Refusal of Aid Between Nations

 Well, the second Trump administration is shaping up to be just as horrible as advertised. That certainly didn't take long. Shall we count the ways? The man's full cabinet is not even installed yet—and already, they've pardoned insurrectionists and signaled a willingness to work with the same. They've suspended the entire U.S. refugee admissions program—leaving hundreds of allies stranded in Afghanistan, for instance, who helped the U.S. war effort and had already been approved to travel. 

They've banned DEIA and tried to stir up an internal witch hunt against any government employee espousing even a disguised form of the forbidden "ideology." The "A" in DEIA—by the way—stands for "accessibility." I guess even people helping disabled veterans access benefits could be barred under the new regime? (Well, that would certainly be in character—Trump has never seen a wounded or captured soldier whom he wasn't immediately tempted to mock and disrespect.) 

But perhaps the most deplorable move this week was the universal suspension of foreign aid programs that the new administration immediately put into effect (exempting only military aid to Israel and Egypt). This one obviously sends a very troubling signal to our allies in Ukraine and Taiwan that we will not support them in the face of aggression. It erodes still further any deterrent effect that might still be holding Putin and Xi back from trying to steal even more territory from their neighbors. 

But more than that, it's also just a brutish denial of the very principle that our government should try to help other people—a categorical rejection of the baseline, other-directed moral tenet that we should care about someone other than ourselves. Trump, of course, with his "America First" slogan, has made this explicit. But it was even more annoying to see Marco Rubio—whom senators of both parties flattered at his confirmation hearing as "reasonable"—espouse the same line. 

Here was that weasel being quoted yesterday, explaining why the U.S. State Department had suddenly suspended landmine clearing operations and all other foreign aid disbursements that people rely on around the world: from now on, Rubio declared—cosplaying the administration's new übermensch ideology of anti-moralism: U.S. foreign policy will focus solely on the "national interest," which he defined as "anything that makes us stronger or safer or more prosperous."

Cheap pseudo-Nietzscheanism and Schmittianism. Of course, in parroting this ideology, Rubio is just toadying to his boss. Trump has already made clear that he intends to renounce any form of other-directed morality from the White House. He has indicated time and again that he does not care about aiding Ukraine in its struggle for survival. He has also said outright that he might invade our treaty allies or coerce our major trading partners if he thinks it would benefit him. 

Some shallow observers continue to pretend there is some paradox in this. How can Trump be both an "isolationist" who disavows U.S. involvement in helping Ukraine, they ask, but also a neo-imperialist who wants to invade Panama and Greenland? But in truth, there is nothing self-contradictory about this. Trump is being perfectly consistent: the through-line in both is the rejection of international morality, of altruism, and of the principle of non-aggression.

Think about it. What do withholding military aid from Ukraine, on the one hand, and instead using military force to attack our allies, on the other, have in common? Both are two different ways of saying: From now on, we disavow any obligation to help other people, simply because it is in the right thing to do. From now on, we worship strength and the brutish principle that might makes right—the "law of the strongest," as the French foreign minister put it. 

And in this—surely—as Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote in the 19th century—we see the downfall of our civilization. As soon as we start saying outright that we simply don't care about the fate of others, we start preparing our own doom. This is why I think—of all the travesties of Trump's first week back in office—the total suspension of foreign aid may end up being the worst. It's because, as Rossetti put it, the "Refusal of Aid Between Nations" is what heralds the death of our civilization. 

As he wrote in a poem of that name: 

Not that the earth is changing, O my God!

Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,—[....]

Not therefore are we certain that the rod

Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; [...]

But because Man is parcelled out in men

To-day; because, for any wrongful blow

No man not stricken asks, “I would be told

Why thou dost thus;” but his heart whispers then,

“He is he, I am I.” By this we know

That our earth falls asunder, being old.