Foreign governments in US politics

(Link on Daily Trust site)

As the United States presidential election draws closer, the atmosphere in the country is already pulsating with campaign activities. The first presidential debate last Tuesday between the two leading contenders, the incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republicans and Joe Biden of the Democrats has added momentum to the activities. Also, analyses and predictions continue to flow right, left, and centre.  

Meanwhile, many foreign governments are hugely interested in the election. By the way, though foreign involvement in the US elections is illegal, it's an open secret that many foreign governments have always been involved anyway. 

With the facilitation of literally all relevant US individual, institutional and corporate stakeholders, foreign involvement in American elections thrives thanks to the country’s ultra-capitalist system. 

Being the world’s biggest economy with the strongest military that, among other things, explain its dominant influence on global affairs, the matter of who occupies the Oval Office in the White House isn’t exclusively an American affair after all; it matters to many foreign governments, which have always invested hugely on various disguises through various US private sector establishments.

Depending on the prevailing circumstances at a given time, a foreign government may invest in support of one or both the candidates, for all what actually matters to it is the emergence of a friendlier, friendly or, at least, less hostile US president who wouldn’t undermine its (foreign government’s) legitimate and illegitimate interests. 

Equally, many foreign governments maintain lobby groups of influential individuals with strong and extensive connections in the corridors of the Congress, the White House, and other relevant US federal institutions, to lobby and push for legislation and policies on their behalf. 

Also, many otherwise reputable non-partisan think tanks in the US are often induced by lobbyists on behalf of foreign governments to prepare favourable or unfavourable analyses on a particular candidate(s) to subtly influence the US electorate in favour or against him. 

While some foreign governments only invest in US politics to pursue specific interests at specific times, foreign governments like those of Israel, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Qatar etc. remain some of the regular clients of lobby groups in Washington. 

However, foreign governments that aren’t officially allies of the United States e.g. Russia, China, Iran, etc. maintain much more discreet approaches in this regard to avoid appearing vulnerable and at the mercy of the US policymakers.  

Anyway, now that the campaign for the 2020 US presidential election has peaked out, foreign governments interested in who wins between President Trump and Biden are already equally divided.

On the one hand, those who rightly or wrongly feel undermined or bullied by the Trump administration and have, therefore, invested for his defeat are eager to see him defeated. For instance, China, is, of course, looking forward to seeing President Trump defeated for being particularly tough on it in its lingering trade war with the United States. President Trump has over the past four years literally unleashed US economic might against China forcing it into making costly concessions and compromises. Earlier this year, he tweeted that the Chinese “are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!”

Iran equally wishes President Trump lost the election. After riding the wave of an Iran-friendly and equally Arab-hating American president, Barack Obama for eight years within which the US turned a blind eye to Iran's expansionist adventures in the Middle East with the tacit support of his administration, the Trump presidency turned tough on it. 

He withdrew the United States from the UN Security Council-sanctioned nuclear deal with Iran, which rendered the deal practically ineffective despite the commitment of the remaining parties to the deal (i.e. Russia, UK, France, China, and Germany) to maintaining it. The deal would have enabled Iran to be a recognized nuclear power by 2030. He also restored the US sanctions on Iran reversing the economic recovery it had started to record following the ratification of the nuclear deal thereby triggering the persistently worsening economic conditions in the country. 

Interestingly, during the campaign for the 2016 US presidential election, and going by the then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s islamophobic/Arabophobic rhetoric, Iranians and indeed almost everybody for that matter assumed that if he won he would be extremely tough on Arabs. Iran, therefore, had thought that it would simply ride the wave to achieve its expansionist agenda in the region 

Now, other countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea, which President Trump extorts on the pretext of defending them probably equally wish he lost. Also, even the traditional US European allies, with the exception of Boris Johnson’s Britain, probably wish the same. 

On the other hand, foreign governments that have invested in Trump cannot wait to see Biden defeated. This is even though with regard to Israel, in particular, it doesn’t matter who is the American president anyway, because US commitment to protecting Israel's interests is simply too "sacred" to be neglected let alone undermined by any US president. Yet, Trump’s particularly enthusiastic support for Israel explains its preference for him.     

President Trump also remains Russia’s favourite; after all, Russia had all along supported him and hugely undermined Hillary Clinton’s chances through elaborate cyber-based espionage in 2016 and has since then got its way at the expense of the US interests as Trump watches helplessly knowing that it (Russia) maintains his election-related intelligence more damaging than what has been released, and which could cost him his position should it be fully released.  

Equally, Arab countries particularly the Gulf States e.g. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have invested in Trump prefer him as a lesser evil compared to Biden who they suspect would be literally a reincarnation of Obama who vigorously supported the political turmoil that swept across the Arab world in 2011 on the pretext of bringing democracy to the region.