at least for the time being.
And cut he has. He is instrumental in cutting USAID, digging into Social Security to plough through possible fraudulent claims by dead people and getting into federal employees database to send emails to improve efficiency or else.
What about us?
Trump actions that are likely to impact Myanmar stem from cutting off US Aid funding and not continuing with the $400 million Burma Act. The former $80 billion budget is far reaching, from giving BBC $1.2 billion in 2024 to half of it being dedicated to humanitarian relief. Myanmar got around $250 million of that last year. Even if half of it has gone into helping the wounded terrorists, promoting Christianity and sending economic migrants on a 18 months (extendable) all inclusive trip to the USA, i.e., ‘humanitarian assistance’, the rest were channeled into anti establishment machinery of NNCP terrorists, fake news agencies and ‘very polite’ celebrities, whose speciality seems to be swearing at and throwing vulgarities at the government people who, they think do not follow their way of thinking. More than $100 million for the latter three, even before including the Burma Act.
Their activities would eventually grind to a halt, as bullets run out and the US digital platforms can no longer accommodate these terrorism activities of these agencies and social media celebrities, without the tacit support of the US federal authorities. Digital espionage is also expected to go down as DOGE dig deep into FBI, CIA and NSA spending habits.
So far, based on the recent Guardian UK interview with some exile media in Mae Sot, some are keeping their chins up while trying to get free money from alternative donors. But most are resigned to losing their jobs and having to seek alternative employment, as their fake news agency employers will no longer pay their salaries past February of this year.
Upsides and Downsides
The upsides are obvious; fake news from Siam and Ayutthaya are going down, funding to NNCP would stall and no more effortless migration to the US, by just showing a couple of pictures taken with Su Kyi or some other NNCP leaders. Even in the months of February, terror attacks have gone down. Number of fake news also have gone down significantly. The countering and pinpointing of fake news in government papers have gone down from almost everyday to now a once or twice a-week affair.
If you ask the senior civil servants to name one major issue for the government now, they would be pointing out fake news as the one. With Trump’s action on foreign aid, the elephant in the room would have been addressed. His actions seem to be all positive for the current administration. What a good president for Myanmar, may be Russia perhaps judging from the latest antics with Zelensky in the White House.
The downside is sort of hidden in plain view. It relates to the performance analytics of ministers and cabinet members. A few of them are in charge of fighting fake news and for the past four years, they have been at it, but more or less about to accept the unavoidability of defeat, after trying out many unproductive counter measures and appointing oldies to combat new age weapons. Now they would be all ready to steal someone’s thunder. So the top dogs have to watch out for a few ‘good’ men who would claim credit for the performance that they did not create and hyper vigilant against giving green lights for funding the activities that are a waste of national resources, in the context of fighting fake news.
The order of the Phoenix
The world’s order is in dynamic shape at the moment. EU is even trying to drag Canada into its grouping. They are in full support for Ukraine. China is getting the upper hand in diplomacy as US funding to overseas stopped. Russia is getting much needed support from its new found ally in Washington. May be the oligarchs can pay Trump back by donating $5 million each to buy into his ‘gold card’ residency scheme!
