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uncertainty is one of the headaches of Americans due to the jokes and surprises that their president gives them daily. They are countless and overwhelming: migration, taxes, the health plan, tariffs, the occupation of cities by the armed forces, their revenge, etc. His crusade to reinvent or, to put it better, destroy the legal and democratic foundations, symbolically correspond to his decision to demolish a section of the White House in which he is a guest, but not the owner. The image that has traveled the world of machines destroying a section is a simile with their demolition of democracy.
Despite its severity, the damage had been limited to the domestic affairs of his country and diplomatic and commercial relations with other nations. The problem is that now he has decided to become the world’s sheriff and execute at least 40 people who were sailing in international waters in 10 boats on the assumption that they were transporting drugs. In addition to a clear violation of international law, applying your country’s laws outside its borders goes against your own constitutional orders that establish the obligation to prove someone’s guilt, beyond any doubt, and holding a trial in which the accused has the opportunity to defend himself. Without reliable evidence and without a trial, Trump ordered the summary destruction of the vessels in South American waters, including their crew members, on the simple suspicion that they were transporting drugs bound for the United States. Nobody is against punishing drug trafficking, but actions like that, which, without a declared war, attack ships of another nation, constitute a dangerous precedent. Anyone anywhere could be killed by its missiles under the pretense that they are committing a crime against the United States.
The week concluded with two announcements from what remains of the White House. They are alarmed by the consequences they would have on an international scale: Trump’s decision, a bit late, to impose sanctions on two large Russian oil companies in response to one more of Putin’s countless attacks against Ukraine. Another is the strange idea of suspending trade talks with Canada because a video circulated in which half a century ago Reagan expressed a slogan that Trump, according to his peculiar way of thinking, considered contradictory to his dictates. It is unknown how long his ideas will last and when, as is common, he will retract them.
