The Agency for International Development: “Soft Power” that has advanced U.S. interests

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When I arrived in El Salvador in 1990, during what was known as the second offensive” I was sreuck by the number of army troops on the highway on the road from the airport to San Salvador, the capital. The rebels hsd earlier kidnapped and held hostage the Secretary General of the Organization of American States at the El Camino Real Hotel, where incidentally I was staying.

I was leading an evaluation of of a USAID-funded ptogram of graduate kegal studies at tge Faculty of Law of tge University of Costa Rica, in San Jose. In addition to attending classes and interviewing students and professors at the University in San José, I also traveled to El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic to interview firmer fellowship recipients and graduates and their employers in two specialties of the graduate legal studies program, agrarian law and criminal law reform.

The graduate legal studies program and fellowships were part of a broader effort by A.I.D. to strengthen legal education and judicial and legal reform in Central and South America.

Strengthening the legal system was viewed as a key component of a strategy aimed at developing and strengthening democratic governments built on the rule of law, a goal which was originally central to the Alliance for Progress launched by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

In El Salvador, I remember the feeling apprehension I felt as I walked across a big intersection and open space between where my armored car from the U.S. Embassy let me off and tge entrance to tge secure compound of the National Police where I had an appointment to interview the boss of one of the graduates of the criminal law program at the University of Costa Rica.

The situation in the country was highly volatile. An armed insurrection was in progress. Only days before, there had been an armed clash several blocks from my hotel.

My interview with the police official was quite successful. I learned that the graduate of the UCR criminal law program was contributing significantly to the reform of police procedures with the goal of improving their compliance with international human rights norms. My interview with the lawyer graduate corroborated the kind of work he was doing.

I stayed only one night in El Salvador, and felt relieved when my plane took off for my next stop in Guatemala.

While USAID quit funding legal reform efforts like the program described, slow and painful progress was being made.

Legal reform, however, is a long-term project.

There can be little doubt, however, tgat USAID was on the right track, trying to promote democracy and the rule of law.

Abandoning that goal and the funding of similar programs has contributed to the instability in the region, and the hopeless political and economic conditions that drive so many to emigrate looking for a better life in the U.S.

Support Harvard; Stand Up for America and the Rule of Law

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BACKGROUND

1) Garry zkasperov, “How America Can Avoid Becoming Russia; Political pressure must be brought to bear—through the courts, the press, and the states, but also applied to legislators while they still have any power left, The Atlantic, April 17, 2025 (6 am ET).

2) Jonathan Chait, “A Loophole That Would Swallow the Constitution; If Donald Trump can disappear people to El Salvador without due process, he can do anything, ThecAtlantic, April 17, 2025 (10:40 am ET).

From the Author’s Desk: Does anyone care?

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From the Author’s Desk

We try to include in the “Background” and “Further Reading” sections of our columns the best articles and op-ed columns on the subject we are writing about.

The idea is that you, the reader, will be sufficiently interested in the subject to click on one or another of tge links and read the corresponding article.

But I can see that almost no one clicks on a link to one of the sources listed. That invalidates my theory that you, my readers, might be sufficiently interested in the subject to click on a link and read the article or op-ed on the subject under discussion.

Oh well, the links are at least useful to include in future books. These citations and links can be useful at some point in the future. For example, in a recede t column on Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional use of the presidents emergency powers, I included in the “Background” section a citation and link to an article first published in The Trenchant Observer blog on December 11, 2020, and included in my book, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021.

In fact, reading The Rape of Anerican Democracy not only provides an easy and accessible way to review Trump’s first term and many of the same strategies he is employing today, but also to grasp at a deep level the grave threat to American democracy and the international rule of law he now represents.

What we offer here in the Trenchant Observations newsletter is a curated selection of articles and op-ed columns selected by an a columnist with a keen historian’s eye.

To be sure, there are among our readers famous columnists who could probably make a better selection.

With so much being written about the subjects addressed in our columns, how do you, the reader, discern which are really important and of lasting historical interest?

Well, you have made a good choice by continuing to read the Trenchant Organizations newsletter. I submit that our columns and selection of articles will stand the test of time. The proof of this proposition is to be found in The Rape of American Democracy, whose chapters bear witness to the author’s historian’s eye in selecting subjects and articles, and offering prescient analyses that remain persuasive years after they have been written.

Moreover, the collection of citations and links published here and in the books constitutes a unique compendium of tge best reporting and commentary written during the Trump years.Itvshould be of great value to academics and others writing about what happened in America which led up to the government of Donald Trump beginning in 2025.

I sense, or at least hope, that some readers are becoming increasingly engaged.

If you are one of those, please share your comments, or just thoughts, in the Comments section or alternately in an email to jrowles93@gmail.com. Your name will remain confidential in any emailto me.

