#Trump 'a danger to the world' warns leading philanthropist

George Soros, the well-known financier and philanthropist, has warned that President Trump is a “danger to the world”, writes Martin Banks.

Soros, speaking at the World Economic Forum  annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, also warned that the US is “set on a course of nuclear war” with North Korea by refusing to accept its nuclear power status.

In a wide-ranging showpiece speech, the Hungarian/American also says internet platform monopolies are harming society and endangering democracy and goes on to predict a Democratic landslide in the United States' 2018 midterm elections.

However, his most controversial comments focused on President Trump, saying he believes his administration is “a danger to the world”.

In an analysis of the current state of the world and the severity of the problems it confronts, Soros says that President Trump “would like to establish a mafia state but he can’t because the Constitution, other institutions, and a vibrant civil society won’t allow it”.

However, he predicts that the Trump administration is a “temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020, or even sooner”.  Its inadvertent impact has been to motivate a greater number of core opponents than core supporters, he argues, leading him to “expect a Democratic landslide in 2018”.

Soros’s goal is to help re-establish a functioning two-party system in the US, which will “require not only a landslide in 2018 but also a Democratic Party that will aim at non-partisan redistricting, the appointment of well-qualified judges, a properly conducted census and other measures that a functioning two-party system requires”.

The billionaire also warns that under the Trump presidency he sees a grave threat of conflict between the US and North Korea, saying: “The situation has deteriorated. Not only the survival of open society, but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake.  Both [Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump] seem willing to risk a nuclear war in order to keep themselves in power.”

He argues “the United States is set on a course toward nuclear war by refusing to accept that North Korea has become a nuclear power. This creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively; in effect to start a nuclear war in order to prevent nuclear war.”

The only sensible strategy, given that no military action can prevent what has already happened, is to “come to terms with North Korea as a nuclear power”.

Through US co-operation with China, Soros calls for the use of “carrots and sticks” toward North Korea, which could lead to a freeze-for-freeze agreement (under which the US and South Korea suspend military exercises in return for North Korea verifiably suspending the further development of nuclear weapons).

“The sooner a freeze for freeze agreement can be reached, the more successful the policy will be,” he says, going on to state, “Success can be measured by the amount of time it would take for North Korea to make its arsenal fully operational”.

He also voiced concerns about the future of the European Union, which “is in danger of abandoning its values” because “Poland and Hungary are adamantly opposed to the values on which the bloc is based” and elsewhere anti-EU parties are on the rise.  If it is to be saved it must be radically reinvented.

Soros argues there should be a change so that EU membership should not depend on joining the euro: “I would like to see Britain remain a member of the EU or eventually rejoin it and that couldn’t happen if it meant adopting the euro”.  Rather than a multi-speed Europe, he supports a more flexible ‘multi-track’ approach in which “member states are free to form coalitions of the willing to pursue particular goals on which they agree”.

Addressing a packed audience, Soros also warned about the rise of “monopolistic behaviour” of technology and social media companies such as Facebook and Google which, while once liberating and innovative, are now socially damaging.

He argues they “deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide,” which can be particularly harmful to adolescents, and draws a parallel with the behaviour of gambling companies.

Of greatest concern is social media’s impact on people’s autonomy – on “how people think and behave without them even being aware of it” – which has “far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy and the integrity of elections”.

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