In yet another lie, US president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, that he had “very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers”.
He continued: “The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus. The pricing would be substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada.” Canada provides, tariff-free, about 80 per cent of potash imports used in US agriculture. Its price has risen principally because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Israeli-American war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
For some time, the Trump administration has been playing economic footsie with the Belarus dictatorship under the smokescreen of negotiating the release of political prisoners. Somewhat to Trump’s dismay, Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko announced that there is no available fertiliser to export to the US. The “massive deal” is a complete fantasy. Eyeing the agricultural vote in the midwest, and conscious of the cost of inputs such as fertiliser and diesel, Trump concocted the prospect of a non-existent deal with landlocked Belarus to export fertiliser through Russia in a forlorn attempt to prop up his sagging popularity and avoid electoral catastrophe in midterm congressional elections now less than six weeks away.
Diesel is a major problem for Trump. It has rocketed to over $6 (€5.24) per gallon, creating huge resentment right across the United States economy.
Needless to say the White House has now identified flagging Russian diesel exports as a major contributory factor to worldwide shortage and price increases. Equally predictable is Trump’s transactional response. He tells the Ukrainians not to target Russian diesel and petrol facilities which enable Vladimir Putin’s war to subjugate their country. Ludicrously, he states that Putin wants peace but that Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants 10 more years of war. He conveniently forgets that when the USSR broke up, and Ukraine became an independent state, both Russia and America jointly gave it security assurances in exchange for relinquishment of its part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Trump acts as Putin’s puppet for reasons that remain shrouded in secrecy.
Trump has, of course, personal scores to settle with Ukraine. We should never forget the shocking public Oval Office mugging by Trump and vice-president JD Vance of Zelenskiy, where he was accused of warmongering, ingratitude and holding no cards against the might of Putin’s invasion.
Putin and his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov have been unequivocal in their demands. They want to annex huge portions of Ukraine including its only access to the Black Sea in the region of Odesa. They want to make Russia contiguous with Moldova, a democracy which they have been attempting to subvert for many years. They want to expel Zelenskiy, who is himself a Jew, on a concocted argument that he is some form of Nazi.
Resumption of Russian diesel exports has suddenly become a top priority. Concerns about Russia’s ghost tanker fleet and threats to seize them on the high seas for sanctions-busting are forgotten because November’s voters won’t stomach the consequences of his unwinnable war against Iran. Trump’s failure to persuade the Supreme Court to allow him interfere with postal voting in November has caused him great distress. His dissatisfaction ratings have plumbed record depths, although he denies it.
But the penny is beginning to drop with American voters that Trump is not merely a bombastic narcissist nor just a ruthless exploiter of office for personal and family enrichment. Most Americans by now suspect that his Golden Age of tariffs has achieved nothing for them individually.
Trump clings to the delusion that the Dow Jones measurement of American economic wellbeing is the true index of the common good. The AI share price bubble is destined to burst. Rich Americans pursuing inflated returns on savings and investments do nothing for fellow Americans whose meagre entitlements to basic health services are whittled away in the name of Trump’s imagined battle with communism.
Now comes Trump’s panic-stricken plea to American senators to abolish the filibuster. Irish people may not understand that a bare majority of 51 (out of 100 members) is insufficient to carry many decisions by reason of the Senate’s own rule which in effect stipulates a qualified majority of 60 members. Trump wants US senators to scrap this rule now to enable him to exercise absolute power in many areas of US democracy. But some Republican senators, taking a long view, know full well that acceding to Trump’s demand would diminish their individual authority and capacity to function in the event of their losing control of the Senate.
Trump’s attack on CNN and MS NOW is a naked, dangerous usurpation of press freedom. So also is his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC. American democracy has never been in such a parlous and dysfunctional state.
While the next six weeks may be game changing, there is still every reason to fear what a despotic Trump may do in the next two years.