Trump’s questionable use of emergency powers to circumvent the Constitution and the law

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BACKGROUND

1) Clemens Wergin, “‘Sehr alarmierende Anzeichen’ – wie sich Trump aus dem Handbuch autoritärer Regime bedient; Regieren per Notstandsverordnung, Einschüchterung von Medien und Justiz, Loyalität als oberstes Gebot – systematisch versucht US-Präsident Trump, die Gewaltenteilung der amerikanischen Demokratie zu untergraben. Doch sein Vorgehen hat eine Achillesferse.Die Welt, den 11. Abril 2025 (08:54 Uhr);

2) Clemens Wergin, “‘Very alarming signs’ – how Trump uses the handbook of authoritarian regimes; Governing by emergency decree, intimidation of the media and the judiciary, loyalty as the highest priority – US President Trump systematically tries to undermine the separation of powers of American democracy. But his approach has an Achilles heel, Die Welt, April 11, 2025 (8:55 am CEST).

Thev underlying issue is Trump’s unconstitutional invocation of emergency powers as ablegal basis for his executive decrees.

The courts are looking at whether thevsubstance of hisvdecrees are unconstitutional. It is notbclearvtgatbtgeybarece examining whether the purported legal authority upon which they are based has been validly invoked–e.g., whether tge declaration of a nationalmemergenvy is justified by the facts, and whether the inherent limits in suchbemergency powers have been observed.

cf. March 23: 1933…Enabling Act granting Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.

Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump: Three war criminals attacking three pillars of the international rule of law

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BACKGROUND

1) “PALESTINE
« Israël, Etat membre des Nations unies, réputé modèle de démocratie, ne respecte plus aucune des règles internationales;
Dans une tribune au « Monde », un collectif de chercheurs et d’anciens ambassadeurs appelle, en Europe, à dénoncer sans ambiguïté l’idéologie suprémaciste qui anime désormais le gouvernement de l’Etat hébreu : il vient de créer une « Autorité d’émigration », visant à « relocaliser » plusieurs millions de Palestiniens de Gaza puis, probablement, de Cisjordanie.Le Monde, le 11 avril 2025 (à 05h00);

2)

Three war criminals are currently leading the assault on three pillars of the international rule of law.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court forcwar crimes in Ukraine, is leading the attack on the cornerstone of the U.N.-Charter based international legal order. That principle, the central pillar of the international political system, is the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Important corollaries of this principle include the non-recognition of the acquisition of territory through the illegal use of military force, and the principle that any treaty secured by corcion is void under international law.

Putin also leads the attack on International Humanitarian law or the Law of War, with a strategy in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine built on the systematic commussion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine this attack is accompanied by, and in many respects co-terminous with a massive assault on the entire edifice of human rights protection, including the systematic violation of many international human rights treaties to which Russia itself is a party.

Israel Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu the subject if an international arrest warrant for crimes committed in Ghaza, has with Putin been a main leader in the assault on International Humanitarian Law. The entire Israeli assault on Ghazi appears to be built on the systematic commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, arguably amounting to genocide.

Israel has systematically violated the proportionality and other requirements of International Humanitarian Law, often lying as it argues that it is complying with international law in general and international humanitarian law in particular Such “compliance” has cost tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives in Ghaza, where over 50,000 people (including Hamas fighters) have been killed since October 2923.

U.S. President Donald Trump is presumably guilty of war crimes in Ghaza as a result of its supply of weapons and financing to Israel used in Israel’s commission of war crimes in Ghaza, and its likely orovision of intelligence and direct invokvement in operations ir tgeir planning and executiin in Ghaza.

Trump is also leading the assault on the rules-based internatiinal trading system established by the General agreement in Tariffs and Trade in 1948 and meny sypubsequeny agreements, includuping tge treat establishing thecWorld Trade Organixation in 1998 and accompanying agreements

Trump has justified his violation of WTO rules by invoking a national security exception in a clearly illegal interpretation of its meaning, and blocked tge zwTO’s hughest dispute resolution chamber from ruling on its legality by refusing to nam members the panel necessary tonconstitute tge quorum required for it to reach decisions.

With his tariff war against the world in April 2025, he has basically violated all of its key provisions and acted as if the international trade law adopted by treaty and agreement among tge natiins of the world werevirrelevant ir did not exist at all.

In conclusion, we can see how tgese tgree war criminals have been conducting an assault on three main pilkars if the U.N. Charter-based international legal order.

Together they are seeking to bring downthree main oiklars of the ruke of law on the international laevel.

Cousins of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, they are the 21st century Avenging Avatars of Anarchy.

As others see us: Luís Bassets of El País (Spain)

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BACKGROUND

1) “Excelentes en la destrucción, nulos como gobernantes; Cuando los abusos de la nueva Administración de Trump lleguen a la justicia, el daño causado será ya irremediable,” El País, el 29 de marzo 2025 (23:00 EDT);

2) Lluís Bassets, “Excellent in destruction, null (zero) as rulers; When the abuses of the new Trump Administration come to justice, the damage caused will already be irreparable,” El zpaís, March 29, 2025 (23:00 EDT).