Shutdown in the US: Trump uses the crisis to reformat the federal government – ​​Rezazade

The first government shutdown in six years has begun in the United States. Federal funding ended at midnight on Wednesday after Senate Democrats blocked a temporary bill that was supposed to give more time to approve annual budgets.

As a result, a significant part of government departments has suspended work, and hundreds of thousands of workers have been left without pay.

President Donald Trump said that this time the White House will not limit itself to standard forced leave of officials. According to him, the administration is ready to use the crisis for a large-scale restructuring of the federal apparatus. “We can do things during the shutdown that will be irreversible — cut programs that they (Democrats) love and deprive the areas they protect of resources,” Trump stressed.

International expert and first vice president of the Iranian opposition in Washington, Ali Reza Rezazade, believes that the current shutdown is different from previous ones and has a more strategic connotation.

“Trump does not perceive the government shutdown as a temporary crisis. He is using it as a tool to reformat the very structure of American statehood. Signals from the White House — about possible mass layoffs, rewriting grant rules, and even limiting the role of Congress in controlling spending — indicate that this is an attempt to shift the balance of power in favor of the presidential administration,” Rezazade notes.

According to him, the main danger lies not in the temporary paralysis of national parks or veterans services, but in the precedent: “If the White House learns to use the shutdown as a lever to pressure Congress, it will undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances in the United States.”

The expert also compared the current situation to 2013, when Republicans blocked funding in an attempt to repeal Obamacare. “The difference is that then it was about political bargaining, and now it is about a radical restructuring of the state machine under the leadership of the president. This is no longer just a budget dispute, but also a test for American democracy,” Rezazadeh emphasized.

In his opinion, prolonging the shutdown could seriously damage the international image of the United States. “Washington risks showing the world that internal political battles are paralyzing the work of the state. At a time when the United States claims global leadership, such a signal only plays into the hands of its geopolitical competitors,” the expert concluded.ʼ