As world leaders return to their home countries from the historic Belt and Road International Forum in Bejing, they are pronouncing far and wide that a new paradigm for world affairs has been established, both economically and culturally. In a very real sense, the title of the EIR Special Report from 2014 — The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge — has become a reality.

In Europe, the Italians are putting together, with Chinese help, a new North Adriatic Port Association, together with Slovenia and Croatia, which will upgrade ports and build rail connections through to Eastern and Western Europe. The Greeks, with Chinese help, are planning a second rail route from the newly expanded Piraeus Port (upgraded by China), running up the west coast into the Balkans. Czech President Milos Zeman mocked those who complain that the Belt and Road is dividing Europe, saying that it is already horribly divided, but can be united through the common mission of the Silk Road. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said many countries were sick of lectures on human rights and free markets, and that the “old model of globalization is dead,” as the Silk Road is creating a development-based global paradigm.

In Asia, Japan is now discussing joining the AIIB and an exchange of visits between Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe, urged on by President Trump. Philippine President Duterte is planning to revive joint development of the rich resources of the South China Sea with China and Vietnam, now that Obama’s plan for war in the South China Sea has been rejected across Asia, and by the Trump Administration.

In Ibero-America, the head of a United Nations agency, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, praised the Belt and Road as “a renewal of the profound commitment to the values that are fundamental for our global economic and social well being,” and called on all the member nations to “harness the potential that this One Belt One Road has for redefining capitalism through people’s equality and dignity.” The head of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno, declared that Ibero-America is now very much part of the Silk Road initiative, which is “not only a limited group of countries, but the entire world.”

In Africa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said the Belt and Road “opens the door for developing and emerging economies to contribute to global economic growth.” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said that “The Belt and Road Initiative gives our continent the opportunity to make a paradigm shift. Post-colonial Africa has been stuck in a rut. Being part of One Belt allows the continent to move to a new platform, through which global collaboration will allow for value-addition, innovation and increased prosperity.”

Similar enthusiastic responses fill the press of nations across the developing sector.

And in the U.S., the Trump Administration representative to the Beijing Forum, Matthew Pottinger, set up an “American Belt and Road Working Group,” to bring American companies into the Silk Road process. Beyond that, he invited China to attend the “SelectUSA Investment Summit,” on June 18-20 in the Washington, D.C. area, to bring China into investment opportunities in the US.

Nonetheless, anyone dependent for news on the U.S. press, or reports from the U.S. Congress, would know none of this. Rather, nearly the entirety of the 24-hour news cycle in the U.S. consists of hysterical rants about President Trump. If any of it were believed, one would think the President is a puppet of evil Russia and evil China, that he is guilty of treason for doing his job and doing what he promised in his campaign — ending the Bush and Obama “regime change” war policies, and restoring America’s industrial infrastructure, and the jobs that go with it.

Do not believe the lie that Trump is on the defensive, that his actions have undermined his credibility, as peddled ad nauseum in the media. The fact is, Trump is on the offensive, to end the British Imperial era of history. The British and their assets in the U.S. — the neocons in both parties and on Wall Street, and the corrupt elements in the intelligence community, especially the FBI — are absolutely hysterical that their geopolitical division of the world, and their ability to induce the U.S. population to passively accept austerity and war, is being destroyed by Trump’s move to bring the U.S. into the New Silk Road, and to work with Russia to crush the terrorist scourge. His stated intention to restore Glass-Steagall simply drives the British assets further into panic mode.

As Helga Zepp-LaRouche reiterated in her many speeches and interviews in China this past weekend, where she was a featured speaker at the Global Think Tank Summit at the Belt and Road Forum: if Donald Trump succeeds in bringing the United States into the new paradigm of the global Silk Road, he will be remembered as one of the great presidents of American history.