TRUMP'S HEMISPHERIC DEFENCE PLAN

It is a good idea as it will make the American defence capability stronger, more affordable, and one which holds the allies to greater accountability, argues

- AMIT GUPTA

Illegal immigration has been a problem for over fifty years and Ronald Reagan sought to solve the issue by giving a one-time amnesty to illegals living in the country.

The Transatlantic elite in both Washington and Brussels is upset with President Trump because he is seen as weakening the commitment to NATO and engaging in strategic retrenchment. This is viewed as an effort by the US to be isolationist and to throw Europe to the tender mercies of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The hawks in Washington, however, are behind the times and do not understand that for economic, strategic, alliance, and manpower reasons the time has come for the United States to implement hemispheric defence.

For eighty years the United States has pursued a policy of globalism with worldwide military commands to implement this policy. The problem is that the policy has been prohibitively expensive and is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Observers point to the fact that the US defence budget is now at $849 billion but that is only a part of the overall annual expenditure on defense. Most countries include the expenditure on veterans, both pensions and medical care, in their defence budgets but the United States has it as a separate line item in the annual budget. Today the Veterans Administration (VA) budget stands at $369.3 billion and it has been rising rapidly over the past five years as veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars retire in droves and their health care costs continue to escalate.