The Rotation of Imperial Power

Clinton’s defeat is more than anything else a rejection of Obama. Obama descended into the fray to bolster her campaign and witnessed the rejection of his own presidency. Conquered, in the 2008 electoral campaign, with a pledge of support not only for Wall Street but also «Main Street», that is, the ordinary citizen. Since then, the middle class has witnessed its conditions deteriorate, the rate of poverty has increased while the rich have become even richer. Now, marketing himself as the champion of the middle class, the billionaire outsider, Donald Trump, has won the presidency.

How will this change of guard at the White House change US foreign policy? Certainly, the core objective of remaining the dominant global power will remain untouched. [Yet] this position is increasing fragile. The USA is losing ground both within the economic and the political domains, [ceding] it to China, Russia and other “emerging countries”. This is why it is throwing the sword onto the scale. This is followed by a series of wars where Hillary Clinton played the [lead] protagonist.

As her authorized biography reveals, she was the one as First Lady, to convince the President, her consort, to engage in war to destroy Yugoslavia, initiating a series of “humanitarian interventions” against “dictators” charged with “genocide”.

As her e-mails make clear, when she was Secretary of State, she convinced President Obama to engage in war to demolish Libya and to roll out the same operation against Syria. She was the one to promote the internal destabilization of Venezuela and Brazil and the US “Pivot to Asia” – an anti-Chinese manoeuvre. And yet again, she also used the Clinton Foundation as a vehicle to prepare the terrain in Ukraine for the Maidan Square putsch which paved the way for Usa/Nato escalation against Russia.

Given that all this has not prevented the relative decline of US power, it is up to the Trump Administration to correct its shot, while keeping its gaze fixed on the same target. There is no air of reality to the hypothesis that Trump intends to abandon the system of alliances centred around US-led Nato. But he will of course thump his fists on the table to secure a deeper commitment, particularly on military expenditure from the allies. Trump could seek an agreement with Russia, an additional objective of which would be to pull it away from China. China: against which Trump announces economic measures, accompanied by an additional strengthening of US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Such decisions, that will surely open the door for further wars, do not depend on Trump’s warrior-like temperament, but on centres of power wherein lies the matrix of command on which the White House itself depends.

Here you have the colossal financial groups that dominate the economy (the share value alone of the companies listed on Wall Street is higher than the entire US national income).

Then you have the multinationals whose economic dimensions exceed those of entire states and which delocalize production to countries offering cheap labour. The knock-on effect? Domestically, factories will close and unemployment will increase, which will in turn lead to the conditions of the US middle class becoming even worse.

Then you have the giants of the war industry that extract profit from war.

It is 21st century capitalism, which the USA expresses in its most extreme form, that increasingly polarizes the rich and poor. 1% of the global population has more than the other 99%. The President[-elect], Trump, belongs to the class of the superrich.

Prime Minister Renzi, as a Harlequin serving two masters, has already sworn his loyalty to Trump, despite having first sworn it to President Obama.