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Donald Trump began the first part of his speech to Congress by committing a sacrilege: he demoted the first American president in history, George Washington, to second place. Who is in first place? Of course, Donald Trump, who brought back to the world the cruel reality of the cult of personality.
In order not to be accused of partisanship, we reproduce what Donald Trump said at the beginning of his speech yesterday morning, from the US Congress.
"In the last six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and ordered more than 400 executive actions, a record, to restore common sense, safety, optimism and prosperity throughout our great country. The people elected me to do the job, and that is what I am doing. In fact, many have said that the first month of our presidency is the most successful in the history of our nation. And what makes it even more impressive is that you know who is in second place? The presidency of George Washington. What do you think about that?", said Donald Trump, to the cheers of Republican American congressmen and to the astonishment of the Democratic Party.
What Trump does not take into account is the fact that George Washington will always be considered by Americans as number 1, as long as his face appears on the most popular banknote - the one dollar bill. Perhaps that is precisely why Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, a representative of the state of South Carolina, initiated a legislative project to introduce the 250 dollar bill on which Donald Trump's face would appear. Thus, the new American president, even if he is not on the first banknote, the one dollar bill, would be on the most valuable banknote issued by the Federal Reserve.
The cult of personality in the USA seems to have started with its engines running at full speed. This is the only way to explain the above statement, Joe Wilson's initiative, JD Vance's nervous exit to the Oval Office during the meeting between the American and Ukrainian presidents, but also the way Republican congressmen behaved throughout President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.
A speech that was constructed in such a way that Trump would appear in a favorable light, compared to Joe Biden, who was criticized by the new American president 16 times during the event in the plenary session of Congress. Moreover, so that no one would disturb this positive construct, in which Donald Trump poses as the savior of the USA, the Speaker of the House of Representatives ordered the quorum to remove Democratic Congressman Al Green, representative of the state of Texas, from the room, who interrupted his speech by accusing the new American president of having no mandate regarding his recent actions domestically.
• Illegal immigrants - major danger to the US, according to Donald Trump
From the analysis of Donald Trump's speech, the first idea that emerges is that the new American president has chosen to use fear as a political tool. Almost half of Trump's speech was about illegal migration and the cartels in Mexico and other Central and South American countries. He described migration as an "invasion", portraying migrants as automatically criminals and drug traffickers.
Donald Trump said: "Within hours of being sworn in, I declared a national emergency at our southern border, and I deployed the United States military and Border Patrol to repel the invasion of our country - and what a great job they did! As a result, illegal border crossings in February were the lowest ever recorded. Foreign nationals probably heard my statements and chose not to come to the US. It's much easier that way. By comparison, under Joe Biden, the weakest president in American history, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossings every month, and almost all of these people, including criminals, drug dealers, cartel members, and people released from psychiatric institutions, entered our country freely. (...) In the past four years, more than 21 million people have entered America illegally - many of them criminals, drug dealers, and cartel members. Today, I signed an order that requires all federal agencies to apprehend illegal criminals who threaten public safety."
This fear that President Trump has induced in American citizens towards citizens of other countries was not only introduced in the part of his speech about protecting the borders from illegal migration. Donald Trump reiterated the above statements when he referred in his speech to encouraging foreign investment in the US by granting the Gold Card, intended to encourage immigration based on merit. Trump is not talking about legal immigration, but about one based on merit. What is the merit? In an investment of 5 million dollars, designed to create new jobs.
Donald Trump stated: "In the near future, I want to do what has not been done for 24 years - balance the federal budget. With this goal in mind, I have developed in detail a new program called the Gold Card. It will be available soon and will allow the most successful business people in the world to buy a path to American citizenship for $ 5 million. It is like the Green Card, but better and more sophisticated. These people will pay taxes in America, create jobs and sponsor top young graduates so that we no longer have to send them back to their countries after they are educated at the best American universities. We will bring brilliant minds into the country and, at the same time, deport criminals, traffickers and sexual predators who were allowed to enter under the Democrats' open borders policy."
• Global trade war
Trump's speech continued with economic promises, referring to massive tax cuts for American citizens and presenting his strategy for imposing tough trade tariffs on products imported from other countries. Regarding this measure, President Donald Trump praised the trade tariffs imposed abroad, which sparked a wave of protests from Democrats. A group of Democratic congresswomen wearing T-shirts that read "Resist" walked out of the room as Trump delivered his speech from the House of Representatives podium. Other Democratic representatives remained in the room to criticize each of Donald Trump's untrue information by waving signs that read "False", "This is a lie", "This is not a normal time". Moreover, at the opening of the discussion on trade tariffs and the need to reduce some taxes - a measure that, according to Democrats, would benefit Republican oligarchs - Democratic congressmen asked Trump to start paying the taxes and fees he owes to the state, and Maxwell Frost left the room wearing a shirt with the message "No King Lives Here".
