The world is riven with class conflicts in Latin America, political conflicts between the Anglo-Americans and Russians, and economic conflicts between Washington against Europe and Asia. The conflicts have called into question the capacity of ruling elites to promote growth, to secure international stability and to foster global as co-operation.

Nero played his fiddle, Obama shot baskets and Trump twittered while their empires burned. What makes empire decay and what makes empires expand has everything to do with their relations between rulers and the ruled. Several factors are decisive. These include: (1) rent, land and housing, (2) the direction of living standards, (3) the rise or fall of mortality rate, (4) decline or rise of families.

For some time, critics of President Trump’s policies have attributed them to a mental disorder; uncontrolled manic-depression, narcissus bullying and other pathologies. The question of Trump’s mental health raises a deeper question: why does his pathologies take a specific political direction?

Over the past half-century, I have been engaged in research, lectured and worked with social movements and leftist governments in Latin America. I interviewed US officials and think tanks in Washington and New York. I have written scores of books, hundreds of professional articles and presented numerous papers at professional meetings.

In recent years US imperial strategy has sought to lessen the cost of defeating and overthrowing independent countries.

President Trump cancelled his attendance at the Summit of the Americas meeting of all the 35 presidents of the region designed to debate and formulate a common policy. Trump delegated Vice President Pence in his place. VP Pence a known nonentity with zero experience and even less knowledge of Latin America – US relations indicates the Trump regime’s disdain and low opinion of the eighth meeting of the tri-annual Summit.