Dear Editor,
Congressman Ben Cline is touting his bill to curb the Pentagon’s use of payment devices from countries of concern, especially China, but Cline fails to exercise his congressional power to curb Trump’s own destructive policies that are harming US strategic standing and isolating us as world opinion increasingly views America as a powerful rogue state bent on substituting bombing and civilization-destroying threats for authentic diplomacy.
Trump’s planned “victory-over-Iran” China trip was postponed as his “weekend war” turned into a checkmated debacle after the US tried every tactic possible to subdue Iran who emerged from its 40-day Ramadan war as victor over two nuclear powers with newfound strategic power controlling Hormuz Strait. Trump’s high hopes that China would help extricate him from his self-imposed trap by pressing China’s ally, Iran, to accept Trump’s maximalist demands failed. Holding fast to its original demands, Iran is willing to endure more pain for sanctions relief, retrieving stolen billions in reserves and forcing Israel to stop its unhinged bombing and killing in Lebanon. Meanwhile, US gas prices and general inflation rise and the world economy and agriculture face a potential depression if blockage of Hormuz Strait continues.
America could better thrive if our leaders would cease their incessant mideast “forever wars” and efforts to “weaken” Russia through a proxy war in Ukraine. Immediately following Trump’s visit to China where he was treated as a declining power by President Xi, was Russia’s president Putin’s visit to China where Xi embraced a China-Russia partnership. Xi also diplomatically complained to Putin about Trump as he uttered these measured words: “unilateral, hegemonic currents.” Neither China nor Russia will help extricate Trump from a defiant Iran. Trump is now faced with a decision to either walk away or “Bombs Away.” Walking away from the ruinous confrontation with Iran is humiliating, and resumption of intense bombing risks an even greater loss since Iran has the demonstrated capability to hit our Middle East allies hard, including Israel. Iran is the power that obstructs Israel from imposing its Greater Israel project over the Middle East.
Trump has accelerated the decline of our US empire and our democracy. Cline has backed Trump all the way. Research, investment and world leadership is shifting to China, which does not seek the American Empire’s war-mongering kind of world hegemony. China –the world’s factory—is more reliable as a trading partner and more respectful of other civilizations.
After repeatedly warning Trump against interfering with China’s claim to Taiwan, Chairman Xi also spoke three words to Trump as he departed China: “constructive, strategic stability”—the values by which China has risen and the opposite of the US Empire’s values by which it operates in the world. Investment, innovation and leadership will gravitate toward China following Trump’s tariffs, ill-advised wars of aggression and destruction of diplomacy. To make America great again, Americans must not normalize Trump and his power-grabbing actions but instead, call him to account. Cline should do his job to represent his constituents instead of rubber-stamping Trump’s increasingly harmful power grabs.
-Cynthia Munley
Salem
