Let’s take a look at Donald Trump’s disastrous foreign policy – if it can be called that. It more closely resembles the outpourings of a mad king, like the guy who lost the Colonies for Britain.
Trump’s attacks on China date back to his presidential campaign but there are so many others that soon we’ll need somebody like the Toronto Star‘s Daniel Dale, to track them all. Let’s make a start here.
Yahoo News has noted that “Foreign policy challenges pile up for Trump” but those challenges are self-inflicted, created not by foreign leaders or countries but by Trump himself.
It was clear from the beginning that Trump planned on upending decades of American foreign policy but any hopes he had something with which to replace it were quickly dashed.
And it’s gotten not better, but worse. As The New York Times explains, “Pointlessness is coming to define American foreign policy. Mr. Trump lacks an end game.” What he does have is Twitter and a quick temper.
We have just seen how Trump managed to the prediction Trump’s closest advisor in the White House, Steve Bannon, made in March 2016 on a radio show, that the U.S. would be at war with China “in five to 10 years.” He is now in a position to make that happen.
The list above also doesn’t include the fight Trump has gotten himself into with Britain’s Prince Charles over climate change.
The Sunday Times reports a source close to Trump saying, “He won’t put up with being lectured by anyone, even a member of the royal family. Frankly, they should think twice about putting him and Prince Charles in the same room together.”
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He won’t listen to anyone, refuses to hear anything that disagrees with his preconceptions, and not just disagrees, but disagrees violently and takes such disagreement as a personal insult.
Other than Trump’s boss, Vladimir Putin (Trump is keeping him happy with attacks on NATO), German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the one foreign leader who won’t be rattled by Trump, and she, fortunately, has a longer view than the erratic Trump. Also, unlike Iraq and Mexico, Trump can’t invade Germany.
Donald Trump is acting like an insecure child and calling it strength, recklessly threatening America’s allies as well as her potential enemies.
And he doesn’t even bother to study the issues he is upset about before he reacts, as in the case of Australia and the refugee agreement President Obama made – or the botched raid in Yemen.
This is the man we’re stuck with, and it’s going to get worse, not better unless Congress puts the breaks on Donald Trump’s madness before America loses something worse than colonies.