RandomGuy
08-23-2017, 04:39 PM
Vice-President Mike Pence discovers that an “America First” foreign policy has costs
A DEEP perplexity. That, says a senior Latin American official, describes his region’s attitude to the government of President Donald Trump. What Latin American leaders do not feel is fear, awe or a sense of shared ambition to do great things. Lexington is in Panama, in the press pool accompanying Mike Pence on the final leg of a four-country tour of the region, also taking in Colombia, Argentina and Chile.
...
The single most striking impression of this tour is its smallness. Mr Pence, a man so disciplined and loyal to his boss that his favourite phrase is “As President Trump has said”, has asked each government in turn for modest, and in some cases puzzling, things. He has not described grand visions for pan-American co-operation of the sort once espoused by President George H.W. Bush, who called for a free trade area of the Americas stretching from Alaska to Patagonia.
...
Leaving Santiago at dawn this morning for Panama, the local newspapers carried the response. “Chile rejects the USA’s request to break relations with North Korea,” read the front page of El Mercurio. Inside, the paper recorded the blunt words of Heraldo Muńoz, the foreign minister: Chile is “not contemplating” cutting diplomatic ties with North Korea. The report on the Pence visit, carried on an inside page, also noted Ms Bachelet’s public rejection of comments by Mr Trump that America’s options for restoring democracy in Venezuela include military operations—a nonsensical claim from a purely military point of view, and a political provocation that even pro-American leaders have felt obliged to denounce at every stop in the Pence visit.
Even so, today’s levels of mutual indifference startle long-time practitioners. Mr Trump proudly boasts that he will treat foreign policy like a series of real-estate deals, negotiating one-on-one with other countries to extract concessions and bring back jobs to America. As it happens, Mr Pence’s national security staff, recruited from the Pentagon and other agencies, wins high marks from foreign diplomats. But there is a myopia to the approach they are tasked with selling. This president, foreign officials lament, seems neither to know nor to care that the whole region is made anxious and unhappy by Mr Trump’s scorn for Mexico, his threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, and his cancellation of America’s membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact that includes some countries in Latin America.
...
Meanwhile, Chinese officials are a constant presence in Latin American capitals, as they sign new commercial deals, offer hefty investments and seek to build new networks of influence across the Pacific region.
Mr Pence’s favourite catchphrase when abroad is that “America First does not mean America alone.” This is meant to be a promise that, though Mr Trump was elected to put American prosperity and security ahead of all other concerns, his country is still willing to play a leading role in the world. Alas, if global disillusionment with Mr Trump deepens much more, that promise to avoid “America alone” may start to sound more like a plea.
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https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/08/deflating-superpower
Trump's stupidity and bluster is leaving the US more and more isolated and marginalized. China will, and is, stepping into the vacuum.
A DEEP perplexity. That, says a senior Latin American official, describes his region’s attitude to the government of President Donald Trump. What Latin American leaders do not feel is fear, awe or a sense of shared ambition to do great things. Lexington is in Panama, in the press pool accompanying Mike Pence on the final leg of a four-country tour of the region, also taking in Colombia, Argentina and Chile.
...
The single most striking impression of this tour is its smallness. Mr Pence, a man so disciplined and loyal to his boss that his favourite phrase is “As President Trump has said”, has asked each government in turn for modest, and in some cases puzzling, things. He has not described grand visions for pan-American co-operation of the sort once espoused by President George H.W. Bush, who called for a free trade area of the Americas stretching from Alaska to Patagonia.
...
Leaving Santiago at dawn this morning for Panama, the local newspapers carried the response. “Chile rejects the USA’s request to break relations with North Korea,” read the front page of El Mercurio. Inside, the paper recorded the blunt words of Heraldo Muńoz, the foreign minister: Chile is “not contemplating” cutting diplomatic ties with North Korea. The report on the Pence visit, carried on an inside page, also noted Ms Bachelet’s public rejection of comments by Mr Trump that America’s options for restoring democracy in Venezuela include military operations—a nonsensical claim from a purely military point of view, and a political provocation that even pro-American leaders have felt obliged to denounce at every stop in the Pence visit.
Even so, today’s levels of mutual indifference startle long-time practitioners. Mr Trump proudly boasts that he will treat foreign policy like a series of real-estate deals, negotiating one-on-one with other countries to extract concessions and bring back jobs to America. As it happens, Mr Pence’s national security staff, recruited from the Pentagon and other agencies, wins high marks from foreign diplomats. But there is a myopia to the approach they are tasked with selling. This president, foreign officials lament, seems neither to know nor to care that the whole region is made anxious and unhappy by Mr Trump’s scorn for Mexico, his threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, and his cancellation of America’s membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact that includes some countries in Latin America.
...
Meanwhile, Chinese officials are a constant presence in Latin American capitals, as they sign new commercial deals, offer hefty investments and seek to build new networks of influence across the Pacific region.
Mr Pence’s favourite catchphrase when abroad is that “America First does not mean America alone.” This is meant to be a promise that, though Mr Trump was elected to put American prosperity and security ahead of all other concerns, his country is still willing to play a leading role in the world. Alas, if global disillusionment with Mr Trump deepens much more, that promise to avoid “America alone” may start to sound more like a plea.
----------------------------------
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/08/deflating-superpower
Trump's stupidity and bluster is leaving the US more and more isolated and marginalized. China will, and is, stepping into the vacuum.