Trump's 'morality' raises nightmare of ghosts past

The US president's belligerence is causing real fear in South America, reports Sam Kiley from Colombian capital Bogota

- Sam Kiley

A man convicted on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records and found liable in a civil court for sexual abuse and defamation, now says that as US president, he is unbound by international law and answers only to “my own morality”.

Donald Trump’s latest boast came at the end of a week when his forces abducted the Venezuelan president abroad and after his ICE agents killed a mother of three on home soil.

In Venezuela, he violated the nation’s sovereignty. In Minneapolis, he preempted any investigation into the shooting of Renee Good, claimed she had tried to run over an ICE agent and that the armed agent who killed her by firing three shots point blank acted in self-defence.

There is no aspect, now, of international law that Trump believes he is bound by. And few of domestic, either.

In an interview with The New York Times, he was asked whether there were any limits on his use of American military might. “Yeah, there is one thing,” he replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.”

In Bogata, Colombia’s capital, that claim is dismissed outright.

Filipe Grisaldo, a bookshop assistant not far from Palaza de Bolivar, the central square in the capital, represents many when he says that for the last week he has felt genuinely afraid that his country would come under American attack. “Here where I work is very close to the government buildings. If the Americans come, I could be killed,” he adds.