Trump’s failures in Asia
Start with China. The tariff war with China has cost Americans money and jobs. Phase One gives Trump a political success. The New York Times reports that only one new item of substance had been agreed to – additional Chinese agricultural purchases intended to offset American losses as China had turned to other countries for their supplies. Other areas of agreement, according to the Times, China had planned to implement unilaterally if there were no agreement — currency reforms, stronger enforcement of intellectual property rights, and greater American access to financial services in China. If the agricultural purchases are heavily weighted with pork, a commodity China is scrambling to buy anywhere in the world because of a pervasive hog virus in the country, then even this is not an achievement.
Prior to the current Iran crisis, Trump’s most spectacular foreign policy venture was with North Korea. Trump has given North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, the recognition that he wanted as they met twice with great ceremony. While Trump believes North Korea agreed to denuclearization, Kim Jong Un doesn’t seem to believe it. North Korea still has nuclear weapons and is returning to test long range missiles. Nothing good there. Trump played a hand that wasn’t there.
Nor has Trump had much success in dealing with Iran. Cancelling the multi-state agreement with Iran to postpone the development of a nuclear weapon, he had planned on a new agreement. Perhaps Iran would agree to never develop a nuclear weapon. Perhaps Iran would agree to stop supporting anti-Israel and other terror organizations. Economic sanctions were damaging Iran, enough so that political unrest was a serious problem. Trump overplayed his hand. Stung by descriptions of him being unwilling to take military actions, even in retaliation for military action, Trump authorized the assassination of Iran’s General Quassim Suleimani.
We don’t know what will be next. We know that Trump unified the Iranian people. We know that the Ayatollah has sworn revenge, directly by Iranians against Americans. More subtle, we know an advisor to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani tweeted Forbes Magazine list of Trump’s properties. Was Rouhani threatening Trump? Was he reminding the Ayatollah that there were ready made targets, some in the United States, but not all? We know that however the Iranians retaliate, Trump’s threat to further respond by destroying Iranian cultural sites has been universally condemned and further alienated the United States from its allies.
A whole section on Asia would be incomplete without mentioning his abandonment of the Kurds and his abandonment of Syria to the Russians and the Iranians.