USA Heading Towards Isolationism

By Guillermo Alvarado 

The purpose of the President of the United States to make his country "great" again seems to include isolating it as much as possible from the rest of the world, particularly from those regions that provided much of the labor force to build that power. 

According to a document leaked to the press, a drastic restructuring of the State Department is being prepared, which includes reducing diplomatic and consular staff from Washington in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The information was originally published in The New York Times and confirmed by the French Press Agency, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially claiming the data was false. 

In reality, everything indicates that the White House is heading towards a profound review of its diplomatic corps in various parts of the world, especially the African continent, from where several million people were kidnapped and taken as slaves to the United States. 

The Office for Africa will be eliminated, and in its place, a less significant entity will be created. 

What is novel is that this new institution will report directly to the National Security Council of the White House, instead of the State Department. 

Additionally, all non-essential diplomatic and consular offices on that continent will be closed, and foreign policy will be handled by a special envoy through specific trips directed from Washington. 

But this is not all, as it is also proposed to reduce the U.S. diplomatic presence in Eurasia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. 

To this must be added the severe reduction in funding for important entities such as the World Health Organization and some agreements on climate change, democracy, human rights, as well as the UN and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

According to Donald Trump's ideas, these measures of isolation by the world's leading economic and military power will serve to make his country great again, when everything seems to indicate precisely the opposite. 

Very delicate matters will cease to be addressed through these policies, supposedly applied to project U.S. strength abroad, reduce waste, and align the State Department with Trump's "America First" doctrine.