Donald Trump falters with \'Muslim ban\' and Mexican wall

Donald Trump did not take any time at all in proving to Americans and the rest of the world that he believes that America's way to being great again is not to let anything stand in his way, not even the laws and the constitution, diplomatic practices and customs, nothing really.
Thus as soon as he entered the White House, he focused on the proposed Mexican wall and the ban on Muslim immigration to prove his point. He set aside established protocol and the need for consultations for what was a very delicate issue. Instead, he took to tweeting to invite the Mexican President Enrique Nieto to Washington and conduct the proposed bilateral visit. It is unimaginable that any American president would have dealt with Enrique Nieto and Mexico in the style of Donald Trump even if Mexico were a US colony and its leader a US puppet.
Donald Trump tweeted that President Enrique Nieto must accept Mexico's guilt as charged, that Mexico was sending hundreds of thousands of criminals across the 1900-plus miles long Mexico-US border and therefore must build the Wall and pay billions of dollars for it. Of course, the Mexican President dismissed the accusation and called off the visit stating firmly that his country would not spend a single cent to build the wall.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox exposed the falsehoods related to the wall. He said the reality in the US-Mexican relations was that against one Mexican who crossed into US illegally in recent times, three Mexicans had returned to Mexico because of the health of the Mexican economy. He further said that the overwhelming majority of those who crossed the US-Mexico border were people from Central and Latin America and to stop them, the US would have to collaborate with Mexico instead of abusing, insulting and humiliating Mexico and Mexicans.
Donald Trump thus humiliated himself and his country that he wanted to 'make great again' with his first foreign policy initiative. He forced the Mexican President to do something unheard-of in US' diplomatic history. President Enrique Nieto tweeted to tell a US president that he was declining his invitation to visit Washington to become the first foreign visitor under the Trump presidency that under normal circumstances it would have been an honour for the president and Mexico. The surreal episode made an otherwise unpopular Mexican president a hero to his people.
The Mexican faux pas was a preview of what US foreign policy under Donald Trump was likely to be where tweeter threats and bullying would become new tools for diplomacy for the new US president. If Donald Trump would like to continue with tweeter to deal with the fast rising Russians and the already dominant Chinese as he tried with the Mexican president, he would no doubt allow both the countries to make mince meat of US foreign policy and his desire to dominate the world. Therefore, tweeter diplomacy has already become a major concern for the majority of Americans as Donald Trump started implementing his election promises to 'make America great again' with the tweeter as his major weapon.
Donald Trump also gave a preview about how his administration would be conducting the serious business of governance with his Executive Order on Muslims that stopped citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the USA if they were Muslims. It was not a preview that most Americans would have wanted to see.
The US government is built on the principle of separation of powers, the very foundation that has thus far assured successful governance and helped America become the greatest nation on earth. Donald Trump showed with the hasty decision on 'Muslim ban' that he intended to break it down and that in his administration, the executive and in particular, the president would dominate both the legislature and the executive.
His bullying tactics have thus far worked with the Congress where the Republicans, who hold the majority in both the Houses, have meekly surrendered to the new president for a variety of reasons. Some of these Republicans, for instance, Speaker Paul Ryan had opposed Donald Trump more aggressively than Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign because he felt Trump's views and ways were weird and did not conform to the US as a country based on laws and the constitution.
The new president has now taken on the judiciary. Judge James Robart of the Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington, articulated the opposition of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the US airports against the 'Muslim ban'. He passed a judgment staying the 'Muslim ban' Executive Order of President Donald Trump that allowed the Muslims from the seven banned countries to enter the United States as before. What made Judge Robart's ruling exceptional was that he had made it applicable all over the United States and not just in the state of Washington. The judgment was no doubt another major humiliation for the new president.
President Trump was of course in no mood to be humiliated or slighted. He tweeted that he would throw the ban out by appealing against it.  The Attorney General's office appealed against Judge Robart's ruling at the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco where the new President was again humiliated as the court comprising three judges declined to vacate Judge Robart's ban on the president's Executive Order. The judges, instead, asked both the sides to submit their briefs before deciding on the government's appeal to lift the stay order on the ban.
A fuming and threatening Trump went to the tweeter to attack Judge Robart calling him a "so-called judge". He also tweeted that henceforth the judiciary would be responsible if terrorists were to enter the USA and carry out terrorist attacks without any scratch of evidence that such terrorist attacks were impending.
Thus Donald Trump has not just targeted the Muslims, he has targeted the Mexicans and millions of Americans within days of becoming president. He has also targeted the media and called it the opposition. The judiciary, the organ of the government that the American Founding Fathers had created with great vision as the arbiter to keep the system of separation of powers vibrant and working in the interest of the people, has now become his latest target that is ominous for the country. As a result, the world is witnessing Americans in huge numbers taking to the streets to demonstrate against Donald Trump, his administration and particularly his racist and unconstitutional decisions.
Donald Trump has turned America on its head upsetting and angering most shades of opinion, except the extreme right. It is now becoming evident why on the campaign trail he had adored Vladimir Putin so much. He perhaps wanted to run an administration where the institutions, the laws and the constitution would be subservient to his wishes and decisions as are the people, the institutions and the laws in Russia to the wishes and the decisions of the Russian president.
The great American ship has entered new and dangerous waters because Donald Trump has started unnecessary and often surreal fights on various fronts including his own people, its laws and the constitution. It is a course upon which Donald Trump could have embarked if, like Vladimir Putin, he had the entire coercive powers of the state in his grasp, where the laws and the constitution were no barriers, which is far from being the case. Therefore, his chances of establishing a system of governance where his decisions would prevail without question are bound to fail. America's 200-plus years of democratic governance would ensure it.
Meanwhile, the enemies of the United States are no doubt gloating. They are gloating because President Donald Trump has taken their fight against  America to the majority of  Americans.
The writer is a former Ambassador.
serajul7@gmail.com