Regarding the trade war recently triggered by increasing customs tariffs on products that the US imports from Mexico, Canada and China, Donald Trump said: "On April 2nd, we are introducing trade tariffs that mirror those imposed on us by other countries. These countries have imposed higher customs tariffs on us for decades, and now it is our turn to respond with the same measure. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Canada and other nations are charging us with much higher tariffs than we are imposing on them. It is unfair. India imposes 100% higher tariffs on our cars. The average tariff imposed by China on our products is twice as high as the one we impose on them. The average tariff imposed by South Korea is four times higher. Think about it: four times higher! This, while we provide South Korea with military support and more. If a country taxes us, we will tax too. If they exclude us from their markets, we will exclude them too. This new system will bring trillions of dollars to the United States and create millions of jobs."
On the economic front, Trump has presented a series of actions designed to stimulate growth and reduce excessive federal regulations. These include freezing federal sector hiring, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, which is considered costly for the United States, canceling the electric vehicle mandate, and eliminating environmental restrictions imposed by the Biden Administration. Donald Trump has announced a series of tax measures aimed at reducing the tax burden on American citizens. These measures include eliminating the tip tax, eliminating the overtime tax, and eliminating the tax on Social Security benefits for retirees.
• $500 billion annual budget fraud?
The American president has shown that reducing the tax burden on citizens will not affect the federal budget, because Elon Musk, head of the new Department of Government Efficiency - DOGE - has discovered how hundreds of billions of dollars were improperly spent during the Biden Administration.
Donald Trump gave an example: "Just listen to some of the outrageous expenditures that I have already identified and eliminated: $22 billion from HHS for free housing and cars for illegal immigrants; $45 million for scholarships in Burma; $8 million for LGBTQ+ promotion in Lesotho - who has heard of Lesotho?; $60 million for indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations in Central America; $250,000 to promote veganism in Zambia; $8 million to transgenderize mice. All of these amounts are real. 32 million dollarsfor a left-wing operation in the Republic of Moldova. $10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique. $1.9 billion for a housing decarbonization committee. (...) We have uncovered hundreds of billions of dollars in government fraud. We have recovered this money and used it to reduce the national debt and fight inflation. This is just the beginning. The Government Accounting Office has estimated that the annual fraud in our government exceeds $500 billion - and we are working hard to eliminate it. "
The US President continued the revelations made in Congress and stated that the DOGE has uncovered massive fraud regarding the allocations granted under the Social Security program, which benefits millions of Americans.
Trump stated: "Believe it or not, government databases list: 4.7 million Social Security recipients between the ages of 100 and 109; 3.6 million between 110 and 119 years old; 3.47 million between 120 and 129 years old; 3.9 million between 130 and 139 years old; 3.5 million between 140 and 149 years old; 1.3 million between 150 and 159 years old. Over 130,000 beneficiaries are listed as being over 160 years old and, incredibly, 1,039 people are registered as being between 220 and 229 years old. One person is listed as being 360 years old - over 100 years older than our own country! But we will find out where this money is going, and it will not be a pretty truth. By eliminating fraud, waste, and theft, we will beat inflation, lower mortgage rates, lower car and food prices, protect retirees, and put more money in the pockets of American families."
• The Panama Canal, Greenland, and peace in Ukraine - Donald Trump's foreign policy priorities
In terms of foreign policy, Donald Trump reiterated before Congress the topics he has been putting on the public agenda for the past two months: the US takeover of the Panama Canal, the takeover of Greenland, and peace in Ukraine.
The US President declared: "We will take control of the Panama Canal, which was unfairly ceded. We will do so soon, especially since an American company has taken over two major ports located on both sides of the canal. (...) We strongly support the right of the people of Greenland to determine their own future, and if they choose, we welcome them to the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security and we are working with everyone involved to try to get it, but we need it for global international security and I think we will get it. One way or another, we will get it."
Regarding Ukraine, Donald Trump said that he received a letter from the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who states that he is ready to negotiate peace.
"At the same time, we have had serious discussions with Russia and we have received strong signals that they are ready for peace as well. It is time to stop this slaughter! We will end this war!", Donald Trump said.
In the rest of his speech, Trump also spoke about eliminating racial theory, woke politics and ideas about diversity, inclusion and critical education from the education of American youth. The US president also asked Congress to repeal the Chips and Science Act - a bipartisan law passed by US congressmen and signed into law by Joe Biden in 2022, arguing that it is no longer necessary as long as Taiwan has announced that it will invest over $100 billion to build the world's largest semiconductor and chip factory in the US.
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