Donald Trump the President of the United States has told Britain it can go and get its own oil and its Royal Navy should open up the Straits of Hormuz which he has closed by his illegal unnecessary war.
It is hard to imagine an old ally abusing, insulting and betraying a country that for the last 80 years has had a so-called “special relationship” with the United States. It is also difficult to pretend that this relationship is “special” or that the United States is still our ally under the Trump regime. If the President of the United States has declared that the United States would no longer support this country as a member of NATO in any attack by a third power on this country this would constitute a breach of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty 1949 and undermine NATO. But it is reported that Mr Trump went further to say that United States should leave NATO. If he meant this seriously to be construed as a Notice of Denunciation under Article 13 of the Washington Treaty then such notice would be required to be given to all NATO members by his government that the United states would leave NATO one year from the date of the Notice. Possibly Mr Trump has never read or been advised of this and the United States legal obligations under that treaty. Judging by his contempt and disregard for the laws of the United States and its constitution one suspects an equal contempt for international law or the normal diplomatic conventions, not to mention the covenants contained in bilateral and multilateral international treaties.
His attacks on our Prime Minister in particular, the United Kingdom in general, the Royal Navy, France and NATO is consistent with this President of the United States admiration for autocracies and dictators to wit his collusion and collaboration with Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump does not seem to realise that if Europe is invaded by Russia and the United States military support is withdrawn or denied, then if Europe is destroyed and occupied by Russian forces does no one in his State Department or the Pentagon imagine Russia would stop there? Stalin made Russia’s position clear at Yalta in 1945 that Russia would occupy where its forces had reached after Hitler’s armies had surrendered. President Truman rejected Churchill’s advice to maintain United States forces at their wartime level in Europe. Stalin, however, then preceded not only to occupy the states which they had agreed at Yalta but, against the spirit of that agreement, to control them. A good example was the installation of the Lublin regime in Poland. Despite this breach of what was thought was agreed at Yalta the United States did nothing. Mr Trump might reflect on that because that resignation of responsibility by one of his predecessors from Churchill’s interpretation of the Yalta agreement led to the enslavement of much of Eastern Europe under the Soviets. So we do not need any lectures from the likes of a draft dodger like him.
But this there is another argument to make about Trump’s reckless statements.
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave Britain the lifeline of Lend Lease and told Americans that if Britain needed guns it would get guns and if Britain needed ships it would get ships to preserve its independence and democracy. Why did Franklin Roosevelt do this when America was isolationist and not an ally? Roosevelt did it because Roosevelt knew that if Britain did not continue the war in Europe, Europe would be dominated by the Nazis so America would have a hostile Europe across the Atlantic and a hostile Imperial Japan across the Pacific. America would be caught in between. If tomorrow Putin’s war machine destroyed Europe as Trump is destroying the Middle East America would be left with a Russian enslaved Europe on one side and a Communist China on the other. Maybe that’s how he sees it-who knows?
Finally, Mr Trump needs reminding that his American Republic would never have lasted but for the secret assurance given by our Foreign Secretary, George Canning to President Monroe in 1823 that the Royal Navy would protect the United States independence in the Pacific and in the Atlantic and that no foreign power would be allowed to interfere. This was endorsed by former Presidents James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson. Unlike Trump’s outrageous threats against Britain and NATO, Britain kept its promise to America in the nineteenth century, and save for its civil war, its republic was preserved and it remained a “land of the free and home of the brave”.
In Professor Joseph S Nye’s book Do Morals Matter he opines that Jeffersonian respect for the opinions of humankind and Wilsonian use of institutions are crucial to the success of American foreign policy. Sadly today American foreign policy no longer subscribes to those essential American values.
About the Author
Dr Michael Reynolds is a Senior Law Lecturer at the University of East London and Visiting Professor in Dispute Settlement and Arbitration at BPP University Law School. He is also a memebr of the Atlantic Council UK which is affiliated to NATO.
