COMMENT | On July 4, the United States celebrated its 249th year of independence.

Shakily, under President Donald Trump, the landmark 250th year of freedom moved into a brutal morality morass, abandoning the most basic human compassion in favour of an all-encompassing misanthropic “Make America Great Again” catastrophe.

The latest mocking madness - threatening the world economic order and sovereign countries through another round of tariff increases, which he might, in all probability, pull back later when he feels that world attention on him is flagging.

Such is his need to be in the limelight, even for the wrong reasons.

Trump has seen fit to hatefully deport eight undocumented migrants to an uncertain future in Sudan, only one of whom was from that country, in complicity with a compliant Supreme Court where his appointees and conservatives hold sway.