By Manlio Dinucci
The Budget for the Future of America, presented by the US government, shows the priorities of the Trump Administration in the federal balance sheet for fiscal year 2021 (which begins on 1 October this year).
Above all, the intention is to reduce social spending – for example, the budget is cutting the allocation required by the Department of Health and Human Services by 10 %. While the same authorities tell us that in the USA, from October to February, approximately 10,000 deaths out of a population of 330 million were caused by colds. An information carefully gagged by the major medias, which launched a world alarm for the 770 deaths caused by the coronavirus in China, a country of 1,4 billion inhabitants which proved capable of deploying exceptional measures to limit the damage caused by the epidemic.
We cannot avoid suspicion about the real objectives of the invasive media campaign, which is spreading terror about everything Chinese, when, in the motivation of the US budget, we read that “America is facing a challenge from rival national states, particularly China and Russia”.
China is accused of “waging an economic war against the United States and their allies with cyber weapons” and “seeking to fashion in its own image the Indo-Pacific region, which is critical for the security and economic interests of the USA”. So that “the region may be free from the evil Chinese influence”, the US government is giving 30 million dollars to the “Global Engagement Centre, in order to block the propaganda and disinformation from China”. In the context of “growing strategic competition”, the US government declares that “the Budget’s priority is to finance programmes which increase our military advantage against China, Russia and all other adversaries”.
For this purpose, President Trump has announced that “in order to guarantee internal security and promote the interests of the USA on the exterior, my budget requires 740,5 billion dollars for national Defense” (while it requires only 94,5 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services).
The military allocation includes 69 billion dollars for war operations overseas, more than 19 billion for 10 war-ships and 15 billion for 115 F-35 fighters and other aircraft, plus 11 billion to potentialise ground-based weapons.
The Pentagon’s scientific and technological programmes need 14 billion dollars, destined for the development of hypersonic and directed energy weapons, spatial systems and the 5G network.
These are only a few of the items in a long list of expenses (from public money), which include all of the most advanced weapon systems, bringing colossal profits to Lockheed Martin and the other war industries.
To the Pentagon’s budget must be added various expenses of a military nature listed in the budgets of other departments. For fiscal year 2021, the Department of Energy will receive 27 billion dollars for the maintenance and modernisation of its nuclear arsenal. The Department of Homeland Security will receive 52 billion for its own secret service. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA) will receive 243 billion (10 % more than the budget for 2020) for retired military personnel.
Taking into account these posts and several others, military expenditure for the United States in 2021 will exceed 1,000 billion dollars. US military expenditure has a stimulating effect on that of other countries, which nonetheless remain at much lower levels. Even if we take into account only the Pentagon’s budget, US military spending is three or four times greater than that of China, and ten times superior to that of Russia. So “the Budget ensures US military domination in all sectors of war – aerial, ground-based, maritime, spatial and cyber-spatial”, declares the White House, announcing that the United States will shortly be able to produce 80 new nuclear warheads per year in two sites.
Does “The Future of America” mean “The End of the World”.
*Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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