Trump’s radical foreign policy fails

Time for a roundup on where President Trump stands on his promise to deliver great deals for America. Spoiler alert: there are no surprises and only one modest success.

Every administration chooses its priorities. Trump has chosen Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, NAFTA, and immigration.

The “maximum pressure” program on Iran has caused economic distress but no willingness to renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA), from which the United States withdrew. Iran is back to enriching uranium and accumulating quantities above the JCPOA limits, but Tehran is still hoping Europe, Russia, and China will find ways to import its oil. Iran is also flexing its muscles in the strait of Hormuz, signaling its ability to cause an oil supply disruption that would hike oil prices globally.

North Korea is thumbing its nose at Trump’s effort to portray Kim Jong-un as his best friend. His short-range missile launches are a clear signal of defiance. There is no progress to report in the nuclear negotiations, and it is increasingly clear that the US will need to settle for an agreement that falls way short of the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization it has sought. Some sort of freeze is the best that can be hoped for.

The trade war with China is going badly: it is costing both Americans and Chinese a lot, slowing economic growth worldwide, and undermining global norms for trade and investment that the Trump Administration claims to be defending. There is little hope it will end soon. Trump seems to be committed to making the tariffs permanent, but it is hard to picture how he can face the electorate in 2020 if the tariffs have led the world and the US into recession.

Trump promised improved relations with Russia, and he has not retreated from his effort to befriend President Putin and hold him blameless. But Moscow has made life difficult: its documented interference in the 2016 election, its continued efforts worldwide to counter US interests, its occupation of part of Ukraine, its repression of domestic dissent, and a Congress determined to hold Putin accountable has forced Trump to tighten and expand sanctions. Relations with Russia are not improving (and shouldn’t).

Trump is ratcheting up sanctions on Venezuela, trying to force out President Maduro. But so far shock and awe has not shocked or awed the Venezuelans, as Harold Trinkunas put it in today’s New York Times. President Maduro is still in power. Juan Guaidó and his supporters are still in the streets, where enthusiasm has flagged. Most of Latin America would like a negotiated settlement, but John Bolton is not up for that. He wants Maduro to flee.

The NAFTA renegotiation was an apparent success so far, as it generated a new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement with modest updating and improvements. But the negotiation with Ottawa and Mexico City was only half the challenge. The new agreement faces serious challenges to its approval in September in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives that President Trump has done little or nothing to court. Will the House really approve NAFTA 2.0 while it is conducting investigations that could lead to impeachment?

Immigration is the one area of actual success for Trump, if you buy into the need to reduce it: illegal entries and asylum seekers are said to be down. Refugee entries are definitely down. But the price has been astronomical: separating children from parents, inhumane and even deadly conditions in detention facilities, denial of refugee resettlement to people in danger of their lives, and inspiration to white supremacists to commit violence. And for those who think the wall is important: little of it is being built.

The Trump Administration is a radical one: it has tried in all these areas to achieve goals that are extreme. The failures are obvious. The question is whether enough Americans will care. Certainly people worldwide do: America is not popular these days, especially but not only with its European allies. Trump is a white supremacist, but the Nordics he so much admires don’t like him.