Trump's foreign policy: Speak "big" and carry a "soft" stick

There has long been evidence that Donald Trump’s “very stable genius” is a fantasy held not just by himself but by anyone who feels “confirmed” by his acting as a sounding board for their own insular views. What Trump supporters claim he is putting “America First,” what exactly do they mean by that? That America should be “self-sufficient,” restricting trade to a bare minimum, and somehow force the recreation of a country that was once the most dominate manufacturing power in the world? Or that America should be isolated from the rest of world, that the problems of other nations are of no concern to the U.S.? Or that America should to return its “roots”—as a country of pallid complexion, and where only white people mattered? 

If we look at Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, it might sound “good” to insular people with a purposefully uninformed view of the world (like, say, a typical Fox News viewer), but in fact this “policy” has devolved into a bizarre caricature of Theodore Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” diplomacy. Instead, Trump has always been a “speaking big and carrying a soft stick” kind of president. Internationally, no one takes Trump seriously anymore, when they are not laughing at his insipidness privately. Trump is like a chess player who it takes a while to figure out that his confusing play is not some clever strategy, but reveals that he is a complete novice who doesn’t know what the hell he is doing—and thus his bluster lacks credibility and easily ignored. It just took a little while for our allies (if they still exist) to find this out. Now, no one listens to the U.S.—especially since Trump often seems to be merely peevish (in regard to Japan and South Korea’s current squabbling) or showing the kind of indolence that would allow China to do what it has always wanted to do, which is to send military forces into Hong Kong without fear of retaliation. 

While Barack Obama worked to foster international agreements on climate change, Iran and a Pacific trade deal that would form a solid front against Chinese trade practices, Trump the thoughtless fool pulled out of those treaties for no another reason but that they had Obama’s imprint on them. Instead of formulating a coherent alternative, he just calls for new “negotiations” that never happen. He’d rather play footsies with dictators, calling them his best “friends” and allowing them (especially North Korea) to kick sand in his face, and he’ll like it. The Trump administration has yet to even attempt to negotiate or be a party to a single international agreement addressing global problems. Like so many people, he can’t see any further than how things affect him personally, shielded in his castle high on a mountain like Poe’s Prince Prospero. Canada and Mexico, knowing that Trump is a  fool, decided it was better to massage his narcissism and allow him to claim a “victory” by changing the name of NAFTA to something less “catchy.” How can anyone complain about the “new” agreement now if it just has a silly acronym that no one can remember? 

People who support Trump’s nonexistent foreign policy and trade idiocy naturally are too consumed in provincialism to see the good that was done in the previous administration simply because they hated the messenger. Although some people might scratch their heads about  Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was entirely “plausible” when takes into account the U.S.’ loss of credibility in Bush's pointless Iraq War that led to the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and countless civilians in Iraq, re-opened deadly ethnic divisions, revived religious extremism in the form of ISIS (which apparently is far from “dead”), and left a regime in place that is not only not “democratic” but has been weakened as a deterrent to Iran. Worse still was that military resources and time wasted in Iraq prevented a quick victory against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a conflict that the U.S. simply threw away whatever moral support it had internationally after 9/11. 

Trump may have avoided creating new military entanglements, but too often his inactions have been the product of no real plan to begin with. He has without doubt weakened the U.S.’ power on the world stage because of his empty words and threats. It is easy to impose tariffs on China, but he is playing right into China’s hands, because the U.S. is much too dependent on Chinese-made imports, and only U.S. exports will be harmed in the long run. Despite Russia still being a threat to the West, Trump has been playing Putin’s toady by threatening to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany over the “pay their fair share” issue, which was never a “problem” before because the U.S. was paying for control over how those troops were utilized, and essentially NATO troops in general in time of war; the Bosnian conflict was an example of this. Trump obviously has financial connections to Russia he doesn’t want to anyone to know about; after all, why would his initial reaction to the formation of the Mueller’s Russia investigation be that he was “f’cked”? Recent receipt of subpoenaed Deutsche Bank records may yield the answers to why he believed this to be so.

Whenever one sees Trump ambling aimlessly about the White House lawn tossing around air-brained thoughtballs to reporters, it is clear that his lack of interest in being fully informed before making decisions (or lack thereof) that effect the long-term interests of the country is no consequence to him because Trump simply can’t mentally comprehend such concepts as cause and effect; his lawyers always took care of that part. He has spent his whole life bullying employees, hiring and firing on whim, not caring what anyone thought or how they were affected by his whims. But that is not how the world works. Other nations simply tell Trump to go jump in lake, go fly a kite, or stick it up his fundament.