This is rapidly turning into an American blog, it seems, but there is just so much to comment on in America these days. Every day there is some new outrage, often two or three. It's exhausting enough for a Canadian; imagine what it's like for an American. I don't comment here on even a small fraction of them and it's already overwhelming.
Yesterday, the USA announced it is withdrawing from a whole slew of international organizations, agencies, commissions and advisory panels, on the grounds that Mr. Trump doesn't think he gets enough out of them, or he objects to their focus on "woke" subjects like diversity, climate change and poverty. Trump has no interest in how the rest of the world is faring; he barely has any interest in how his own people are doing. He certainly does not want to spend any money on anything that doesn't have a positive return on investment for the United States of America
The USA has already suspended support for many international and United Nations (UN) agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestianian Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Paris Climate Accords (aka the Paris Agreement on Climate Change).
To that list, it is now adding: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group, among others. Basically, anything with the word "international" or "cooperation" in it. In US government terms, it is a "Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective or Harmful International Organizations".
And, of course, they are taking their money with them. As the richest country on earth, they have long been the largest contributors and fimancial mainstays of these organization, and the US's withdrawal may well mean that many of these august and well-meaning bodies may have to close down completely.
The Trump administration can't decide whether it wants to curl up in its little shell and pursue isolationist policies, or to go full interventionist, so it has decided to do both. Nobody has a clue what they are doing any more, or why, or what they will do next.
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