BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – “We are going through a very shaky period and will be for as long as Trump is around.” This is the expressed opinion of G. A. Dwyer Astaphan who was commenting on the recent USA election in which Donald Trump was named President Elect.
Astaphan, a social activist and former Minister of Government, explained to this publication that Trump might not fulfill some of the promises he made while on the campaign trail.
“I think there is a component where people have been misled into thinking that a lot of these things which the gentleman said he would do will actually happen. But the bottom line is sufficient people in the United States are sufficiently turned off by the notion of business as usual, and the Washington Establishment, and the belief that Mr. Trump can take them out of that quagmire, they don’t seem to understand that he is as much a part of the establishment as Mrs. Clinton.
“But there is a lot of hatemongering and xenophobia-mongering and that sort of thing that was fermented in the election and… and I think most of all, the people who vociferously supported him, aggressively supported him, will be just as aggressive in demanding that he delivers on his promises, and they might turn out to be his biggest problem.”
The former Member of Parliament expressed that Trump’s election “could see some serious international repercussions…
“Russia has been basically supporting him. He wants to end NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and put tariffs on Mexican-produced goods. He wants to put tariffs on Chinese-produced goods. It means that he will do damage or totally destroy NAFTA and do damage to the WTO arrangement to which America is committed.
He opined that should Russia’s plan be successful, the balance of power would shift in its favour.
“American consumers rely very heavily on affordable goods that, if produced in the United States would be far more expensive than they are. So he put these tarrifs on China and Mexico, if those goods go into the United States, they would cost more.
“The Chinese and the Mexicans and other people who produce goods for markets in the United States will look for market realignment and you could see trade and other deals being done between Russia and all of these other countries and that way they could change the global dynamic…the balance of power could change. And this is one of the things that Russia is betting on; that Trump will offend so many people, so many countries in the international community that it will weaken America and empower Russia.”
President Elect Trump would be installed as President of the United States of America on January 20, 2017. He succeeds President Barack Obama.
