A DEMOCRAT-leaning astronaut returning to Earth from a rendezvous with Mars after a successful lift-off sometime before the November 2020 election votes were counted (after reading all the pundits’ prognostication of a Joe Biden win) would find his planet alien to him, a strange cradle of democracy under a one-party rule: all three branches of the US government in Republican hands.
What happened?
Politico — an influential news organization — had issued its final prediction in 2019 that, with Joe Biden as the favorite in most polls, the Democrats would win the White House; control of the Senate could go either way, but the House of Representatives would have turned blue “as the national environment swung toward the Democrats and the party is likely to gain seats with a larger majority than in the previous Congress.”
Instead, Donald J. Trump is president — again — with America First front and center of his political and personal priorities.
On Jan. 7, 2026, President Trump issued a memorandum withdrawing the US from international organizations, conventions and treaties “that are contrary to the interests of the United States.”
Get the latest news
delivered to your inbox
Sign up for The Manila Times newsletters
By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The memorandum lists 35 non-UN organizations and “hybrid threats” and 31 UN agencies.
The memorandum was a follow-through of Executive Order 14199 of February 2025, which directed the Secretary of State, in consultation with the US representative to the UN, to “conduct a review to determine which organizations, conventions and treaties the US is party to are contrary to its interests.”
On Jan. 14 this year, the US government banned or indefinitely froze visa processing for people coming from 75 countries, the latest effort to advance Trump’s immigration agenda. Countries on the list include Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Russia and Somalia.
America First has metamorphosed into America alone.
To demonstrate its strength as the world’s Lone Ranger, President Trump has expressed his intent to expand America’s footprint: claim Canada as the 51st state; annex Greenland by force if necessary; has forcibly removed Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela; expropriate the Central American country’s oil as America’s; and promised to rescue Iranian protesters against the country’s theocratic regime if authorities start shooting.
A Time magazine report last month said: “As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone,” citing two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health — indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll. “So many people were slaughtered by Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday, it overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead. Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers replaced ambulances.”
The US rescue never came.
The Jerusalem Post said the Trump administration is now “open for business with Tehran despite earlier pledges. Jacob Laznik argues that pursuing a nuclear deal with a regime using foreign mercenaries to slaughter civilians would betray those who risked their lives on Washington’s assurances.”
It was the same betrayal of trust that Afghanistan supporters of the US war felt with the sudden withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Supporters of and those fighting for US policies were left hanging — some literally.
Closer to home, the US is driving the latest nails into the coffin of Cuba, threatening to impose tariffs on countries that sell oil to the socialist country, which is just 250 miles off Miami.
With Maduro out and its primary source of fuel gone, a regime change is a likely scenario. Faced with the dangerous prospects of refueling in Havana, Canadian airlines have canceled all flights to Cuba. The other friendly Latin country, Mexico, has paused oil shipments since Jan. 9.
As the US stamps out dissent against an emergent authoritarian rule at home, the Trump administration is consolidating America’s hold in areas of influence: The world is now experiencing a three-way hegemonism, each superpower carving a hemisphere in its own image.
China’s “Silk Road” has achieved global influence, primarily through economic investment, infrastructure projects (Belt and Road Initiative), and diplomatic partnerships. Strongest in Southeast Asia, Africa and parts of the Middle East, China challenges US influence with major investments in ports, technology and energy.
After Trump alleged that China was “running the Panama Canal,” for example, CK Hutchison negotiated a $23 billion deal with a BlackRock-led consortium to sell its non-Chinese port subsidiaries. China has labeled the sale as “kowtowing to American pressure, stalling the transaction.”
In Ukraine, Russia continues its attack, targeting Ukraine’s key maritime export arteries, crucial for its foreign trade and key to the survival of its wartime economy. Moscow has seriously damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure even as Putin insists that — as a condition for a ceasefire — Russia “must be allowed to keep all the land it occupies, be handed all the provinces that it claims but does not fully control,” and that Ukraine must “officially end its plans to join NATO.”
Confident that Europe is in no position to challenge US military might, Trump has belittled the region’s leaders, forcing them to launch individual and joint diplomatic-trade initiatives as a pivot from American influence.
Sensing an opening to further expand American influence, Trump created the Board of Peace (BoP), a US government-led organization whose initial purpose was to oversee the Gaza peace plan process.
BoP has since signaled that it would promote peacekeeping around the world, a direct challenge to the purpose of the United Nations.
As America’s ultraconservatives and nationalists extol the principle that “Right is Might,” the two other superpowers — Russia and China — backed by military and financial force, respectively, flaunt the dictum that “Might is Right.”
Imagine how alien our returning astronaut will feel on Earth.