CGTN Europe spoke to David Dunn, Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00And President Trump is trying to reshape the world, but meeting some resistance along the way.
00:05Let's talk to David Dunn, Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham.
00:11David, welcome back, good to see you.
00:13And President Trump obviously dominating the news headlines every day, pretty much since he took power.
00:17But at each turn, as we've been reporting, whether it's on tariffs or sackings,
00:23he's forced to pause, isn't he, or row back.
00:27I mean, is this going to define the coming months, or will he eventually get his way?
00:33Well, despite those legal attempts to try and stop him doing his worst through executive orders,
00:40the executive orders are actually quite effective at achieving what he wants to do,
00:45which is disruption, dislocating and damaging the agencies that he has targeted.
00:51So if you take, for example, the aid agency, 94% of the staff have been told that they're laid off.
00:58And major projects in South Sahara Africa have been denied their funding.
01:03So even if they're restored by the courts, they have already had the impact of having a major disruptive effect in Africa.
01:13And of course, that's partly why he's doing this. He's playing to his base.
01:17He is delivering on his promises to actually put America first.
01:21And if that means abandoning allies, breaking trade rules, and abandoning the poor and the sick in Africa, that's what he wants to do.
01:28International condemnation of President Trump's foreign policy plans on Gaza,
01:33and as you allude to, his defenestration of US aid, has been widespread.
01:40Does it really matter? Does the Trump administration care what the international community has to say?
01:47I think he regards it as a badge of honor that the international community responds in this way.
01:52As far as his mind is concerned, the way in which he views the world, he is putting America first.
01:59And if that annoys foreigners, that seems to reinforce his idea that he is pursuing this very, very narrow definition of what benefits America.
02:08And of course, his largely supportive voters are actually increasing their support for him.
02:16So we see Donald Trump's opinion poll numbers going up as a consequence of this action,
02:22which makes the international response one that isn't just a response to Trump,
02:28it's also a response to the new America that we see in this time period.
02:34He isn't an autocrat, though, is he? I mean, there are checks and balances in the United States Constitution, aren't there?
02:41There is resistance there somewhere, isn't there?
02:45Well, that certainly has been the case for the last 250 years.
02:49But what we see in the way in which Donald Trump is exercising power is that he has more power than George III ever dreamt of.
02:57And actually, Trump bringing his Wall Street experience, his real estate experience to the table
03:05is trying to disrupt the constitutional settlement and to actually evade the checks and balances.
03:11And actually, he's been very effective in doing so.
03:14As I say, despite the fact that there are laws that govern what he can do with regard to the way in which federal money is spent,
03:21he is using executive orders to actually effectively ruin the way in which those programs are financed.
03:28Yes, there will be legal charges down the road, but before those can take effect, he has had an impact by the executive orders.
03:35He has a compliant House and Senate.
03:39Even people there who may be inclined to not support him are under threat of being primaried using Elon Musk's money,
03:47and therefore they are stupefying.
03:49The Supreme Court has issued a statement saying that he is exempt from prosecution while in office,
03:57and therefore he has no block from the courts.
04:00The press have paid him damages when they needn't have done so under the First Amendment
04:05in order to actually not have a hard time as a consequence.
04:09So America is meant to be the system of checks and balances and ways of blocking the power of a rampant executive,
04:18and yet Donald Trump in his first two and a half weeks has demonstrated that there were very few limits on his power
04:26to actually disrupt and dislocate the way in which the federal government and American foreign policy have been characterized,
04:33really beyond living memory.
04:36David, good to talk to you. Thanks very much for that.
04:38David Dunn, Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham.