US President Donald Trump enters the final year of his first term in office on a mixed record of economic gains and foreign policy foibles while facing an impeachment trial ahead of the 2020 election in November
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2020) US President Donald Trump enters the final year of his first term in office on a mixed record of economic gains and foreign policy foibles while facing an impeachment trial ahead of the 2020 election in November.
Trump in the first days of his fourth year in office faces the early phase of an impeachment trial that formally began on January 16.
After the Mueller probe was concluded in May and found that Trump did not collude with Russia, he was soon accused of pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate leading Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine.
Trump was also accused of freezing military aid to Ukraine in order to persuade Kiev to conduct the probe.
On December 19, using these new accusations as justification, the Democratic-controlled House voted along party lines to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On January 15, House lawmakers marched to the Senate building and officially transmitted the articles of impeachment.
Seven House managers will serve as prosecutors and all the senators will act as jurors in a trial that will be presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts.
On Tuesday, the Senate will establish trial rules while both sides submit legal briefs. Later in the week the prosecutors and White House defense team will begin presenting arguments. The 100-member Senate then deliberates before reconvening to decide whether Trump is guilty of the charges.
A two-thirds majority - 67 votes - are required for the Senate to convict and remove the president. If Trump is found guilty he will be replaced by Vice President Mike Pence.
University of Illinois Law Professor Francis Boyle cautioned that while Trump's chances look good for being acquitted in the Republican-majority Senate, one should never assume anything given the dark forces at play in Washington.
"There is some danger for Trump in the Senate. I don't think his acquittal is... a foregone conclusion," Boyle told Sputnik.
"The FBI, the CIA and the NSA compile files on everyone. Some of the Republican senators could be blackmailed to vote against Trump," he said.
Trump is the third US president to face an impeachment trial. The previous two - Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999 - were both acquitted in the Senate. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could even vote on the impeachment articles.
The impeachment trial is inextricably tied to the 2020 election race given Trump is being accused of soliciting a foreign power - Ukraine - to interfere in an American election.
At the beginning of 2020, after seven Democratic presidential debates, polling showed Biden as the frontrunner followed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in a field of more than a dozen candidates.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has landed in fourth place in most polls with new entrant, former New York Mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, coming in fifth.
The 2018 midterm elections gave the Democrats control of the House while the Republicans maintained control of the Senate. Ivan Eland, the director of the Independent Institute's Center for Peace and Freedom, told Sputnik that the election results showed the Republicans remained weak among scores of millions of middle-class suburban voters.
However, he also said the Democrats had made no significant progress in winning back the working-class white votes that unexpectedly flocked to Trump in his 2016 victory and will be critical in November.
The Democratic presidential contenders will face their first real tests next month in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire state Primary.
When the primaries end the Democrats will pick a nominee at their convention in the summer before the general election begins, which culminates in November.
Trump enters year four with a solid economic record. The United States' three major stock indexes have all broken records under Trump with the Dow Jones surpassing the 3,300 barrier for the first time last week.
The White House says more than 7 million new jobs have been created nationally while unemployment is at a 50-year low.
Trump also engaged in a risk-taking tariff war with China that has just lead to a Phase One trade agreement that requires Beijing to buy $200 billion in US goods.
China also agreed to respect intellectual property rights and halt Currency manipulation. The two parties have already begun negotiating phase two.
Trump also unilaterally scrapped the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its replacement - the US-Mexico-Canada deal - has been passed by both houses.
Yet his economic track record has been overshadowed by some major foreign policy blunders.
One of Trump's main campaign promises during the 2016 presidential race was ending US involvement in foreign wars. During his State of the Union Address at the outset of his third year in office, Trump said he wanted to end the 19-year war in Afghanistan and bring troops home from Syria.
Despite vows to end endless wars, however, Trump is entering his fourth year in office on the verge of a full-scale one with Iran. The US president sparked a direct military conflict in early January by green-lighting the assassination of one of Iran's most powerful figures, former Quds force commander Qesem Soleimani.
This prompted an Iranian missile attack targeting US forces in Iraq, which also resulted in Iran unintentionally downing a Ukraine commercial jet that killed 176 people.
Trump, to his credit, fought both parties of Congress and announced the withdrawal of troops from Syria and did more than previous administration to negotiate an end to the Afghan war. However, overall he has expanded America's military presence overseas well beyond the footprint he inherited.
Moreover, earlier this year, Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and immediately began testing formerly banned weapons.
Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Chas Freeman told Sputnik that the US move to develop a new cruise missile would create a nuclear crisis.
"The deployment of such missiles targeting the Russian and Chinese homelands invites them to deploy similar missiles targeting the American homeland. The result could be a reenactment of the Cuban missile crisis," Freeman said.
Earlier in January, in the wake of the near-war with Iran, Trump called for expanding NATO to include middle Eastern states and even suggested renaming the alliance to NATO-ME.
