As a journalist based in Tonga, I have chosen mostly to refrain from giving a view of US President Donald Trump, one way or another, as I thought that he would sooner or later get over his incredible childishness and tyrannical behavior, and start doing something credible for his country, and the world.

I was initially horrified in 2024 watching Trump in a White House televised meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he rudely bullied the Ukrainian leader; told lies and acted arrogantly, humiliating him.

Also, I watched him boast unceasingly about “Making America Great Again” (MAGA).

He created an ICE force, unleashing them in states like Minnesota against their will, killing people in Minneapolis and wrongly arresting citizens while looking for illegals to be deported.

Tonga was listed among nations which were banned from entry into the USA, affecting many students who were planning to take up further schooling for 2026. Tongan families who planned to visit the graduation of their children were no longer allowed into the USA.

He ordered America’s military to attack Venezuela and kidnapped the President, against international law; also controlled the sale of their oil.

When the Opposition leader of that country offered him her Noble Peace Prize Award, he accepted — something he has tried to get saying he has “settled peace in 8 wars”.

Bombing of Nigeria
He ordered the bombing of Nigeria as a reaction to the “killing of Christians”. Is this what Jesus would have done whenever there are Christians who are persecuted anywhere in the world? Or is this Trump’s way to help boost his image among American Christians?

And then came the Greenland issue, which he called Iceland in a speech in Switzerland. He has threatened to invade this country which is under Denmark and NATO; then offered to buy it, and then after threats, changed his mind and announced there has been “a deal involving NATO, a peace framework for the future.”

But Trump could not help himself by boasting that “if it was not for us, German would be your language today”. He did not realise that German is the main language spoken in Switzerland.

Much more can be said about what this Nazi-style dictator is doing in America and the world, but the one that eventually tipped me over, was his most recent public statement, during a boast-fest in the White House that “God must be proud of me!”

How can a human be more deceived?

The narcissism of this man exceeds anyone else in that he now boasts that “God must be proud” of him! If God is proud of him, then God must be behind every move he makes.

Trump is not just a product of his own making. He has the support of the extreme rightist Republican Party, and a huge number of American Evangelicals. This is a huge concern, because the views of these groups continue to fuel the ungodly narcissism that is so much a part of Trump’s personality and character.

‘He is always right’
Its not only a case of “might is right” but that “he is always right” and that is why God must be proud of him!

What is also most shocking is that Trump supporters not only worship him as “a god” but also give great sounding explanations to Trump’s actions. An example is like saying Trump is only bringing the Venezuelan President (and his wife) to America to stand trial for drug smuggling.

Never mind about his cruelty, his arrogance, his lies, his “Epstein-style” immorality, and abuse of power resulting in senseless deaths.

“He is a wonderful Christian,” I was told by a Christian leader in the USA, who happens to be a friend of mine. Another Christian leader in Tonga said, “I like Trump because he opposes abortion, the murder of unborn babies.” My response was that I am also apposed to the murder of unborn babies, but I am also opposed to the murder of those who are already born.

I do take some of this personally because as an American citizen, I am a registered Republican voter out of Hawai’i. I am also an evangelical Christian. And yet Donald Trump, President of the country of my citizenship is definitely the most tyrannical and unprincipled leader of the free world we’ve had for some time.

Resisting the Trump nonsense does not mean endorsement of Biden and Obama or the Democrats for that matter. The people of America put Trump where he is, and the people of America have allowed him to do what he has done — his illegal and cruel actions, his senseless threats, his bullying of other world leaders, and international organisations, and so much more.

Reflection of US society
It can be true that a people deserve the leader they get.

In a Republic like America, they voted him in. Trump has become a reflection of American society, a warlike people who seem to look down on everyone else, and whose history is filled with cruel takeovers like they did in Hawai’i and other Pacific Islands; wiped out hundreds of thousands in Japan with the world’s first nuclear weapons, and fought wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran supposedly “to save the world” while killing countless others.

I recently saw an anti-Trump poster that says: “There is nothing more dangerous than an idiot who thinks he is a genius!” I do not think the President of the United States is an idiot, neither do I think he is a genius. But he is dangerous because he is a so-called Christian who does un-Christian things, he is a god-worshipper whose god is himself!

I am publishing the following article by Michael Jochum which speaks for a lot of people including myself.

What we witnessed in Switzerland was not a policy address. It was an X-ray

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump didn’t merely embarrass the United States in front of its allies; he revealed, with clinical clarity, the pathology that now defines his presidency — and the pathology his supporters actively crave. The bluster, the grievance, the thinly veiled threats, the adolescent swagger masquerading as strength: this is not drift or decline. It is the point.

Here’s the dangerous truth that finally snaps into focus after Davos: the unhinged Trump on that stage is exactly the president his followers want. They don’t tolerate the chaos; they require it. They don’t excuse the cruelty; they cheer it. They don’t misunderstand the geopolitical land-grabs and war-mongering postures; they see them as proof of dominance. The spectacle is the substance.

What makes this moment uniquely perilous isn’t just one man’s depravity. It’s the millions who looked at that performance and thought, Finally — someone who speaks for me. We are not up against a conventional politician or an opposing platform.

