By Philip Yeung
Under Trump, the US has become a rogue state. No longer the moral leader, it is now the black sheep of the global family. Its lawlessness is breathtaking. Its president tells the world that the only laws he obeys are his own, not the court's or God's. Wielding the biggest sledgehammer, he feels entitled to impose his will on the world.
In snatching Venezuela's president from his sleep and locking him up in an American jail, Trump has whetted his appetite for more aggressive adventure. It has emboldened him to make threats of annexing Greenland by force. And egged on by genocidal Netanyahu, he has been killing civilians and smashing civilian infrastructure in an unnecessary war in Iran.
By now, the world is numb and shock-proof. Still, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just delivered another thunderbolt. He said with a straight face that the US considers the International Criminal Court (ICC) an illegitimate institution. Why? Simply for stepping on US toes or looking over its shoulders for its atrocities.
These days, anything is illegitimate if the US says it is. In this case, the ICC has incurred Trump's wrath for having issued warrants to arrest Netanyahu and his minister of defense as war criminals. The US responded by slapping sanctions on the judges. There goes the rule of law, when international law enforcement officials themselves are left at the mercy of an unhinged US president.
The US is, internationally, the most lawless nation, East or West. Gone is the rules-based global order. America's idea of the rule of law is simple: If you are against us, you are unlawful and a legitimate target. Conversely, whatever it decides to do is lawful, and justifiable. Under Trump, the US has turned inwards, cancelling its membership in half a dozen international agencies.
But turning inwards does not curb its outwardly aggressive behavior.
One such aggressive act is imposing its double standards on other nations. Trump has again slapped another round of sanctions on Chinese companies which export cotton from Xinjiang, on the trumped-up charges that it is tainted by "forced labor". While Gaza is soaked in blood, and bombs are dropping on civilian targets in Iran, the US still distracts the world's attention with imaginary "forced labor" in faraway Xinjiang. The hypocrisy is truly suffocating.
Speaking of "forced labor', Marjorie Yang, the MIT and Harvard-educated chairwoman of Esquel Group, a leading textile and apparel manufacturer that supplies over 110 million cotton shirts annually for major brands like Ralph Lauren, Nike, and Hugo Boss, met these charges upfront. Using Ivy League fair play, she hired an independent auditing company to do on-site checks. When the auditor returned a "not guilty" verdict, its findings were brushed aside by the US authorities anyway. The sanctions stay. You are guilty if Trump says you are guilty—proving one's innocence by hiring an independent auditor is an act of futility. Being a Harvard or MIT graduate doesn't confer a halo over her head either.
Trump will never stop weaponizing sanctions as long as he remains in office. Frankly, people are sick and tired of US double standards and fact-free charges. The rule of law withers until the world can return the favor with a global outcry and sanctions against America for its war crimes.
An Israeli lawyer has the jaw-dropping audacity to tell the world that the life of a single Jew is worth the lives of 10 million Palestinians. He stated it as a given fact, without shame, without guilt, without fuss.
If you still don't think that we live in the "might is right" age, think again. If you carry the big stick, you set the rules, you define the law and call the shots. Laws are only for the weak and the vulnerable. Trump's whims and wishes matter more. If the US finds any international agency inconveniently unfriendly to American or Israeli interests, it can slap on the sanctions to compromise it. You can't argue with a bully carrying the sharpest knife.
Accountability is dead in America. Elsewhere, contamination by the Epstein scandal is career-ending, for UK's Mandelson and its prime minister in appointing him ambassador to the US. Trump, up to his eyebrows in the scandal, plus serial convictions for sexual assault and tax evasion, remains untouchable. I suspect many men enjoy the perverse pleasure of seeing Trump pull off his Houdini escapes from crimes that would have sunk other politicians. This is Trump's secret appeal.
The age of law dies in Trump's second term. While China makes peace and ships products, America makes wars and exports chaos. Laws, facts, and morality are increasingly irrelevant in US policymaking. They are alien to the Trump world. Welcome to the law of the jungle, 21st-century style.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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