WASHINGTON (Dispatches) — Donald Trump returned to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the White House 18 months ago, delivering a fiery speech sprinkled with severe criticism of President Joe Biden, blaming him for the country’s ills.
“We are a nation in decline,” he said in a 90-minute address to the conservative America First Policy Institute, echoing many of the themes of his victorious 2016 campaign, including illegal immigration and crime. “We are a failing nation.”
“Inflation is the highest in 49 years,” Trump said. “Gas prices have reached the highest in the history of our country.”
He accused Biden of allowing an “invasion” by millions of migrants crossing the southern border.
“Other countries very happily send all of their criminals now through our open border into the United States,” he said.
“The next Republican president must immediately implement every aspect of the Trump agenda that achieved the most secure border in history,” he said.
Trump said the United States “is now a cesspool of crime.”
“We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable,” he said. “Democrat-run cities are setting all-time murder records.”
The former president said the U.S. is now “a beggar nation” that has been “literally brought to its knees.”
He accused Biden of having “surrendered in Afghanistan,” and allowing Russia to invade Ukraine. “It would never ever, ever have happened if I was your commander-in-chief,” he said.
With Biden’s approval rating currently below 40 percent and Democrats forecasted to lose control of Congress in November midterm elections, Trump is apparently bullish that he could ride the Republican wave all the way to the White House in 2024.
On Tuesday, leading U.S. publication Foreign Affairs touched on the decline of the United States around the world especially in the Middle East.
“Even without a true peer competitor, the United States simply does not have the resources or the political capabilities to play the role of hegemon in the Middle East,” the magazine wrote.
“Regional powers no longer believe the United States can or will act militarily to defend them. The Arab uprisings taught these autocratic leaders that Washington could not guarantee the survival of regimes that worked toward U.S. interests. Their nationalist posturing and relentless complaint of abandonment by Washington are not just a bargaining position aimed at securing more U.S. arms and political support (though they are that). They also reflect Arab states’ increased capabilities and their profound feelings of insecurity. Attempting ineffectually to reassure these states will go nowhere: their doubts are too deep, and American capabilities and political will are too obviously insufficient.”
Over the last year, it said, the UAE rebuilt its relations with Qatar and Turkey, ceasefires took hold in Yemen and Libya, and Saudi Arabia even held preliminary talks with Iran. The United States’ moves to build a united front against Iran—escalating arms sales and reaffirming security guarantees—could prove deeply counterproductive to these local efforts. The more that Washington moves to expand its military and political commitments to lead a new regional order, the less stable the region will likely become, it added.
“At the same time, the United States is a mess, consumed by political infighting and polarization. Washington has largely abandoned even the pretense of promoting democracy or human rights. Advocates in Israel and the Persian Gulf argue that the Abraham Accords provide a vision for the region around which an order can be built, but all evidence suggests that Arab publics overwhelmingly reject the idea of normalization with Israel without a resolution of the Palestinian issue. An order relying on autocratic regimes to suppress public opinion rather than building an order that commands legitimacy beyond the palaces will not be a stable or enduring one.”