Op-Ed Contributors, Opinion

An Adolescent’s Foreign Policy

By John Tirman — The Mark News

In the first part of a series that will explore Year Two of the Trump presidency, John Tirman has serious misgivings about his misguided worldview and the potentially dire consequences for global stability.

Donald TrumpIf there’s one thing President Donald Trump demonstrated in his first year in the White House, it is a penchant for disruption.

Not the disruption we hear so much about in the tech industry or as a tool of innovation, but just sheer destructiveness. A health care system that took 60 years to bring to fruition, is sabotaged piece by piece. Hard-won climate action is torn apart. The great beauty of public lands in the Western United States is cavalierly auctioned off to mining companies.

This is a pattern that was evident right from the start of Trump’s tenure.

In foreign policy, the same tendency rose quickly, signaled by his campaign rhetoric in 2016.  NATO was criticized from Washington as never before. Trade deals were either summarily scuttled, as with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or reopened to coerce trading partners to concede gains to the United States.  The Iran nuclear deal was undermined. Trump conducted delicate diplomacy in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula like a bull in a china shop. The State Department would be emptied of seasoned diplomats, while high-level posts went unfilled, because, as the president said: “I’m the only one that matters.”

This fondness for upsetting apple carts might make some sense if there were policy rationales behind it.  But there aren’t any – certainly none commensurate with the disruption.

There is, for example, a case to be made for rethinking the NATO alliance, but Trump’s only gripe is that some countries do not pay enough money for membership, as if he’s dealing with someone bilking him on a golf club membership.

The Iran nuclear deal is another example. Iran’s neighbors, including Israel, are the big winners of the deal because Iran’s nuclear program is in limbo – actually, rolled back – for years to come. It is verifiable and, thus far, Iran has upheld its end of the bargain.

But Trump wants to end the agreement. Why? The administration has simply not given a plausible reason. Many suspect that Trump’s well-known animus toward President Barack Obama is to blame, since the Iran accord was Obama’s biggest diplomatic achievement.

Grudges, however, don’t make for good foreign policy.

A similar dynamic is at work with regard to the Paris climate accord, from which Trump has altogether withdrawn the United States. Although the final agreement was signed during Obama’s presidency, the global effort took 20 years to negotiate. Most of the agreement’s provisions are voluntary, and the technical innovations to reduce carbon will produce a stronger economy regardless of the climate-change threat.

Another target of Trump’s is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he vowed to demolish unless Canada and Mexico agreed to better terms for the United States. Current negotiations are stalled because of U.S. intransigence; American agribusiness is alarmed by the prospect of the treaty’s demise and Mexico is already seeking alternatives to U.S. supply.  It’s hard to see how a NAFTA collapse would help U.S. manufacturers and farmers.

The NAFTA mess echoes the withdrawal from Trans-Pacific Partnership. That trade deal was designed to cope with China’s rise as an economic superpower, but now has Asian countries scrambling to realign with China while they continue to pursue the TPP among themselves. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal is economic nationalism at its worse – all bluster and no payoff.

The NAFTA and TPP episodes underscore what may be most troubling about the Trump presidency. So many of his policy positions are clearly born of ignorance and arrogance. These habits are most dangerous when it comes to North Korea. Trump has fractured a long-standing policy of deterrence with repeated threats to attack North Korea. The risk to 30 million South Koreans living near the border, to 40,000 U.S. troops and civilians and to Tokyo 800 miles away is unfathomable. The president’s need to have some verbal jousting with Kim Jong Un seems to be winning out, despite expert warnings that miscalculation is the most likely trigger to nuclear war.

So we are left with a chaotic series of disruptions that bear no resemblance to a coherent foreign policy, apart from the hollow and self-defeating mantra of “America First.” The policy outbursts more resemble the mentality of an adolescent boy, driven by bravado and poor judgment.

The question now is how permanently damaging such an attitude is, and whether anyone can rein it in before American voters have their next chance.

John TirmanJohn Tirman is the Executive Director and Principal Research Scientist at the Center for International Studies in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

6 Comments

  1. Robert Renaud

    Quit publishing this liberal BS. University Professors are all liberal and do not deal with the real world. Look at the accomplishments of President Trump in only one year. US funding NATO, UN and other international organizations has been questioned for many years. Now President Trump is finally doing something about it. As for North Korea, other President have been kicking the can down the road on NK. Finally, someone is going to stand up to them and not be kicking the can down the road. NK signed many agreements over the years and not one President has stood up to NK. Trump is finally going to do it.

    The unemployemt rate in the states is the lowest its been in years, The unemplyment rate for latinos and blacks in America are the lowestits ever been. Latin American countries get their news from CNN, NBC and other bias news organizations. Do your homework before publishing .

  2. Robert C Gaylord

    Clearly Mr John Tirman is NOT a journalist, but rather issues commentary depicting the typical left agenda that is not unexpected from whence he comes. But what he fails to understand is that the voters put President Trump in office precisely because the previous Presidents devalued the American worker, destroyed the American manufacturing economy and turned an imperfect but highly respected health care industry into a government program that annually forces 15 million people who CHOOSE to not buy health insurance to either buy it or pay a fine (tax) for not doing so. Then they dishonestly state that healthcare reform will cause 15 million people to LOSE their insurance – BS – those 15 million didn’t want insurance to begin with. I am very tired of the disrespect paid to the office of the President but the sore losers. And by the way, as plainly stated by President Trump now for over two years – America First does NOT mean America ONLY – as a former senior adviser to the NCA and SECDEF we readily acknowledged that our international partners would always act FIRST in their OWN NATIONAL INTEREST. Only in the USA are politicians punished for wanting to do the same. Republican and Democratic elites don’t like the President because he speaks plainly, gets things done and does not respect their games. And Republican elites HATE that if they won’t play ball with the President, he will go to the Democrats to make a deal if he has to. Wow, sounds just like Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower – in other words, the President has the responsibility to try and move the conversation toward a negotiated solution. Good Job.

  3. Cant wait for Trumps second term as President. He has done more good for the USA in one year then Obama did in 8 years. Of course the snowflakes and liberals dont agree. Having a safe room and a safe house is a bit to much, we need America to have a strong backbone. Obama embarrassed the people of the USA.

  4. carolina mastricht

    “Trans-Pacific Partnership…was designed to cope with China’s rise as an economic superpower, but now has Asian countries scrambling to realign with China while they continue to pursue the TPP among themselves. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal is economic nationalism at its worse – all bluster and no payoff.”
    How wrong you are, sir. The TPP was about giving corporations the right to override government decisions and would have been a disaster for democracies everywhere. eluxemagazine.com/magazine/abcs-of-the-ttip/

  5. Enrique Woll Battistini

    I agree with Mr. John Tirman wholeheartedly; the facts he cites are incontrovertible, and given the inordinate nature of presidential power, the world, more than ever, is at a tipping point, at the brink of recovery or conflagration, because of rudderless leadership and the potentially explosive problem of inequaoity. God help us all.

    academia.edu/23094646/OFA_-_At_the_Brink_of_Recovery_or_Conflagration_The_World_at_a_Tipping_Point_2011111506

    academia.edu/35598052/Rudderless_Leadership_and_the_Potentially_Explosive_Problem_of_Inequality_-_2017121701

  6. Tirnan has not stated fact but offers his unsubstantiated opinion from the bubble he resides in.

    What brink of recovery are you referring to Battistini. The inept, weak, globalistic and failed policies of Obama put the US on the brink loss & despair.

    Do I need to make a list?

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