How unhinged Washington unleashes American craziness on the world

A former senior US official has said working closely with allies and partners is the only effective way to constrain China. “Given the size and the immensity of the China challenge, the only way that the United States is going to be effective to meet that challenge is if we work with other partners and allies,” said Kurt Campbell, the former deputy secretary of state under Joe Biden. That is no doubt true, but good luck convincing them. When so many top officials within the US government up to the president himself are unhinged, unqualified or both, it’s hard for responsible foreign leaders to put their trust in them. Consider US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a self-styled Christian Zionist who just told Maga (Make America Great Again) star podcaster Tucker Carlson that the whole Middle East belonged to Israel. In the interview, Carlson asked Huckabee about his interpretation of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, where God promised Abraham and his descendants land from the Nile to the Euphrates. Carlson observed that it would include the Levant, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and big chunks of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. “It would be fine if they [Israel] took it all,” Huckabee said. “Not sure we’d go that far. I mean, it would be a big piece of land.” I doubt statements like that would inspire confidence among Washington’s Arabic allies and partners in the region. US ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has recently warned that if Ottawa’s planned purchase of new F-35 fighter jets fell through, Washington was prepared to send its own warplanes into Canadian airspace to defend North America. Canada is currently reviewing the massive purchase and may scale back on the number of US jets bought. Perhaps both ambassadors are just following their boss, US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the 51st state of America and that the whole western hemisphere is under US control and dominance. On a weekly if not daily basis, the US president offers unhinged moments before the world. As usual, his latest psychodrama affects the entire world. Trump is now raising from 10 to 15 per cent a temporary tariff rate on imports from all countries, following a stunning rebuke from the US Supreme Court against tariffs previously imposed by his administration. But before he announced his new tariffs, he hurled personal insults at the justices, in an act that is unprecedented in modern American presidential history. “Fools and lapdogs”, he blasted them, “very unpatriotic”, “disloyal to the Constitution”, and being “swayed by foreign interests”. In the lengthy tirade, he also said, “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you wanna know the truth.” His top cabinet secretaries have not been far behind. While his department has been busy planning to bomb Iran to smithereens, defence chief Pete Hegseth went the extra mile to reassure the American public that he was fit as a fiddle and could bench-press 300 pounds (136kg). In the latest video clip, he even chastised his teenage son for trying to help him hoist the weight. “Don’t touch it,” he shouted. Before launching a war, previous defence secretaries and their presidents would have spent their days preparing the US public and explaining the rationale for such a grave decision. Not Hegseth. Perhaps taking a cue from Russian strongman Vladimir Putin who used to love baring his chest on horseback, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr took off his top to exercise and then posted on social media. Now it probably makes sense for the US health chief to promote health. In his case, Kennedy rode shirtless on an exercise bike in a sauna, under the supervision of the controversial musician Kid Rock. To say Kennedy is a controversial health secretary is an understatement. And because the world over has taken official medical advice and health guidelines from the US as a reference over many decades, what he says or does as America’s top health official has consequences well beyond the United States. In his brief tenure, he has gutted the vaccine advisory committee of the world-famous Centres for Disease Control and Prevention by replacing its authoritative members with a “cast that includes contrarians, anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists”, according to The Atlantic. He claims Tylenol (paracetamol), children’s vaccines and circumcision can lead to autism, thus directly causing a drop in vaccine take-up rates and more outbreaks of measles in North America. Before he became health chief, in July 2023, Kennedy claimed Covid was a bioweapon designed to target “certain races” such as whites and blacks, and spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, who he claimed were the “most immune” to the virus. The American phrase, “nuttier than a fruitcake”, comes to mind. As part of the Maga agenda, Trump and his Education Secretary Linda McMahon – a former wrestling promoter with no education policy experience – have long wanted to dismantle the US Department of Education with the privatisation of American education. “[They] have spent the first year of the second Trump administration working hard to fulfil his campaign promise to close the Education Department,” reported The Hill, a political news publication. Then there is the tragic comedy of the havoc being wreaked in law and immigration enforcement across the US by FBI director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. In a statement that is symptomatic of the state of American democracy, Noem said only “the right people” should vote. “When it gets to election day, we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country,” she told a press conference. In a wild confrontational moment while testifying before Congress, Bondi castigated House members for grilling her about the Epstein scandal when the US stock markets were hitting records. “The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. That’s what we should be talking about,” she angrily told the House Judiciary Committee. Unless competent and responsible people retake the US government, it’s hard for any foreigner to trust such irresponsible and dangerous people. In contrast, China now looks like a pretty good hedge.

How unhinged Washington unleashes American craziness on the world

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China now looks like a pretty good hedge when compared to the unqualified and unpredictable people who run the US today

China now looks like a pretty good hedge when compared to the unqualified and unpredictable people who run the US today