Trump’s 100 days of decimating the MENA region
Donald Trump has celebrated 100 days in the Oval office at a Michigan rally, but they’ve also been 100 days of decimating the MENA region.
Reported by the BBC on April 30th, Trump boasted of his achievements particularly regarding immigration and insulted his presidential predecessor Joe Biden.
However, the first 100 days have not been all sunshine and rainbows for the second-term president. According to Gallup, Trump is now the only post-WWII president to have less than half the public’s support after 100 days in office, with an approval rating of only 44%. A rating Trump dismissed as “fake”.
Yet inevitably as the president of the most powerful country in the world, the impact of Trump has not been limited to the States. Despite his isolationist stance in term one, Trump has placed himself at the center of global politics and rendered it impossible to discuss the Middle East and North Africa without him.
One of the most influential decisions a US President has taken was Trump’s decision to cut USAID, thereby decimating the USA’s global soft power and jeopardizing the lives of millions across the world and particularly in the MENA region.
On February 6th, Maghrebi reported that Trump had ordered almost all USAID staff to be placed on leave as he and his right-hand man, billionaire Elon Musk, cut the foreign aid budget.
The implications were widespread. In Sudan, a war-ravaged country plagued by civil war for over three years, saw 1.8 million famine affected people being denied food which was sitting in warehouses rotting. With the abrupt suspension of aid, food that had already been paid for had no staff or capabilities of delivering it to the people of Sudan after Secretary of State Macro Rubio said 5,200 of the 6,200 USAID programmes had been eliminated.
HIV rates have also doubled in parts of the war-torn Tigray region of Ethiopia, a rate likely to spiral following aid suspension. Over 5,000 health workers, hired using US funds, were laid off after receiving stop-work orders despite providing life-saving treatment to HIV patients. The Organisation for Social Services, Health and Development, a national agency whose Tigray branch was testing people for HIV and providing food and financial support, has also been shut down following the suspension of aid.
On March 26th, the UN announced it would reduce its aid footprint in Gaza following the US aid suspension which caused a massive funding gap for the international organisation as the US was its biggest donor. Left in a deficit, aid workers were removed from the warzone, leaving the millions of the war-affected to fend for themselves in a region suffering from a constant blockade from Israel.
However, the UN also withdrew its aid support in Gaza over fears for the safety of its staff following the increased danger of military offensives from Israel as Trump marks the end of the international rules-based order.
Despite consistent and unwavering criticism of the illegality of Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s far-right government has provided them with a carte blanche – a green light to carry out whatever action they would like.
The war in Gaza has proved that humanitarian and medical aid workers are not protected by the international community, proven by the “deliberate killing” of 15 medical aid workers belonging to the Red Crescent Society on March 23rd – an act the Israeli government tried to cover up.
Indeed, Trump’s proposal to carve out a “Riviera” of the Middle East by “clearing out” the Palestinians and rebuild it under his ownership has been widely condemned as ethnic cleansing.
Furthermore, despite the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, his welcomed arrival to the White House proved the inefficacy of international organisations that lacked US backing. Trump therefore single-handedly decimated the legitimacy of organisations built to sustain peace in the post-WWII and Cold War era.
And, most recently, the escalating tensions between the US and Iran have proved the end of Trump’s isolationist policies. The US, backed by the UK, have launched several unrelenting attacks on the Houthi militant group in Yemen, leading to many civilian casualties. The attacks are part of an effort to exert pressure on Iran and their nuclear capabilities. US Defence Secretary and former Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth stated on April 13th that military options were on the table if talks with Iran fail.
People are starving and begging for food, banging on the doors of the now-empty emergency kitchens in Sudan. Disease is rife amongst sexual abuse survivors in Ethiopia, now with no access to reproductive or sexual health support. And, the people in Gaza continue to be killed in unrelenting assaults by the strongest military in the Middle East with the green light from the White House. International organisations are gone as powerful states bomb civilian centres indiscriminately and the world waits with bated breath for the next 100 days.
BBC, Maghrebi
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