The president of the United States, Donald Trump, took advantage of his long, very long, time this Tuesday for a hagiographic review of his foreign policy, boasting about what he considers one of his great achievements – “we are reestablishing the dominance and security of the United States in the Western Hemisphere” – and launching a , which he has accused of wanting to develop intercontinental missiles that attack this country, while fears soar that a US attack against the Islamic Republic could be imminent.
In a bombastic speech, as full of praise for himself as it was of criticism and insults to his real and supposed enemies, and riddled with inaccuracies and exaggerations, Trump granted himself in the chamber of the House of Representatives an honorary degree in foreign policy, with the “cum laude” of the .
The speech, amid applause from the Republicans and boos from the Democrats, also had omissions: To the relief of the European allies, he also made no mention of Greenland, as he had done last year in his speech before both chambers of the US Congress.
All eyes were waiting for what he might say about Iran, after speculation had multiplied throughout the day in the corridors of power in the US capital about the possibility of an imminent attack, despite the fact that the Iranian delegation led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the US team chaired by negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – Trump’s son-in-law – have one planned in Geneva. In these talks, Iran is expected to present Omani mediators with an offer to the United States, which according to CNN could maintain Tehran’s right to enrich uranium but impose limits on enrichment levels. In exchange, the Islamic Republic wants the withdrawal of sanctions.
According to the newspaper The Washington Posta third of US warships mobilized around the world are concentrated in Middle East waters, in the country’s largest military deployment since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Trump offered no new clues about his plans. But he gave a new twist to his pressure on the Islamic Republic, a pressure that he increases almost daily with threatening comments. And for the first time he began to offer an argument to justify an attack against Iran: that that country can already reach Europe with its long-range missiles and is trying to develop intercontinental missiles that can attack the United States. One of its dubious statements: its intelligence services consider that Tehran is still at least a decade away from obtaining those rockets. He has also insisted that, despite repeated warnings, Iran maintains its nuclear program.
Although he stressed that he continues to prefer a diplomatic solution, and greeted his negotiators—both present among the guests in the chamber—he insisted on the message that he has repeated over and over again in the last two months: “I will never allow the main state sponsor of terrorism in the world, which it is by far, to possess a nuclear weapon. It cannot be,” he stressed.
Hours before the Republican’s speech, and two days before the meeting in Geneva, Araghchi resorted to one of the favorite means of this US Administration to communicate, the social network
But Aragchi also insisted that his country will not give up developing a civil nuclear program. And Trump ignored his words. Iran, the president insisted, “continues to pursue its sinister ambitions” of developing a nuclear weapon. “They were warned not to try to rebuild their weapons program, particularly nuclear weapons. But they continue to relaunch it”
The president, who returned to the White House last year with an isolationist message, the motto “America First” and the explicit promise not to involve the country in wars abroad, made clear in his 108-minute speech the extent to which international politics has played a role in his first thirteen months in office, from his intervention in Venezuela to the fragile peace agreement in Gaza.
He stuck out his chest, a lot of chest. He boasted, as he likes to do, about the conflicts he boasts of having stopped, from the border differences between Cambodia and Thailand to the dispute between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But where he gloated most was in relation to his policy towards America – or the Western Hemisphere, as Washington refers to the continent –, declared a great priority of his foreign policy: “We are reestablishing the dominance and security of the United States” in the region, he maintained.
In an allusion to his country’s intervention in Venezuela, the US president added: “We act to guarantee our national interests and to defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference.” And it continued: “For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.”
His words came two days after the Mexican forces. “We have also eliminated one of the most sinister leaders of the cartels, as everyone saw yesterday [sic]”Trump stated, regarding the death that occurred on Sunday.
Mentions of the situation in Venezuela, “our new friend and partner,” as Trump described it, generated one of the most emotional moments of the night: the surprise appearance of the former political prisoner and leader of the Centrados party, hugging his niece.
The president also alluded to the military campaign of bombing alleged drug boats, which has already killed more than 150 people and which many experts consider illegal: “With our new military campaign we have stopped record amounts of drugs entering our country. And we have stopped it completely for water; you will have noticed that.” And he joked: “No one wants to go fishing anymore,” to the laughter of the Republican congressmen.
Europe received less attention, to which Trump only alluded to give another medal: the commitment of NATO member countries to increase their military spending to 5% of their GDP by 2035.
And on the day that marked the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Russian invasion, Trump almost tiptoed through the war in Ukraine, the conflict that he has not managed to end despite his campaign promises that he would end it in 24 hours. “We worked very hard to put an end to it,” he said. But even the failure to put an end to it gave him the opportunity to take another credit: “Everything we send to Ukraine is through NATO, and they pay us the entire bill,” he boasted.
