U.S. Foreign Policy Commitments: Is Taiwan the New Estonia?

Just before the election, I wrote a post entitled “On Election Day, I’ll Be Voting for Estonia.”¹  As I noted in that post, and others before that, Donald Trump has threatened to abandon our NATO allies.²  According to Mr. Trump, NATO is obsolete, and the United States is being taken advantage of.  If a country isn’t spending NATO’s target of 2% of its GDP on defense, Mr. Trump threatened to ignore our commitment under Article 5 of the NATO agreement to defend them if they are attacked.  I don’t know if President Trump would really do that (I hope not), but letting Vladimir Putin think he might is dangerous.  It could encourage Mr. Putin to try things he would not otherwise do. 

The other thing you have to worry is how much Mr. Trump would stick up for Estonia, and other NATO members, if our commitment to them came up in negotiations with Russia.  Mr. Trump sees himself as a dealmaker.  The problem is, if Vladimir Putin said that a deal with Russia had to include weakening support for Estonia, etc., what would Mr. Trump do?  I know what other presidents would have done.  I don’t know what Donald Trump would do.

Which brings me to Taiwan.  A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Trump had a phone call with the President of the Republic of China, i.e., Taiwan.  This was a big deal because no U.S. president (or president-elect) has talked to the Taiwanese President since the United States recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1979.  In Beijing’s opinion, what Mr. Trump did violated Beijing’s one-China policy, a policy we have accepted, in our own way, since 1979.

But the real question is:  What was Mr. Trump really doing in talking to the president of Taiwan?  Was he supporting Taiwan’s right to stay separate from Beijing and re-confirming our commitment to the defense of Taiwan?  Or was he just tweaking China’s nose, trying to come up with some bargaining chips to use in a big negotiation with China? 

As I said above, Mr. Trump thinks he is a great dealmaker, and he talks about how he is going to make wonderful deals when he is president.  Which makes you wonder:  When Mr. Trump was talking to Taiwan’s president, was he merely putting Taiwan, and its people, in play, to be able to use them as a concession to get something else out of China; for example, something that would address Mr. Trump’s complaints about China’s trade policies?  Who knows what Donald Trump might do or agree to in pursuit of a big deal – or how many countries he might dump or step on in the process.

Estonia (and other central and eastern European countries) are worried because of what Mr. Trump has said about NATO.  Maybe Taiwan should worry, too.
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¹ Actually, Estonia is one of five NATO members that spend 2% of GDP on defense.  Estonia is, however, one of the Baltic nations that Russia has been harassing.  In September of 2014, Russia kidnapped an Estonian intelligence officer on Estonia territory, took him to Russia, and convicted him of espionage.  Also, in 2014, Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, wrote an article entitled “Is Estonia Worth a War?”  (His answer was no.)  In other  words, in this post and my post just before the election, “Estonia” is proxy for any east or central European member of NATO that Russia/Vladimir Putin might decide to threaten.
² See links in these posts: here and here.