{"id":56459,"date":"2025-12-04T07:41:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T15:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=56459"},"modified":"2025-12-04T07:41:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T15:41:46","slug":"peace-building-named-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/04\/peace-building-named-for-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Peace Building Named for Trump!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

File this under \u201cYou can\u2019t make this stuff up\u201d:<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has rebranded<\/a> the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace<\/strong>, complete with the president\u2019s name installed in large block letters on the building\u2019s fa\u00e7ade. The new signage went up just ahead of a planned peace agreement signing between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an extraordinary development for an institution created by Congress in 1984 to provide independent research, conflict-resolution training, and nonpartisan policy advice. Earlier this year, the administration dissolved USIP\u2019s board, dismissed most of the staff, and transferred the building to the federal government \u2013 moves that triggered ongoing legal challenges.<\/p>\n

The irony here is hard to miss: an organization dedicated to conflict prevention is now being remade in the image of a president who has long campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize and who routinely touts himself as the country\u2019s greatest \u201cdealmaker,\u201d even as he sows discord within the United States.<\/p>\n

The State Department\u2019s announcement of the renaming \u2013 claiming it was \u201cto reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation\u2019s history\u201d and concluding with \u201cthe best is yet to come\u201d \u2013 might have been merely boastful if it weren\u2019t paired with the administration\u2019s increasingly hostile rhetoric at home. This week, Trump denounced Somali immigrants as \u201cgarbage<\/a>\u201d allegedly ruining America, rhetoric that echoes the xenophobic accusations once leveled against Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Chinese immigrants. Demonizing newcomers has a long and shameful lineage in U.S. history; Somali Americans are simply the latest group to be dehumanized for political gain.<\/p>\n

The contradiction becomes sharper when set against the administration\u2019s record abroad. Even as Trump disparages Somalia, the U.S. military continues air and drone strikes there \u2013 actions tied to the country\u2019s strategic location on the Horn of Africa, not any genuine threat to the United States. Most Americans are unaware that U.S. operations in Somalia have persisted for years, with civilian casualties an ever-present risk. You simply can\u2019t reconcile these ongoing military actions with the administration\u2019s celebration of Trump as a \u201cpeace president.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the broader problem. The renaming of USIP is not a harmless vanity project. It\u2019s a symbol of a deeper turn: away from independent diplomacy and toward a politics that equates peace with personal branding, and national security with fearmongering about vulnerable communities. If \u201cthe best is yet to come,\u201d it\u2019s hard to see how.<\/p>\n

To me, the saddest part of this are those who continue to embrace Trump as a leader to admire, even to emulate. \u201cHe\u2019s a bigot and a racist \u2013 just like me!\u201d is truly a sad rallying cry.<\/p>\n

To change the subject only slightly: I was talking to a colleague yesterday about the U.S. space program and whether we\u2019ll return to the moon or mount a manned mission to Mars and I joked: Name the landing site or the station after Trump and you\u2019ll likely see heightened funding and support. \u201cMoon Base Trump\u201d: It could happen.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s egotism, his narcissism, and especially his bigotry and bile are reaching galactic proportions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. File this under \u201cYou can\u2019t make this stuff up\u201d: The Trump administration has rebranded the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, complete with the president\u2019s name installed in large block letters on the building\u2019s fa\u00e7ade. The new signage went up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-56459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Meanwhile, Somalia has been bombed more than 100 times under Trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56463,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56459\/revisions\/56463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56459"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}