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Perspective, Stephen Mpofu
The contradiction in Washington’s slap-dash policy thrusts vis-à-vis the deadly conflict in Syria cannot fail to persuade level headed people into concluding that Trump administration officials need to improve their mastery of international political dynamics to come up with policies that are consistent with happenings on the ground

Instead of singing with joy, the grass, in distant lands is trembling in anticipation of devastating boomerang effects of a jumbo fight in Washington, District of Columbia.

In the first bout and bursting with energy after being installed as the new guru at the White House,  America’s new president, Mr Donald Trump, stormed into the ring for a bare-knuckled combat but ended up shadow fighting as his opponent and immediate predecessor, Mr Barack Obama rested peacefully at home and watching the proceedings in the ring with nonchalance as his successor pummeled away at his immediate legacy.

But no sooner had Mr Trump begun to punch away at Obamacare than he climbed out of the ring in response to grouses from his ringside handlers as well as from his Republican party stalwarts elsewhere to the effect that the president’s decision to annul the Obama health insurance scheme benefiting more than 20 million ordinary Americans,  was a non-starter.

With a major embarrassment  staring him in the face if he rode roughshod over the concerns of his supporters, Mr Trump made a somersault and had the hammer over Obamacare withdrawn, much to the delight of the beneficiaries of the health care scheme.

But President Trump had another iron in the fire. He immediately called back coal as an additional source of energy at a time that the world, particularly Africa, is grappling with the devastating effects of climate change in the form of recurrent droughts and floods both of which have decimated food crops  and livestock, leaving poorer nations of the world including Zimbabwe, holding out the begging bowl for food.

Mr Trump’s decision to recall coal to the energy front not only left the world community chagrined; many nations must obviously be wondering what is up Mr Trump’s sleeve by deciding to worsen, rather than lessen the devastating effects of global warming caused by carbon emissions with coal also a major contributor.

Carbon emissions from various adversarial sources and at the behest of irresponsible human activities trap the sun’s rays from bouncing back from earth and causing the globe to heat up dangerously.

Obviously Mr Trump and his environmental advisors must be aware of the harm that emissions from coal stand to add to the demise of both the globe and humanity, Americans included.

But, of course, Mr Trump is not the only American leader hell-bent on thrusting his head in the sand on matters environmental. Previous American administrations resisted the imperative need to modify the country’s factory chimneys to reduce obnoxious fumes being spewed into the atmosphere and polluting it.

The lame excuse given was that modifying the factories would cost a lot of money that would be passed on to consumers of goods produced, thereby making America’s exports too expensive and less competitive on the world market.

President Trump’s apparent decision to fulfill a promise made during his campaign for the White House to have coal mines resuming their operations clearly cuts across the spirit of the Paris Environmental Indaba of 2015 calling on all nations to not continue with coal mining as well as that and greenhouse emissions were contributors to global warming.

Mr Trump’s decision on re-installing coal mining, obviously to placate his voters,  should not merely rouse impotent world anger. On the contrary, the United Nations and the rest of the progressive world should rally together in piling up pressure on the US administration to implement policies that help to make the world a more habitable global village for all by eschewing policies that are decidedly isolationist and harmful to all of humanity.

Poorer countries that also have a duty to reduce greenhouse gases perilous to the environment stand to suffer more from irresponsible environmental policies because many of these nations lack sophisticated means of mitigating the dangerous effects of global warming and its devastating effects on the environment.

Lately, President Trump has enraged the United Nations by announcing his administration’s decision to slash its contributions to the United Nations Population Fund, claiming, for instance,  that the money which is meant for the health of pregnant mothers and their babies was now apparently being used in carrying out abortions in some countries.

He no doubt has a good point relating to the abuse of the money in some cases. But ironically, pregnancies are probably more rampantly evacuated in the United States than in other countries of the world – which behoves on the American leader to put his own house in order first so he can legitimately point accusing fingers at the countries where the UN Population Fund is being abused, according to him.

Then comes Mr Trump’s policy on Africa, especially, which he did not spell out during his presidential campaign for the White House.

His administration, Mr Trump announced recently, was reducing US aid to countries abroad including Africa, with money saved channelled toward building a strong American army, apparently “to make America great again”, as the US president repeatedly stated during his campaign for the White House.

US aid amounts to one percent of America’s gross domestic product.

Today the US is the only world superpower, following the demise of the Soviet Union, but many American observers have lamented what they called a contraction of American superpower, claiming that America was ceding that power to Russia.

The question that must be asked, in light of Mr Trump’s decision to tighten his country’s  purse strings is whether a militarist  is in the offing in America’s newest president; otherwise what is the idea behind cutting  off aid which is not charity but is strategic in building bridges with friends and allies abroad alike?

What for instance, does president Trump ultimately hope to achieve pursuing a policy that appears to all intent and purposes to be steeped in isolating his country from the rest of those who previously benefited from the aid that now faces the chop?

The manner in which President Trump has been hammering away at the legacy of his immediate past predecessor, whom he once described as not being an American, would appear to suggest that the billionaire president has a nagging fixation on anything and everything that President Obama did during his term in office at the White House.

The Obama administration is for example being blamed for lifting sanctions on the Sudan just before the change in power at the White House, in the same way as that son of a Kenyan father is being blamed over the health insurance scheme that millions of Americans embraced.

Add to that President Trump’s charge that the Obama administration failed to end the conflict in Syria where Russia and Iran support the embattled president there by not removing Bashar al-Assad from power.

Then came a recent policy statement from Washington to the effect that a solution to the Syrian conflict should not necessarily come about through the ouster of the country’s president.

But most recently Washington made a huge u-turn by saying a solution to the Syrian conflict could not come while al-Assad remained in power.

The contradiction in Washington’s slap-dash policy thrusts vis-à-vis the deadly conflict in Syria cannot fail to persuade level headed people into concluding that Trump administration officials need to improve their mastery of international political dynamics to come up with policies that are consistent with happenings on the ground.

Also, wholesale accusations of communications media per-se allegedly for publishing “fake news”, especially with regards to alleged Russia involvement in doctoring elections in favour of Mr Trump and against Mrs Hillary Clinton with the American intelligence community also being made to carry the can for its part in that saga can only succeed in tarnishing the Trump administration’s relations with institutions that exist to help him rule effectively while his tenure lasts at the White House.