By Rajan Philips –

Rajan Philips

“You may not be interested in the world order-but it is interested in you,” opines The Economist in its latest lead editorial, entitled “Dealing with the Don.” It is about America’s new Godfather, aka Don Corleone, aka Donald Trump, and the blitzkrieg beginning of his second presidential term that is causing, “the rupture of the post-1945 order.” It may be that the post 1945 order has run its course and needs a radical overhaul. But not for the reasons that seem to be motivating President Trump, and certainly not for whatever endgame he has in his mercurial mind. More than anything, in his second term Trump is presiding over America’s implosion into chaos and its spillover onto the world at large. It is super power devolving into super chaos.

Whether or not the world order is interested in Sri Lanka, the island country is in a fortuitously good place while other countries and polities are caught up in one way or another in the global waves emanating from the American vortex. Being small as island countries go, to recall Bishop Lakshaman Wickremesinghe’s felicitous phrase, has its benefits. There was a time, in the 1970s, when Ernst Friedrich Schumacher visited Sri Lanka touting his new, and over time very popular, book, “Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered,” which included a chapter on “Buddhist Economics,” the island’s socialist intellectuals quietly laughed at him.

But the concept – small is beautiful – struck a chord in more ways and places than one. It strikes for Sri Lanka now quite meaningfully as people in bigger countries are struggling to make sense of Trump and to avoid being hit by debris from his erratic executive orders. Sri Lanka has had its ordeals – too severe and too many of them, in fact, for its size and endowments. Yet after a tumultuous overthrow of a government that had gone awry, the people have helped themselves to a new government that for all its innocence in governance is a perfect fit for a small country caught in the topsy turvy world of Donald Trump. For all its shortcomings, the NPP government has shown a remarkable restraint in the rhetoric of foreign policy, a temptation that almost none of its predecessors were able to resist. It is wise to be non-aligned without the rhetoric of non-alignment.

It could also be argued that there is nothing remarkable about showing restraint to Trump, because every government in the world is showing not merely restraint but are even faking deference to avoid the pain of whiplash Trump tariffs. It does not matter whether you are neighbours like Canada and Mexico, or if you are separated by oceans, like China and India. Europe is picked on with disdain. Africa is irrelevant and the Middle East could be managed with the Israeli military doing Washington’s bidding. Russia is spared, with inexplicable deference shown to Vladimir Putin. Only China has simply said that it is ready for any war, trade or any other, that Trump might be fancying.

White House or Fight House

The first leader of any other country not to fake deference to Trump and not fail to call out his Vice President, the insufferable JD Vance, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He paid the price for it by being bundled out of the White House last Friday. Taking turns to insult and humiliate their Ukrainian guest, the American President and Vice President accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and ungrateful to their country while also accusing him of showing a preference for the Biden Admisnistration. Contentious meetings using colourful language do take place between word leaders and their teams, but they are always behind closed doors and spicy details come out years later in retirement memoirs for historical amusement. What happened in Washington last Friday was unprecedented; but, true to form, Trump called it “good for TV” – the be-all and end-all of his persona.

As usual, Trump’s Republican loyalists have been praising their fearless leader and his VP for standing up for their country, as if America needs some standing up to the beleaguered leader of a battered country. Trump’s main pique against Zelensky was the latter’s first refusal to sign a ransom agreement bartering away in perpetuity Ukraine’s critical minerals for half a billion dollars without any assurance for Ukraine’s security. A modified agreement was then drafted and Zelinsky flew to Washington for its signing last Friday. But things went off script as Zelensky chose to speak his mind. A return visit is now being planned, with Zelensky going to Washington accompanied by French President Macron and British Prime Minister Starmer to show respect to the Don.

The Economist sees a new hierarchy and a new world order in the making. Number one, apparently, is America. The second tier belongs to countries with resource endowments and unaccountable leaders – Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. And the third rung goes to the old West of Europe and erstwhile American allies and longstanding neighbours like Canada. The unmentioned are the rest even though India looms from the shadows, too populous to ignore.

Sri Lanka can stay where it is unseen and hopefully untouched by reciprocal tariffs. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan opposition can make noise for the recall of the current US Ambassador to Washington. That will eventually happen but not due to any local political noises. The UNHRC like all of UN might be in a quandary. But the Council is going through the motions in Geneva and the government is playing its part. The real answer to the proceedings in Geneva could and should come out of genuine changes at home. A systematic and retroactive crack down to eradicate the country’s criminal infrastructure; and nationally inspired political change whether it comes through Clean Sri Lanka or a New Constitution, or both.   