We are up against a movement animated by:

The racism embedded in “Make America Great Again,” which has always translated to Make America White Again.

The misogyny that waved off “Grab ’em by the pussy” as locker-room talk and called accountability hysteria.

The anti-intellectualism that confuses cruelty with strength and treats knowledge as weakness.

A provincial, grievance-soaked worldview that mistakes bluster for leadership and exclusion for sovereignty.

Trump is not a nightmare by accident. He is the most unprepared, unqualified, and disgraced president in American history by design. A bigot. A hater. A sexist. A xenophobe. A man with the intellectual and emotional maturity of a five-year-old child. He is mentally ill. He is a pathological liar who lies about his lies. He is obsessed with verbally attacking Hillary Clinton, and he reveals his deep racism through his constant, obsessive disparagement of Barack Obama. Donald Trump is a disgrace to humanity.

I have never heard — nor am I hearing — one single coherent, rational, intelligent, informed, educated, moral, fact-based, sane, mature, patriotic, or politically valid reason to support this illiterate, illegitimate, mentally ill, fish-mouthed “president”. What I do hear, loud and ugly, is resentment, self-hatred, impotent rage, and the glee of people who seem perversely proud that they have endangered everyone in this country.

This is no longer left versus right. The real question is whether we normalise this collective sickness — or excise it before it metastasizes further.

Every time someone says, “But the economy . . .  and those illegals . . . ” to justify their support, listen closely. They are telling you exactly which part of Trump’s reflection they see themselves in.

The good news? Mirrors can be shattered. But only if we stop looking away.

— Michael Jochum

Kalafi Moala’s column was first published by Talanoa ‘o Tonga and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is much to understand from the dramatic kidnapping — abduction is perhaps a better word — of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores last weekend by the United States armed forces, combined with the military attack on the country’s capital Caracas.

This understanding is greatly helped by the comments of the US’s first elected insurrectionist and convicted felon (fraud and sexual assault) President, Donald Trump, at and following his inauguration for his second term nearly 12 months ago.

Trump singled out the 25th US president, William McKinley, who was first elected 1896 but assassinated early into his second term, for praise. Some of this praise was because of his promotion of tariffs.

But it was also because McKinley is regarded as the first imperialist American president. He went to war with Spain and China to claim colonial spoils. Annexations included Puerto Rico and the Philippines (where more than 200,000 Filipinos were killed).

Far and hard right politics, fascism and narcissism
For context, the current US government under Trump’s leadership is a mix of far and hard right politics.

I have discussed this in a previous article (November 3) describing how the far right is successfully cannibalising the mainstream rightwing internationally (including its implications for Aotearoa New Zealand).

Residing within the far right is fascism. Considering Trump and some of his cabinet members and key staff to be fascists is a very reasonable conclusion to draw.

One of the characteristics of many fascists is narcissism; a personality disorder recognised as a mental health condition; an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one’s own needs, often at the expense of others.

Blend narcissism and fascism (or even wider far right beliefs) together and you have an absence of empathy and indifference to harmful consequences of their actions on others.

Even intelligent people within this subset find their narrow paradigms shut out to consideration of the tactical and strategic errors (“own goals”) that might arise out of their decision-making.

Recommended reading and watching
There has been much public commentary on the violent assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping/abduction of its president and First Lady. Three have stood out for me.

One is British leftwing journalist, commentator, author and activist Owen Jones. He speaks with lively empirically based passion. In his Battlelines publication (Substack, January 4) he didn’t pull his punches about global anarchy.

The second commentary digs deep. It is a 31-minute interview by Venezuelanalysis (January 4) with Caracas based analysts Steve Ellner and Ricardo Vaz: Venezuela: Trump’s war for oil and domination is a war crime.

I strongly recommend watching it. In addition to the military violence and abduction, they address Trump’s declaration that Washington will take control of Venezuela’s oil and effectively run the country, warning that the operation constitutes an unlawful use of force.

Venezuela: Trump’s war for oil.

They also refer to the extrajudicial killings on Venezuelan fishing boats at sea as violations of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.

The third is a recommended read of an online article (January 6) by Helen Yaffe, professor of Latin American political economy (Glasgow University): What is the US doing in Venezuela.

As well as describing the dramatic events, Dr Yaffe puts them in both their historical and current political contexts.

The absurd: Maduro’s machine gun
Trump’s justifications range from the absurd to the manufactured to the overstated. But one justification is absolutely on the mark. His narcissism is ironically beneficial at least from the perspective of analysis.

In openly exposing that that this is all about naked power Trump and his coterie don’t care that he can be easily caught out over fabrication and inconsistencies. If one believes that they are all-powerful, why should they care.

The absurd justification for the legal case against Nicolás Maduro is that he had a machine gun in his possession.

Putting aside the fact that the risk of what might happen (foreign military abduction) did actually occur, arguing this in a country where machine guns are easily and lawfully accessible — really.

The manufactured: narcotrafficking
The biggest fabrication, arguably exceeded the US government’s false “weapons of mass destruction” claim used to justify the disastrous invasion of Iraq over two decades ago, was to blame Venezuela, Maduro in particular, for the US fentanyl epidemic.

