Covfefe (@hippie)

WAS OBAMA 'USED' BY WHT HATS TO CARRY OUT THE 'PLAN'? How Obama Quietly Set the Stage for Trump’s “America First” Agenda When Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015 and began railing about “America First,” most pundits painted his message as a radical break from Barack Obama’s globalism. But history is rarely that clean. Look closely at Obama’s second term — from 2013 to 2017 — and you can see that many of the tools, precedents, and even policies that defined Trump’s presidency were already being built. Call it irony, call it pragmatism — or call it the quiet return of American sovereignty under a globalist brand. The Pivot No One Talked About By 2013, Obama was facing a restless country. Factories were still hollowed out from NAFTA and China’s WTO entry. Voters were weary of endless wars in the Middle East. The post-2008 recovery had left working-class America behind. Public sentiment was turning inward — and Obama, ever the pragmatist, began to adjust. He didn’t call it nationalism. He called it “smart globalization.” But in substance, it was a pivot toward domestic self-reliance — the foundation of Trump’s later America First message. Trade: From Globalism to Enforcement In 2016, Obama signed the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (Public Law 114-125). That law cracked down on import fraud, steel dumping, and currency manipulation — mainly targeting China — and gave U.S. Customs and Commerce stronger authority to punish trade cheats. Trump’s tariffs, which shocked the world in 2018, were legally possible because of that act. Obama had already laid the groundwork for a protectionist revival, even if he wrapped it in technocratic language about “fair competition.” Energy: Independence by Accident Perhaps the most consequential move of Obama’s second term came buried inside a 2015 spending bill: the lifting of the 40-year crude-oil export ban. It was a bipartisan compromise, but the results were enormous — turning the United States into the world’s top energy exporter just a few years later. Trump’s “Energy Dominance” slogan wasn’t new policy; it was the full flowering of what Obama had already unlocked. Despite his climate rhetoric, Obama presided over a domestic oil and gas boom that built the backbone of Trump’s energy-independence narrative. Borders and Sovereignty Obama deported more people than any president before him. He modernized DHS databases, expanded border-surveillance tech, and built detention capacity — even as he tried to shield some migrants under DACA. Trump inherited that machinery and pushed it to the max. The wall might have been Trump’s symbol, but the infrastructure of enforcement came from Obama’s years of quiet build-up. Foreign Policy: Ending the Era of Forever Wars Obama’s “pivot to Asia” — shifting focus from Middle-East occupations toward strategic competition with China — was a precursor to Trump’s own nationalist realism. He reduced ground deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, resisted new regime-change wars, and called on NATO allies to shoulder more of their own defense costs. Trump echoed that almost word-for-word. In essence, Obama began unwinding the global-policeman role — Trump simply declared it outright. Executive Power: The Door Swings Both Ways When Congress gridlocked, Obama turned increasingly to executive orders and administrative rule-making to push his agenda. That normalization of unilateral action — from immigration to climate — opened the door for Trump to govern the same way, only in reverse. The playbook was the same. The signatures were different. A Bridge Between Eras Obama’s later policies reflected a shift toward pragmatic self-interest — not populism, but something close enough in form that Trump could pick it up and call it his own. His second term became a quiet recalibration — a rebalancing of sovereignty and internationalism. Trump stripped off the diplomatic varnish and said aloud what Obama implied: America comes first. In hindsight, Obama’s late-term pragmatism looks less like contradiction and more like foreshadowing — a bridge between the age of global consensus and the age of national revival. Key Obama Actions That Set the Stage Trade Enforcement and Facilitation Act (2016) — legal foundation for Trump’s tariffs. Crude-Oil Export Ban Lift (2015) — enabled U.S. energy independence. Defense Authorization Acts (2014–2016) — “Pivot to Asia,” groundwork for Indo-Pacific strategy. Massive Border Security Upgrades (2014–2016) — infrastructure for Trump’s enforcement expansion. Normalization of Executive Power (2013–2016) — precedent for Trump’s fast-track reversals. The Irony of Continuity Whether by design or by circumstance, Obama’s second-term decisions left Trump with the machinery to advance a more nationalist agenda. By strengthening America’s capacity in trade, energy, and border control, Obama gave his successor something he didn’t have to build from scratch: a sovereign playbook, ready for use.