Trump’s Achilles Heels

There is also a new hierarchy in the making within America, and that could ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Trump presidency. The world can only watch and wait. At the top are President Trump and First Buddy Musk. The hegemon and the henchman. There are no cracks yet between the two, but few checks are emerging.

After weeks of nonstop savaging of the US institutions of government and foreign aid by Elon Musk and his handful of laptop stormtroopers going by the name of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), there are signs of slowdown and rethinking. Not surprisingly. Following a cabinet clash between Musk and the Secretaries of State and Transport, Trump has decreed that it is up to the Secretaries to first decide which staffers they want to keep. Trump has finally decided that the government cannot afford to lose employees who are efficient and good workers.    

Achieving efficiency in government is always a necessary and laudable goal. President Clinton eliminated about 400,000 jobs during his presidency, but that took several months of effort and selectiveness spearheaded by Vice President Al Gore. Not some buddy like Musk. Musk’s method is to be random and reckless, and that has created chaos and the need to recall retrenched employees in essential services. A second reason for the slowdown is growing judicial restiveness towards Musk’s operations.

In a small but not insignificant setback to the Administration, the Supreme Cout by a 5-4 majority sided with a Federal District Judge who had ordered the Trump Administration to lift the funding freeze on USAID operations that Trump had imposed on his very first day in office. The judge’s order was for the government to pay for projects and contractors whose work had been completed, and payment approved, before Trump assumed office.

The constitutional question as to whether Trump has the authority to override laws and disband institutions like the USAID, just on an executive whim, is still being battled in lower federal courts. The Trump team’s expectation is to let the cases go to the Supreme Court and ultimately get a favourable verdict from highest court with its 6-3 conservative majority.

The setback this week was on an appeal that Trump rushed to have the Supreme Court stop the lower court order to make payment for completed work some of which involved humanitarian relief operations in far flung countries. Delayed payments and non-payment to subcontractors has been Trump’s modus operandi in his real estate business. Musk did that with employees at Twitter before he turned it into X. They are trying to  extend their method to government’s contractual payments.

The case drew attention with Oxfam that gets no money from USAID, joining other agency plaintiffs against the government cuts. A remarkable nugget about the case is the District Judge who ordered the government to pay for completed work. His name is Amir Ali, a 40 year old Arab-Canadian-American. Born in Kingston, Canada, he completed a degree in Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and went on to do Law at Harvard. He made a quick name as a civil rights and constitutional lawyer, winning over half dozen cases he argued before the Supreme Court, and winning over even conservative judges.

Obviously, Ali and other judges who are ruling against Trump have got their detractors and their share of threats. That includes a reportedly racist taunt by Musk that Ali should be doing software engineering instead of helping non-existent NGOs receiving government payments. That is America. There is room for Amir Ali just as there is room for Elon Musk. Who prevails depends on the day of the week. Literally, for as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, when asked by a reporter about how he is handling his battles with Trump over tariffs, “It’s Thursday!”

Tariffs are another area where Trump is mercurially insistent but is being forced to reverse course from one day to another.  A daily “psychodrama,” as Canadian Foreign Minister Melani Joley has called it. Trump arbitrarily imposed a flat 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, in addition to further taxes on steel and aluminum imports. All in clear violation of the free trade agreement between the three countries, which Trump renegotiated and signed on during his first term.

Prime Minister Trudeau called Trump’s tariffs a trade war that is aimed to cripple the Canadian economy and ultimately achieve the annexation of Canada as the 51^st state of America. Trump has been obsessively musing about annexing Canada ever since he started his second term, in addition to his musings over Gaza, Greenland and the Panama Canal. But the annexation talk has riled up Canadians across the political spectrum and at every social level.

The federal and provincial governments in Canada are all on board for retaliatory tariffs against American goods until Trump removes the tariff threat altogether. And the Canadian public is gung ho about boycotting American goods and ceasing travel to America as tourists. The Trump Administration may not have quite expected the Canadian backlash, which comes on top of market turbulence, investor panic and consumer distress within America. The upshot has been almost daily announcement of tariffs and their withdrawals the next day – with a face saving pause until a future date.

There is no one actually in support of tariffs, in America or anywhere, except Trump himself. His cabinet of lackeys have no backbone to tell him what they really think about the idea, and so they are left to soften the blow by securing postponements from the Don. April 2 is the next date to watch for universally reciprocal tariffs that Trump has so far threatened to impose against all countries. Sri Lanka will have to be watchful, but there is still too much time left for Trump to change his mind multiple times. There is no point on betting on what he is going to do next. It is better to enjoy being small and smart and not get caught in the tariff crossfire.