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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Interest Groups Are Stronger Than President Trump
Interest Groups Are Stronger Than President Trump
Paul Craig Roberts
We are six months into Donald Trump’s presidency, really his first presidency as his previous four years he was staffed by the ruling establishment with his opponents.
Washington taught Trump a lesson, and this time he is staffed with people who share the values he expressed in his campaign.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration is now at odds within itself and with a significant percentage of its MAGA supporters, if news reports can be believed. The issue splitting the Trump forces is the Epstein dossier. I wrote yesterday about the Epstein Saga. Clearly there are problems.
But the nature of the problem is being misrepresented. Attorney General Bondi did not decide on her own that the Epstein file was empty. She was not protecting Trump. The decision was imposed on the Trump administration by the American Establishment, the Ruling Elite, the Deep State, the Globalists–whatever you want to call those whose money and economic interests rule the governments in the Western World.
The issue our rulers put to President Trump was: Are you prepared to discredit in the eyes of the American People the ruling establishment and the government of the United States? If the people lose confidence in their government, how can you accomplish anything?
Netanyahu was there with Trump to back them up. If you release the Epstein Files it will be revealed that he was a Mossad agent blackmailing your leaders. We, Israel, will release the names, and your country will be ruined.
But it is not only Bondi having difficulties. It is also Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human services, and Trump himself.
Robert Kennedy has found that despite being a cabinet secretary in the US government, he cannot decide based on hard evidence that the Covid “vaccine” is harmful to everyone. All RFK could do was to cease the government’s recommendation of the deadly Covid vax for healthy children and pregnant women. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is powerless to stop the vaccination of the vast majority of the American population with a “vaccine” that kills and destroys the immune system. Big Pharma is more powerful than the US Secretary for Health.
Kennedy despite his promise was also unable to ban the deadly glyphosate weed killer that has poisoned food, soil, and water. Kennedy announced that this toxic substance was too important to agri-business to be denied them. Agri-business is more powerful than Secretary Kennedy, and its profits are more important than Americans’ health.
President Trump cannot even impose tariffs or deport immigrant-invaders. Globalism makes countries dependent on imports. Manufacturers are harmed by tariffs, and agri-business is harmed by deportations of illegals. These powerful economic interests are opposed to tariffs and deportations.
Trump’s tariffs are used to lower foreign tariffs against the US or to force concessions from foreign governments. But as it turned out the tariffs raise the cost of the remaining American manufacturers and hurt their profits.. They confronted Trump and were granted exemptions from tariffs for their input needs. Essentially, the tariff list was naked. Nothing on it that wasn’t exempted.
The same for deportations. According to news reports, there are to be no deportations of restaurant workers, farm workers, and workers in the chicken slaughter houses. The deportations seem mainly to be limited to criminal gangs.
It has only taken the Ruling Establishment six months to cancel the domestic agenda of the Trump administration. The Reagan administration lasted longer before it was neutralized.
Trump’s peace agenda has also gone by the wayside. He has bombed Iran for Netanyahu and continues to support Israeli aggression and Israel’s genocide of Palestine. Trump is yet to meet with Putin, instead handing the “peace negotiations” over to Zelensky and Putin. As the war is really between the US and Russia, Zelensky cannot settle it. The military/security complex needs war or the threat of war for its profits and power. Peace does not serve their interests.
Americans have a false belief in the power of a president. As long as private money determines politics, money, not the people, rules.