America: Looking back and looking forward (E368)

So, like Hamlet without the prince, the White House no longer has Donald Trump. What will Washington, DC be like after four years of the most bizarre and often grotesque presidential term in America’s history? Trump has now been replaced by the somnolent Joe Biden, but were there any redeeming features of Donald J Trump’s term in office? The opposition would say he was a threat to the neoliberal status quo, shifting the USA closer to the far-right, but was there anything more to his legacy? We invited Inderjeet Parmar, professor of international politics, to help us consider the presidency of Donald J Trump.

And what of the future for America under a Democratic government? The headline note is that Biden re-joined the Paris Agreement within hours of taking up office, as well as reversing executive orders on the US/Mexican border wall, Muslim immigration, and racial equality. However, Donald Trump, during his term in office, withdrew from the INF treaty, the open skies treaty, and oversaw the expansion of NATO boundaries often pressured by Democrats – will these be reversed too? Political analyst Garland Nixon came onto Sputnik to help us look forward to what we can expect from this new Democratic regime.

Follow @RT_sputnik

Podcast https://soundcloud.com/rttv/sets/sputnik-orbiting-the-world-1