2653. 🇺🇸 The Apotheosis Of Trump.

 

New Issues -

🇱🇹 Stamperija (exploitative Lithuanian-based producer and purveyor of philatelic items under contract with the postal services of a number of impoverished African territories) -

🇸🇱 Products inscribed Sierra Leone -

‘2023’ (according to Stamperija internet site) though presumably issued by agency on 21 January 2025 - Inauguration of President Donald Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States of America - 1 miniature sheet containing 8 different’stamps. Rating:- 0.

  The new US President, Donald Trump, was inaugurated to the Presidency on 20 January 2025 having beaten the incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election held the previous November. In taking office, Trump achieved a number of interesting historical landmarks - he became the oldest president to ever take office in the United States beating his predecessor Joseph Biden by two months or so, was the first convicted felon to take office and with former President Grover Cleveland was only one two US presidents to have two non-consecutive terms in office.

  Ever a controversial figure his first action was to get rid of hundreds of laws of the previous administration by Presidential decree and to say that the USA would take back control of the Panama Canal (under US control, the Canal Zone had had its own postage stamps so any such action might have philatelic consequences in that respect alone). 

  Trump had had a difficult time legally during his time out of office and Stamperija mocked him by selling sheets of personalised stamps of Guyana noting his arrest and conviction (Guyana is not usually a client of Stamperija - its postal service has sold its philatelic reputation to Intergovernmental Philatelic Corporation (IGPC)). Guyana Post Office Corporation posted on its Facebook page confirming that such issues were not official GPOC releases and were illegal.

  With Trump triumphant Stamperija has rapidly jumped on the band wagon to commemorate Trump’s inauguration. Doubtless we will see more such products and especially from IGPC and it is doubtful that the wait for the release of these products will be a long one. Such opportunism, however, is probably something Trump himself would approve of, or even admire, one thinks.

  Another consequence of Trumps’s ascent to power may be that the British Indian Ocean Territory will not cease to exist after Starmer’s new Labour government in the United Kingdom failed to get the Mauritius government to take over the Chagos Islands even though it was also being offered £9 billion to complete the takeover before Trump’s inauguration (it was thought that he was against the deal because of the perceived danger to the large US base on the largest island of the Chagos, Diego Garcia). Now it’s all down to President Trump - will he agree to the transfer of sovereignty or not? If the British government disregarded his views and handed the islands over to Mauritius might he not just order the large US force on the island to take it over and turn it into the American Indian Ocean Territory (mirroring his threat to take over the Canal Zone). 

  With Trump nothing is certain and there are bound to be philatelic consequences of some of his actions. Perhaps we might even see BIOT stamps again one day. Or perhaps not.