When 'Dealmakers' Replace Diplomats, Genocide Gets A Discount
The FT's lament on transactional foreign policy under Trump conveniently omits the foundational role of 'dealmaking' in decades of U.S. interventions. Remember the 1953 Iranian coup (Operation Ajax), where the 'deal' was oil for democracy? Or Chile in 1973? These weren't diplomatic masterclasses; they were business 'deals' with brutal human costs, facilitated by a State Department often serving as
a polite façade for resource extraction and regime change. Today’s 'dealmakers' are just less subtle, rubber-stamping weapons transfers for a state that has spent decades ethnically cleansing Palestinians. The only real change is the thinly veiled euphemism for American hegemony. Perhaps the only difference is that Trump's 'dealmakers' saved us the pretense of humanitarian concern.