RandomGuy
05-24-2018, 03:20 PM
The president’s unpredictability once worked to his advantage—but now, it is producing a mounting list of foreign-policy failures.
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"The 'bark orders, impose punishments, and bully friends and enemies into surrender to the mighty, imperial me' approach to foreign policy is unlikely enough to work even when applied to relatively weak states like North Korea and Iran. When simultaneously applied to the entire planet, allies and adversaries alike, it produces only rapidly accelerating failure."
In Trump’s case, the reckoning came especially fast, and for three reasons.
First, because he talked so much and tweeted so much, he revealed much more of himself much earlier than other presidents. His ego, his neediness, his impulsiveness, and the strange irregular cycles of his working day—those were all noted and analyzed before any formal action of his presidency. They were noted not only by leaders, but by electorates—with the result that long before he had decided on what cooperation he wanted from, for example, Australia, his offensive words had limited the ability of Australia’s democratically accountable leaders to cooperate with him.
Second, foreign leaders have concluded that the shortest path to Trump’s heart runs through his wallet. Oil states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have rushed to be helpful to the business interests of Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, seeking an advantage over regional rivals like Qatar. Authoritarian leaders who could hamper Trump-licensed businesses—like Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines—have exploited their perceived leverage, acting with apparent impunity.
Third, Trump’s highly suspicious dealings with Russia before the election potentially put him at the mercy of countries in a position to embarrass him. “Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation with Mueller Inquiry,” The New York Times reported earlier in May. The Times report presented Ukraine as a kind of supplicant. “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating that top American officials,” a close ally of President Poroshenko told the paper. But Ukraine had already demonstrated it possessed extremely damaging information about the business affairs of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, releasing a ledger of undisclosed payments to him back in the spring of 2016. It’s not quite supplication when the supplicant holds information that the supplicee desperately wishes to keep hidden.
All this is only the beginning. Deficits are rising fast. Military commitments are rising fast. America’s friends are turning their backs fast. (Only 17 percent of South Koreans trust Trump to do the right thing, according to the Pew global surveyin 2017, well before the latest chaos. Obama’s trust rating in South Korea bounced between a low of 75 percent and a high of 88 percent over his presidency.) At a time of relatively low military casualties and strong job growth, the president’s popularity at home roughly matches that of George W. Bush’s during the worst months of the Iraq war, 2005–2006, and Barack Obama’s during the most disappointing months of the weak recovery from the recession of 2009. The president’s options are narrowing even before the midterm elections.
It can only get worse from here for him and—more importantly—for America’s standing in the world under his leadership.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/trumps-reckoning-arrives/561209
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....
"The 'bark orders, impose punishments, and bully friends and enemies into surrender to the mighty, imperial me' approach to foreign policy is unlikely enough to work even when applied to relatively weak states like North Korea and Iran. When simultaneously applied to the entire planet, allies and adversaries alike, it produces only rapidly accelerating failure."
In Trump’s case, the reckoning came especially fast, and for three reasons.
First, because he talked so much and tweeted so much, he revealed much more of himself much earlier than other presidents. His ego, his neediness, his impulsiveness, and the strange irregular cycles of his working day—those were all noted and analyzed before any formal action of his presidency. They were noted not only by leaders, but by electorates—with the result that long before he had decided on what cooperation he wanted from, for example, Australia, his offensive words had limited the ability of Australia’s democratically accountable leaders to cooperate with him.
Second, foreign leaders have concluded that the shortest path to Trump’s heart runs through his wallet. Oil states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have rushed to be helpful to the business interests of Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, seeking an advantage over regional rivals like Qatar. Authoritarian leaders who could hamper Trump-licensed businesses—like Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines—have exploited their perceived leverage, acting with apparent impunity.
Third, Trump’s highly suspicious dealings with Russia before the election potentially put him at the mercy of countries in a position to embarrass him. “Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation with Mueller Inquiry,” The New York Times reported earlier in May. The Times report presented Ukraine as a kind of supplicant. “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating that top American officials,” a close ally of President Poroshenko told the paper. But Ukraine had already demonstrated it possessed extremely damaging information about the business affairs of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, releasing a ledger of undisclosed payments to him back in the spring of 2016. It’s not quite supplication when the supplicant holds information that the supplicee desperately wishes to keep hidden.
All this is only the beginning. Deficits are rising fast. Military commitments are rising fast. America’s friends are turning their backs fast. (Only 17 percent of South Koreans trust Trump to do the right thing, according to the Pew global surveyin 2017, well before the latest chaos. Obama’s trust rating in South Korea bounced between a low of 75 percent and a high of 88 percent over his presidency.) At a time of relatively low military casualties and strong job growth, the president’s popularity at home roughly matches that of George W. Bush’s during the worst months of the Iraq war, 2005–2006, and Barack Obama’s during the most disappointing months of the weak recovery from the recession of 2009. The president’s options are narrowing even before the midterm elections.
It can only get worse from here for him and—more importantly—for America’s standing in the world under his leadership.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/trumps-reckoning-arrives/561209
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