Trump’s Pivot to Asia: An Arms Sales Bonanza, An Anti-Peace Trip

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Written by Peter Koenig; Written by Global Research

President Trump’s 5-country Asia tour has nothing to do with seeking peace anywhere, it has not even to do with diplomacy – it is entirely a warmongering business trip for the Military Industrial Complex. It is amazing that the world doesn’t catch on.

We know about Obama’s several years of pivoting to Asia. It resulted largely in the TPP, the Transpacific Partnership, a trade agreement between 12 countries including the US. The first thing Trump did when he came on board is canceling it, claiming that it would only harm the US. Canceling it, in fact, was a good thing, since contrary to what Trump understands, or claims to understand, of US-made international trade, the Asian partners would have suffered, not the US. There is not one single trade agreement the US has instigated, bilateral or multilateral, where the US came out as a loser, or even as an equal, always a winner. The original meaning of trade is not winning or losing, but it is an exchange of equals with equal benefits for all partners. ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) is perhaps one of the few living examples.

Trump doesn’t like multilateral trade agreements, because – even though he is in control – he may not be in total control. He wants to call the shots, every shot. Literally. This is what this 8-day ‘pivot’ to Asia is all about. It is about selling weapons, ‘the best, the most accurate, the deadliest the world has ever produced. Trump’s words – almost. And repeated over-and-over-and-over again.

At a press conference in Tokyo, with Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe, Trump said literally, when pointing at Prime Minister Abe,

“[He] will shoot [North Korea’s] missiles out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of equipment from the United States. One very important thing is that Prime Minister Abe is going to be purchasing massive amounts of [US-made] military equipment, as he should. We make the best by far … it’s a lot of jobs for us, and a lot of safety for Japan (The Guardian, 6/11/2017).”

Trump had the audacity, as he always does, calling North Korea (DPRK – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) a “threat to the civilized world”. And this, when he knows – or should know – that Pyongyang is only defending North Korea from the constant threats and aggressions of the United States, that Kim Jong-Un has no intention of attacking any country – but still has the memory deep inside, inherited by generations of North Koreans born after the atrocious Washington initiated 1953 Korean war, that devastated literally the entire country and killed 3 million people, about a third of the then North Korean population.

The entire world knows, including Trump’s predecessors, that the only threat to not only the world’s civilization, but to the entire humanity, are the United States of America – a rogue state, not respecting any international laws, no international contracts – and no human life, not even that of her own citizens. Tens of millions of people around the globe have been killed since the end of WWII directly by the US military, or NATO, or indirectly through proxies or mercenaries by the United States. All for wars that aim at complete world hegemony, at ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ – as described by the PNAC – Plan for a New American Century. Nobody wants to touch this reality – almost nobody. Fortunately, in the last few years there are countries emerging that dare stand up to the killing monster, resisting it, by disobedience, despite ‘sanctions’, and through economic measures, like detaching their economy from the fraudulent fiat dollar. Recent examples are Venezuela and Iran.

Trump’s arms sale’s bonanza started actually already with Saudi Arabia, when he sold King Salman110 billion worth of the best killer instruments – bombs, planes and tanks – America produces. A record weapon sales-contract.

On the pivot’s second leg, South Korea – Trump trumped up his tone, not at all for peace but to threaten once more Pyongyang and the North Korean leader, the American bully cum President calls derogatorily the ‘Little Rocket Man’. – Where are we in this world? Does this man Trump not see how much he is despised? Or is he so sick to actually enjoy being hated?

More than eighty percent of South Koreans want peace with the Nord. President Moon Jae-in was recently elected on a platform of uniting the South with the North – to bring back together families that were separated for more than half a century. How could he be such a dreamer? With close to 30,000 American soldiers on South Korean soil and a weapons arsenal, including nuclear arms, that could destroy all of east Asia in a jiffy. – And billions worth of more weapons sales to Seoul are on Trump’s murderous sales agenda. He is not only a bully par excellence, but the best salesman the US military industrial complex could wish for – and a booster of the US’s GDP of death and destruction.

President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea | November 7, 2017 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The bully at the pulpit had no intention of addressing a road to peace. To the contrary, he boasted about the extraordinary unsurmountable weapons might of “America First” – and using South Koreans Parliament as a platform to launch yet another slandering tirade towards North Korea’s leader, Kim Jon-un, and her people,

 “[I] have come here to this peninsula to deliver a message directly to the leader of the North Korean dictatorship—the weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in great danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face. North Korea is not the paradise your grandfather envisioned. It is a hell that no person deserves. Yet despite every crime you have committed against god and man… we will offer a path towards a much better future. It begins with an end to the aggression of your regime, a stop to your development of ballistic missiles and complete verifiable and total denuclearization.”

While Emperor Donald was talking, three US Navy aircraft carriers were positioning themselves in attack mode in front of North Korea’s coast, preparing for more intimidating war games. More provocation, knowing damn well that DPRK’s President Kim Jong-un will not let go of his defense strategy – and rightly so. Anyone who knows a bit of North Korea’s history understands. Kim’s several requests for dialogue, as he wants peace for his country and for his people, were rejected by Washington. Instead he was showered with Trump’s outrageous warmongering language like “we will unleash ‘fire and fury’ the world has never seen” – or “we will destroy your country to rubble” – and more of such ridiculous and shameful threats – shameful for the so-called ‘leader’ of the “free world”, of the globe’s self-proclaimed Almighty, and shameful for all the other nations of this globe that just watch and listen to the monster’s angry outbursts – but are afraid to counter him, though they know he is wrong.

