i believe it’s god’s job to sit in judgment—my job is to defend america (12. 466)

Just returned from his first major foreign trip of his second term, treated with with imperial pomp and lavishing in the Regional Car Dealership Rococo lifestyle and gold-plate decor that he so admires, Trump’s agenda of deal-making—though overshadowed by a luxury jet offered by Qatar to replace Air Force One—was revealing about his priorities and “none of our business approach” to foreign policy. In parallel to multi-million dollar contracts favourable to American business interests secured without any of the bothersome talks of human rights issues, democracy, transparency, press freedoms or regional diplomacy—no mention of the suppression of dissent, sportswashing, the war in Gaza or even recent past postures to his hosts on supporting terrorist groups, Trump’s team of negotiators have been fronting at least the appearance of frenetic negotiations that included a ceasefire with the Houthis, lifting sanctions on Syria and renegotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, although the Persian Gulf will henceforth be known as the Arabian Gulf.  This collusion of contrasting, contradictory events, capitalism to paper over conflicts, may be coincidental and incidental to the administration’s penchant for flooding the zone but is very telling of what Trump wants and how he might be played.