Final Word from Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Representatives of Czech organizations that depend on generous support from the U.S. embassy must have felt their world falling down on them last night as they watched Donald Trump's speech in Congress. At least for a moment, Trump managed to disrupt the momentum of those who oppose him, which gives him more opportunity to put his policies in place. Such as his plan to cut the budget of the State Dept. and USAID by 37% and to quit financing one global project after another. The U.S. respects the right of all nations to chart their own path, he said, but he expects them to pay for it themselves. Yet at the same time, Trump wants a historic rise in defense spending. He said very little last night about his defense policy, but the more he talks about "demolishing and destroying ISIS," the more he sounds like a Bush-era neoconservative who believes that Barack Obama's foreign policy was a disaster because he should have dropped even more bombs. [Czech Republic president George W. Islamic State]