According to Reuters, Han Tae Song, Ambassador of the DPRK to the United Nations in Geneva, told on Wednesday the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women,

“The United States and other hostile forces impede the enjoyment by our people of their human rights in every possible way, resorting to the vicious ways and means of all kinds in their attempt to stifle the ideas and system of the DPRK,”

He continued saying that Washington “manipulated” sanctions resolutions against his country at the U.N. Security Council that violated North Korean sovereignty and rights to existence and development.

“Due to these inhumane economic sanctions, vulnerable peoples like women and children are becoming…victims. Such sanctions against humanity which block even the delivery of the medical equipment and medicines for maternal and child health and the basic goods for daily life…..threaten the protection and promotion of our women’s rights and even the right to survival of the children.”

Next stop on Trump’s ‘pivot’ was Beijing, where, to the surprise of most media, he behaved like a statesman, trying to persuade President Xi of the benefits of a friendly US-Sino relation – and of course, of the importance that China adhere to the UN imposed sanctions on North Korea. The South China Sea, Human Rights and China’s alleged lack of Democracy – the usual Washington swan song – were not mentioned. Even the Chinese media hailed Trump’s visit as a success. The two leaders signed contracts for some 250 billion dollars-worth of investment and trade deals, or rather, as per Bloomberg, “non-binding memoranda of understanding”, between the two countries.

The deals, many of which were already concluded or planned before the Beijing meeting, included goods and services in transportation (Chinese purchase of 300 Boeing civilian aircraft), agriculture (pork and beef), IT, the financial sector (with Goldman Sachs – who else?) – and more. Nothing controversial. Trump expects to be appreciated at home for his salesmanship in Beijing – and for helping reducing the 250 billion US trade deficit with China.

Interestingly though, during the perhaps strategically most important stop of his Asia journey – Beijing – Trump did not use his usual vitriolic language to condemn and threaten Pyongyang and putting Xi on guard to follow the strict sanctions regime against the DPRK – or else. Why didn’t he? – Did he realize that it was worthless? That China would never let her neighbor die – and he would make himself ridiculous making believe his sanctions threat would work on China? – Or did he have a deeper agenda, like winning China over – or neutralizing her – for a possible future strike on Iran? – Of course, if carried out, then by proxies like the armed-to-the-teeth with US and UK weaponry Saudis and Israel? – Time will tell. But there is no doubt that the clear winner of this meeting was President Xi – with his calm manner and Tao philosophy of smiling and non-aggression.

President Donald J. Trump and President Xi of China | November 8, 2017 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

On his last stop in Da Nang, Vietnam, Trump attended the APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit (10-11 November), where he was expected to meet with President Putin, even briefly at the margin of the meetings. However, no official meeting was scheduled and as RT reports,

”Hopes of a bilateral Putin-Trump meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit have waned with the White House citing “scheduling conflicts,” but at least the two were all smiles while shaking hands during the photo call.”

Well, why would President Putin want to meet with Trump, who after a meeting with seemingly positive chemistry, in Hamburg in July 2017, at the G20 summit, has been nothing but deceptive? Why faking more trust in a flamboyant billionaire bully, who has no ethics, who doesn’t honor contracts, promises, multilateral agreements or even international law – and allows his government to keep slandering Russia for ‘interfering’ in the 2016 US Presidential Elections?

The truth is, Trump, his predecessors, the UK leadership, the NATO allies, the Saudis, Gulf States and the EU puppets are shameless, ‘legalized’ murderers. – Legalized, because they dance to the tune of Trump’s canons, or to the dark deep state’s strings that pull the triggers of mayhem and death. For these people – are they still to be called people? – Trump has accomplished what he set out to do: Selling hundreds of billions worth of arms. In less than a year of his Presidency, he did more good to the military-security industrial complex than Obama did in his last four years in office.

Arms are made to kill and destroy. Killing and destroying is contributing big-time to the US GDP; in fact, this industrial octopus with all its associated tentacles – finance, IT, research, sub-contracting, mercenary funding abroad and within the US, spying and surveillance the world over – amount to more than half of the US total economic output. The United States of America lives off an economy of war, an economy of destruction and death.

Take Yemen. Since March 2015, the US and UK backed and armed Saudis have bombed Yemen to ruins, destroying schools, hospitals, roads, ports – vital infrastructure for any civilization. In addition to hospitals and schools, they targeted specifically water and sanitation systems to cause utmost harm to civilian populations. As a result, cholera cases are estimated at 500,000-plus, mostly children and women and elderly (UNICEF), the worst in recorded history. Many die, because the Saudis, again backed by the US and the UK, have banned import and distribution of essential drugs.

Rubble from airstrikes in Yemen (Source: FAIR)

With major ports closed – also by the Saudis, the US and the UK, Yemen is facing one of the worst famine the world has ever seen in recent history. Daily Saudi shelling with US planes and UK bombs, has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, women and children – some estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000. Nobody really keeps count. Yemen has been (kept) poor before. And now, who cares. Yemen already today is the worst humanitarian crisis in decades. And there is no end in sight.

Since the US / UK backed Saudi attacks began some 20 months ago, UK arms sales have increased 50 times. Yet a case filed with the International Court of Justice (ICC) by UK citizens against ‘illegal’ weapons sales, was dismissed by the court, as it could not find anything illegal with these weapon deliveries. That only shows, ICC’s worthlessness, as it is totally controlled by the Zion-Anglo-Saxon hegemon.

What might be more effective than ICC in stopping the boundless assassination raids, is chaining up Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Theresa May and David Cameron, and parachuting them onto Hudaydah, one of Yemen’s hardest hit towns, in the west of the country. Let them see and feel and smell the pain, death and desperation of the survivors. Would it light up the remnants of their spark of ethics and moral they may still have left from birth?

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

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