Trump’s forgotten victims.

The world is being distracted by each new pronouncement from Donald Trump- be it to annexe Canada, ethnically cleanse Gaza or promote Teslas. So, tragically, the i newspaper’s headline of yesterday may soon be forgotten- Ukraine children stolen by Russia: now Musk cuts the team that rescues them.

The i newspaper says an estimated 19,500 Ukrainian children have been snatched from their homes by Russia. The exact number is known only to God. But the paper gives the number of these who have been successfully repatriated as 1,240. In other words over 18,000 Ukrainian children remain prisoners of Putin, undergoing who knows what sort of trauma? Their parents and families have no idea what has become of them. The International Criminal Court, and United Nations investigators have both declared that this amounts to war crime. So far Putin has got away with it, as he has his other evil deeds. But he cannot escape God’s justice, unless he turns to Christ.

But now, unbelievably, Putin’s child victims have become Trump’s. Elon Musk’s DOGE has, wittingly or unwittingly, cut the funds of a specialist team at Yale University who have been working to trace and repatriate these children. If 18,000 American children had been stolen, and then the funds to trace them been cut, there would have been a massive outcry. But perhaps Ukrainian children are considered of less importance? Thankfully they are very important to Jesus, Who cares for the orphan, and wants all the children to come to Him.

Another of Musk’s actions, some weeks earlier, was to suspend USAID. It was argued that some of its projects were wasteful. However others were obviously a matter of life and death to those depending on them. Once again, if it had been Americans being abandoned to starve we’d have heard all about it. But evidently poor people in other countries are of less importance.

Then, at the end February, the UK followed in Trump/Musk’s footsteps. Our overseas aid budget was hastily reappropriated, to fund defence spending. As with USAID, not all of this money had been going to help the poorest. But the cut will nevertheless cause death and suffering.

Europeans urgently need to become self-reliant in defence. But the clear and present danger Sir Keir Starmer was addressing came from the American President, not the Russian. Sir Keir urgently needed to raise defence spending to placate Trump. It was easier for him to add to Trump’s victims by starving the powerless poor, rather than asking UK taxpayers to pay more.

I imagine Sir Keir hoped that, together with the second State Visit, he’d offered sufficient “protection money” to dissuade Trump from kneecapping our economy, as he’s doing to Canada’s. We’ll see. But surely British taxpayers should be footing the bill for our own defence? Why must the poorest people of the world pay with their lives so we don’t have to pay higher taxes? That is VERY BAD.

Anneliese Dodds, the British Minister for Overseas Aid, resigned as soon as Sir Keir had returned from trying to placate Trump. Obviously it’s not good that the country has lost the services of such a highly principled politician (disclaimer- I knew nothing about Anneliese Dodds before this). But she resigned for the very best of reasons. She objected to the UK following in Trump’s “slipstream” when it meant the poorest people in the world dying to pay for the defence of the UK.

It would be very good if Republican politicians in the USA could start acting in a similar statesmanlike manner. Of course it might cost them their careers to oppose Trump, as it has Anneliese Dodds. But, along with her, they won’t have the blood of the poor on their hands.

Both the US and UK governments have now cut aid to the poorest and neediest people of the world. So it’s up to us ordinary citizens to donate more of our money to the charities and organisations that can fill the gap. Why not do that right now?

“They only asked us to remember the poor- the very thing I also was eager to do.” The Apostle Paul, Galatians 2:10.

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