America First as a threat to mulitlateralism
By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, May
13, 2019 (IPS) — On 25 April,
Joseph Biden announced his
candidacy for the US presidency,
declaring that his
decision was based on fears
of Trump being re-elected:
”He will forever
and fundamentally alter the
character of this nation, who
we are, and I cannot stand by
and watch that happen.”1
Joe Biden´s statement mirrors
rising concerns that
Trump´s agenda, characterized
by isolationism, xenophobia
and anti-multilaterism
is threatening not only
the US, but the entire world.
Our biosphere, the absolute
fundament of human existence,
is on the verge of collapsing,
while petty “national
interests” are sabotaging
an international unity that
might reverse a catastrophic
development.
A blatant example of
the Trump adminstration’s
refusal to engage in crucial
inititives to save the planet
was when the US on the 10th
of May refused to sign an
amendment to the UN Basel
Convention.2 The agreement
that was signed by 187 countries
intends to restrict an
ongoing dumping of hardto
recycle plastic waste to
poorer countries.
Can the world afford to
watch the Trump administration
withdraw US participation
from the Paris Agreement
on Climate Change and
the UN Human Rights Council,
as well as less known
treaties such as the Universal
Postal Union? US representatives
have walked out
of negotiations on the Transpacific
Partnership Trade
Agreement and the UN Global
Compact for Migration,
as well as renouncing the
Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), i.e. the
Iran Deal. Furthermore, the
Trump administration has
announced the US withdrawal
from the Intermediate-
Range Nuclear Forces Agreement
with Russia and ended
cooperation with UN rapporteurs
on human rights violations
within the US, while
cutting down funding for UN
Peacekeeping and UN agencies
dealing with human
rights, Palestinian refugees,
population control, sustainable
development and global
warming.
Contempt for multilateralism
and cynical exploitation
of fears for negative
impacts of immigration are
being expressed by the slogan
America First, which
Donald Trump in March 2016
declared as a theme for his
administration.3 He used
the phrase in his inauguration
address and it was part
of the title of the federal
budget for 2018,4 referencing
to increases to the military,
homeland security and cuts
to spending towards foreign
countries. The history of this
specific slogan may expose
some of the xenophobia and
isolationism lurking behind
Trump´s politics.
The phrase was first used
in the summer of 1915. The
Committee for Immigrants
in America had by the beginning
of the last century been
founded by Francis Kellor,
who during social work in
teeming tenements of New
York had been shocked by
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immigrant women´s victimization.
She decided that
the only way to amend the
appalling situation would
be a solid, governmental
effort of Americanization of
all immigrants, i.e. forcing
them to learn English and
as soon as possible integrate
them into The American Way
of Life. Kellor´s views came
over a number of years to
have a great influence over
US politics. However, the
social objectives soon faded
away, overtaken by fears that
harmful influences brought
from abroad by unwanted
immigrants would eventually
erode the American nation
from within. The Committee
for Immigrants´ original
motto was thus changed
from Many Peoples, But One
Nation to America First.
The slogan became a
common feature in populist
harangues by the media
tycoon William Randolph
Hearst, the model for Orson
Welles´s famous movie Citizen
Kane and an unscrupulous
manufacturer of fake
news. America First also
became a salient propaganda
feature during election campaigns
of both Woodrow Wilson
and Warren G. Harding.
How could a battle cry for
isolationism and xenophobia
develop in a nation constituted
by people from all over the
world, which leaders furthermore
tend to present their
political system as a beacon
of freedom and tolerance?
Already by the 17th century,
several European settlers
had through the Reformation
become convinced that
Catholicism was steeped in
the moral depravity of tyrannical
popes. Anti-Catholicism
became a fundamental
conviction among Anglo-
Saxon puritans who dominated
colonial settlements.
From England and Germany
they had brought with them
a strong belief in constant
threats from Catholic conspirators.
Such fears later fed
into an aversion against Irish
and Italian immigrants. Concerns
that soon were coupled
with suspicions that migrants
coming from countries suppressed
by popes, emperors
and other despots were likely
to nurture dangerous, radical
ideas, entirely different from
peaceful notions of ”orderly
and hardworking” Anglo-
Saxons, who had inherited
their moderateness from
freedom-loving, imaginary
Goths. This ”primitive tribe”
became a collective designation
for Angles, Saxons and
Jutes, considered to be the
ancestors of English, Dutch,
Scandinavian and German
immigrants. When radical
refugees and persecuted Jews
appeared from Europe, such
befuddled notions merged
with The Red Scare, a conviction
that desperate politics
emerging from a class-ridden
Europe, like anarchism and
Bolshevism, would eventually
destroy American democracy.
In 1916, these fears were by
Madison Grant in his influential
book “The Passing of
the Great Race” mixed up
with racism. Grant warned
that hereditary traits, radicalism
and religious beliefs
of “inferior white races”
would mingle with those of
“third-rate people” already
present in the US, by whom
he meant people of African
descent, and “mongrelize”
the “Nordic man” into “a
walking chaos, so consumed
by jarring heredities that he
is quite worthless.”5
After World War I, when
immigration was resumed
after a low ebb and combined
with the onset of economic
depression, a wave
of crime, wrangling in the
Congress and the scandalous
consequences of prohibition,
Anglo-Saxonism, antiradicalism,
anti-Catholicism
and racism flooded public
opinion. Several US citizens
came to believe that social
troubles were caused by the
tenacity and secret cunning
of alien influences, combined
with a lack of solidarity
and resistance among
”true Americans.” The battle
cry of America First echoed
through a nation that began
to withdraw into itself, while
the Government established
a nationality quota system,
officially based on the preexisting
composition of the
American population, but
in reality a racist scheme
to effectively ban immigration
from Asia and Africa
and limit migration from
countries like Italy, Poland,
Russia and Romania. An
example — during the first
weeks of quota implementation
more than a thousand
desperate Italians were confined
to a ship anchored in
the Boston harbour, before
being released and repatriated.
Later on, the system
became better organized and
unwanted immigrants were
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