Trump's America First agenda taking down the US Empire

Trump signed the 2019 US military spending bill into law on Monday, authorizing the Defense Department to invest around $717 billion into military strategies that will target Russia and China.

“Donald Trump has just raised the US military budget more than anybody else in the post-war, peace-time history with his $717 billion bill, which is apparently part of Trump’s supposed strategy to ‘make America great again’,” said Dr. Kevin Barrett, author, journalist and radio host in Madison, Wisconsin.

“In fact what Trump is doing is inadvertently perhaps taking down the US Empire,” he said. “Previous empires have fallen mainly due to overextension, meaning too much military spending.”

Throughout his campaign, even before he won the Republican nomination, Trump promised to end military engagements overseas, particularly in the Middle East, and instead focus on rebuilding America.

“Trump is bankrupting the United States further even after criticizing previous administrations for spending outrageous sums of money on pointless wars in the Middle East,” Barrett said. “He took office and started spending even more outrageous sums of money preparing perhaps for even more pointless wars.”

Additionally, Barrett said, Trump has disrupted the international system of alliances and agreements, which has put the United States in an advantageous position in the world, especially with respect to trade.

Trump, who contends the US has been treated “unfairly” by its trading partners, has imposed a series of tariffs on goods from China, Canada, Europe and others, prompting a surge of new trade deals that exclude the United States.

Trump's approach has pushed China and Russia to form new alliances between themselves and with other countries that have also been targeted by the US, including Iran and Turkey, Barrett said.

“Trump’s trade war and economic sanctions are forcing these countries to band together against the US and specifically to get out of US dollars and start trading in their national currencies,” he noted.