The growling wolf cometh

To borrow a perspective from Malcolm X, the choice that black American voters had last week, between the liberal Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and the erratic, far right Republican Party candidate Donald J. Trump was a historical recapitulation of the choice that they faced 52 years earlier. During the US presidential election of […]

To borrow a perspective from Malcolm X, the choice that black American voters had last week, between the liberal Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and the erratic, far right Republican Party candidate Donald J. Trump was a historical recapitulation of the choice that they faced 52 years earlier. During the US presidential election of 1964, blacks had to choose between Democratic Party’s candidate President Lyndon Johnson, the liberal former Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and the Republican Party’s candidate, the archconservative Senator Barry Morris Goldwater of Arizona.
Malcolm X said the intention of both candidates was to devour black Americans. The only difference was the method. He likened Goldwater to a wolf and he likened Johnson to a sly fox. Malcolm X thought that a wolf in the White House was better than a fox because “at least the growling of the wolf keeps you alert but with the fox, you wouldn’t know what hit you until you are half digested.” Malcolm X however added that he was not advising blacks to vote for Goldwater. Johnson won the election and his skills as a consummate legislative deal maker soon ensured the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. While the sly fox won in 1964, this time the crude wolf trumped, sorry, triumphed.
Black Americans, Africans, Muslims, Latinos, Europeans, Asians and everyone else must now live with the reality of a growling and snarling prairie wolf in the White House. The wolf’s rough claws would be scratching the delicate skin of world diplomacy. Its dagger-like canine teeth will be probing the jugular of the world’s economy. All the while, the wolf’s highly potent saliva will be dripping on the codes that control nuclear weapons. Men and women of all nations, hearken to Malcolm X’s advice. The growling of this wolf calls for a world-wide alert.
Hearing its growl the loudest are Mexicans and other Latinos who must cross the Rio Grande and live in the United States. Donald Trump’s best known campaign promise was to erect a wall on the US-Mexican border in order to keep out Latino immigrants and also to make Mexico pay for the wall. Nigerian social media wags posted a “story” at the weekend that Aliko Dangote has opened a cement dealership near the US-Mexican border, in anticipation of the world’s longest wall building project since the Great Wall of China. Now, the Whites themselves entered North America illegally 500 years ago. They reduced the Indians from 17 million to 3 million today and they decimated the bison from 30 million to half a million today. Now they want to erect a wall to keep others out.
The day the wall’s foundations are laid, Latin American nations should react by expelling USA from the Organisation of American States. I see another small problem for Donald Trump’s wall. Liberals are still in charge in Canada. All that Latinos have to do is to sneak into Canada and then pour across the world’s longest undefended border into the USA. Trump must then erect another wall on the Canadian border all the way from Washington State to Maine. The two walls will quickly wreck the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] and the North American Aerospace Defence Command, NORAD.
After the wall, Trump’s most notorious campaign promise was to deny Muslims entry into his country. Personally, I am not panicking at that prospect. In 2008 when I went to the US Embassy in Abuja for a visa interview, the cheerful lady in charge checked her computer records and incredulously asked me why I had not been to the US for ten years. I cheerfully replied that I had no reason to go there. Now, if I did not go to the US for ten years when Muslims were allowed in, I can comfortably live with not being allowed in for four or eight years under Trump.
Only that there are millions of Muslims who want to enter the US regularly, especially the Arabs who have enough money to enter the best American schools, shop in choice American stores and dine in exclusive American restaurants. The day Donald Trump shuts them out, they might retaliate with their strongest weapon. Muslim nations dominate OPEC. All they have to do is to change the currency in which oil is traded internationally from US dollars to Euros. Such a move will overnight rock the US dollar. But if Trump is half as unpredictable as the world thinks he is, he could retaliate by seizing and internationalising Arab oil fields. The US military has long had a plan for this eventuality. Al-Qaeda and ISIS will then have a plausible reason for undertaking terrorism. 
After the Mexican wall and Muslim ban, Trump’s best known promise is to deal decisively with China, which he blames for ruining American industries from textiles to automobiles and electronics. Probably more than anything else, this promise enabled Trump to win the election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa and Michigan. Trouble is, the Chinese are already alerted by the growling of this wolf. They also have a big ace. The US Treasury is $23trillion in the red. $1.185trillion of this debt is owed to China. If China suddenly calls in this debt, US government workers will soon envy their State of Osun counterparts. But what if Trump refuses to repay the money? China has come a long way since the 1970s but the Peoples Liberation Army cannot yet apply Chairman Mao’s theory of war and overwhelm the US military.
Donald Trump’s fourth best known promise is to disentangle his country from foreign wars. This is the main reason why Russian President Vladimir Putin likes him. If Trump ends US backing for Syrian rebels, Russia’s ally President Bashar al-Assad will quickly win his country’s dreadful civil war. Next is Trump’s fifth best known promise, that the US under his leadership will not automatically honour NATO treaty obligations and rush to defend every NATO member that comes under attack. I sympathise with Trump on this point. When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, the US recklessly admitted many former East Bloc nations into NATO. If Russia were to attack any of them, the US is required to defend them. The most feasible way is to fire short range “tactical” nukes at Russian troops. Vladimir Putin, who is not much saner than Trump, could respond with strategic nukes aimed at US cities. Trump must then wipe out Moscow and St. Petersburg. And then…
All the Western world’s grey-haired diplomats could not believe their ears when they heard that a US president may not honour NATO treaty commitments. Back in 1938 Britain and France jointly signed a mutual defence treaty with Poland in order to deter German aggression. When Adolf Hitler invaded Poland anyway in 1939, the British Cabinet quickly asked its French counterpart to join it in a joint declaration of war. The weak French cabinet however dragged its feet for two days, leading the Brits to send a diplomatic cable saying, “The French position is very embarrassing to His Majesty’s Government…”
Donald Trump’s desire not to get entangled in wars by selectively honouring US treaties could precisely lead to war. Since they regained Hong Kong in 1997, Chinese leaders want nothing better than to reunite Taiwan with the mainland. The only force that can stop this is the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet. Also, if China suspects that Trump may not deliver on US promises to defend Japan, it could seize some Japanese islands. And then, if North Korea’s leader Kim Jung Un believes that Donald Trump may not honour the US pledge to defend South Korea, his People’s Army tanks will soon roll into Seoul. No wonder that at the weekend, some campaign promises were being deleted from Donald Trump’s website.