It even called it a “weapon of mass destruction”.

Consider the following facts that completely discredit Trump’s fabrication:

• In its March 2025 report the US State Department identified Mexico as the sole source of fentanyl entering the United States. United Nations investigations into fentanyl distribution also don’t identify Venezuela as a producer, let alone a supplier.
• Trump claims that Maduro leads a so-called Venezuelan “Cartel of the Suns” that traffics narcotics, including fentanyl, into the US. In fact, this is a politically manufactured fantasy. There is no such organisation as has just been acknowledged in the last few days by the US Department of Justice.
• In 2024, Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in a US court and sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to smuggle over 400 tons of cocaine into the US. Last November, Trump pardoned this narcotrafficker.

The overstated: oil
Many believe that the US invasion is all or primarily about oil. Certainly Trump’s own words and actions encourage this belief. After all, Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

However, since Trump’s sanctions targeting its oil sector back in 2017, Venezuela’s exports to the US have plummeted. Instead, China has become its biggest importer.

Last November, Trump released a US National Security Strategy for Latin America. It declared that “Restoring American energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) and reshoring the necessary key energy components is a top strategic priority”.

However, while important, oil profiteering is not the prime driver of the US assault on Venezuelan sovereignty. Although Venezuela has huge oil reserves, it is heavy oil which is more difficult to fully process.

Instead, its oil reserves are a consequence of a wider geopolitical agenda sometimes called “spheres of influence”. While intricately linked, US oil sanctions are more a weapon than a driver of the imperialist assault on Venezuela.

The on the mark justification
Where the United States’  justification was on the mark comes from Donald Trump’s above-mentioned praise for the first “American imperialist president” William McKinley.

Consistent with this praise, through misrepresentation, Trump has drawn upon what is known as the “Munroe Doctrine”.

This Doctrine was named after President James Monroe who was the fifth US president (1817-1825). Munroe was both an original Founding Father of US independence and the last Founding Father to serve as president.

The Munroe Doctrine was issued in 1823, less than 50 years after US independence was declared and 34 years before its constitution was approved. It was a young developing country; not that long ago itself comprising 13 different British colonies.

The Doctrine was a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas but not to replace it with American colonialisation because it lacked both the inclination and means to achieve this. It was more aligned in principle with non-colonial states in the region.

However, Trump is reinventing the Doctrine to extend US colonial power throughout the Americas. This is what the National Security Strategy is all about.

The attack on Venezuela is an endeavour — among other things —  to:

• impose US hegemony in Latin America;
• exploit Venezuela’s natural resources (oil, gas, critical minerals, and rare earth elements) as part of an attempt to build a new supply chain in the Western Hemisphere;
• cut off Latin America’s ties with other countries, particularly its biggest competitor China;
• threaten other leftwing or progressive governments in the continent;
• destroy the project of regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
• sabotage “Global South” unity over supporting Palestine and other liberation struggles.

Where to next?
I have deliberately not discussed related issues such as the nature of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela along with the longstanding United States hostility towards it beginning in the latter part of Bill Clinton’s presidency, and the entrenched and violent far right opposition to it.

I have also not discussed the impact of the sudden drop in oil prices in 2014, the impact of accelerating US economic warfare (sanctions) since 2015, and the controversy over last year’s presidential elections.

As an aside these elections in my view were imperfect but legitimate. Further, Trump has been explicit — he isn’t interested in “restoring democracy” or “democratic transition”; nor does he rate the alternative Venezuelan far right led by Maria Corina Machado stating that she didn’t have the support to run the country.

These exclusions are because I don’t want to distract from the greater priority being regional and global seriousness of the US’s military aggression (including abductions) towards the sovereignty of Venezuela and its people.

The US aggression is part of a wider plan to extend US domination across the Americas and beyond, consistent with its above-mentioned National Security Strategy which, in turn, is based on a misrepresentation of the anti-colonial 1823 Munroe Doctrine.

Trump has explicitly signalled Cuba, Mexico, and Columbia as the next likely targets. Brazil and Uruguay can’t be ignored either. Even Greenland is expressly on his list.

Quite simply, the sovereignty of most Latin American and other more vulnerable countries that don’t comply with the US’s narcissistic far right — including fascist — leadership’s agenda are at risk.

What about New Zealand?
New Zealand is in a difficult position. The government’s public response has been underwhelming although not as bad as the sycophantic United Kingdom government.

Luxon’s government, with Winston Peters as foreign minister, has been slowly weaning New Zealand away from its international neutrality position to one increasingly closer to that of the United States.

The extensive exposure of this blatant and violent US display of power-grabbing makes public justifying this policy shift much more difficult.

Robert Patman, professor of international relations at Otago University discusses this in The Conversation (January 5): NZ faces a foreign policy reckoning.

Much more direct is Bryce Edwards’ piece published by the Democracy Project  and Asia Pacific Report (January 7): NZ’s craven stance on the US invasion of Venezuela.

As the narcissism of fascism and the far right continues to push the parameters of their power, an already unsafe world is becoming increasingly more dangerous and our government’s response suggests increasing sycophantic timidity.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz