TRUMP’S INAUGURAL SPEECH: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY DRIFTING TOWARDS ISOLATIONISM

The much-awaited moment has come and gone. It is Trump’s inauguration as President of United States of America. However, Americans have expressed mixed reactions to this great moment. To some, it is indeed, a moment of joy and happiness, but to others, it is a moment of sadness and regrets. But for recorded history, it is a moment of great happiness and euphoria as America and the world stood still to witness yet another smooth transition from one administration to another—a moment that allows for a systemic change in government. How time flies so fast; just a few years ago, it was Barrack Obama, who threw America and the world into an ocean of vapourizing expectations with his rhetoric and oratory skills and linguistic artistry during the electioneering campaign, but more profoundly, during his inaugural speech in 2009.

However, January 20, 2017 was another historic moment that features in the annals of American history, as it marks the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45^th President of the United States of America, to take over from Barrack Obama. As it is customary of Presidents to give their inaugural speech, Trump also poured out his speech in a simple language, with confidence and with strong rendition of words offering promises and reassurances of a greater and better America in the few years to come under his watch.

One striking and distinguishing moment of the speech was the promise of an inclusive government involving the rich and the poor as against the age-long tradition of elitism in American politics, which has paved the way for the elites and the high-powered politicians to determine the socio-economic and political trajectories of America. Trump thus, promised a selfless and altruistic leadership that is for the people and by the people. As he puts it, “today’s transition is important not because, it involves a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, but the transfer of power from Washington to the people. This implies that, Trump would represent the bridge between the rich and the poor people of America, and would run an inclusive government that would create equal opportunities for all classes of people to realize their potentials.

Trump’s speech also offered some reassurance of an indivisible United States of America, with deep respect to all the races in America—the African-Americans, the Muslim Community and the Latinos, among others. For him, all people, no matter the colour of their skin and race, are created by God, and share equal rights for the beautiful things God created—they breath the same air, watch the sky and its celestial bodies, the rains pour down from the sky on all, not leaving out others. These words were descent, reassuring and appeared to have provided healings for the hearts that bone fiercely hot for Trump alleged campaign of hate and discrimination.

Again, repeatedly during the inaugural speech, Trump seemed to have been advocating for an exclusive, conserved and isolated America. He explained that, America would not continue to defend the boundaries of other nations and to build infrastructure of other nations, and assist other nations in many other ways, to the detriment of the security, and socio-economic progress of American people. It is however, a truism that, for many years past, America has offered to serve other nations of the world as the free nation of all nations and as the most powerful nation on earth. This indeed, is the fundamental value and creed of America as conceived by its founding fathers that fought with their blood to build a United State of America, which has today become an exemplar to all nations across the ends of the universe. This appears to be the destiny of America as ordained by God.

For Trump to have proposed a deconstruction from this philosophy and fundamental creed, it signals a drift towards isolationism—a  foreign policy thrust that seeks to decline one’s country from foreign economic commitments, international agreements, and generally attempting to make the economy entirely self-reliant, seeking to devote the entire efforts of one’s country to its own advancement, while remaining in a state of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements and responsibilities.

If America, under Trump pursues this foreign policy direction, the legendary status, and the respect nations of the world has accorded her would fast diminish, and this would definitely reduce the place of America as the greatest and most powerful nation on earth. Countries like France, Russia and Germany, may probably be discussed in the same breath with America, and the dream of the founding fathers of America may become crumbled.

The fore-going analysis presents an opportunity for the developing nations like Nigeria to learn their lessons. African nations generally have increasingly proved incapable of providing indigenous solutions to the problems affecting their political systems. Instead, they have continuously sought for answers in the valleys where solutions could not be found, by continuously depending on debts and foreign aid, which have proved detrimental to the socio-economic and political progress in Nigeria.

Worst still is the fact that, the leaders have taken to corrupt tendencies, which attack and destroy our national institutions and character. Through corruption and dubious ways of the leaders, funds intended for the public purpose are diverted for selfish and personal gains, thus creating a class of unjustly enriched people. No doubt, the failure of leadership to aggregate and articulate or provide for the expectations of the various groups in Nigeria, is responsible for the rising wave of insecurity, unemployment, economic paralysis, ethnic chauvinism, armed robbery, kidnapping, assassinations and vandalisation of public facilities. All these have combined to distort the pursuit of the good life for the people who now raise pessimism on the corporate survival of the state, the future of democratic sustainability and the ability of the state to achieve sustainable socio-economic development.

In the face of this dilapidation and socio-economic and political failure, taking from the experiences of the political formula of the United States of America, it is apt to advocate for a reconsideration of a United States of Africa, as was proposed by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in the wave of the decolonization process in Africa. For him, Africans before colonial rule were the same; they had many things in common such as culture and ways of existence until this was eroded by colonialism. Nkrumah therefore, suggested that, because Africans have common problems, these called for common solutions through the formation of a United States of Africa. This is in view of the fact that, the prevailing socio-economic and political realities that are currently bedeviling African states, have necessitated the need for a united African States on which platform African people would collectively source among themselves, common solutions to their problems, since they have shared a common culture, tradition and could be traced through single genealogical tree. This is necessary for the much-anticipated African renaissance for reforming the socio-economic rubrics of the society, and unlocking the mysteries of science and technology, which has brought transformation to human society.