The View from Right Field

President Trump’s Foreign Policy Claims Are Often Bizarre, But It’s Not the First Time We’ve Seen That

The foreign policy follies (and worse) of Donald Trump are so bad, it sometimes makes us forget bizarre positions that prior administrations have taken.  For example, in 2011, when the United States was involved in the bombing of Libya (because, inter alia, Moammar Gaddafi was threatening to massacre Libyan civilians), the question of the War Powers Act arose.  The War Powers Act was passed over President Nixon’s veto in 1973.  It provided that presidents are to get Congress’s approval or authorization within 60 days¹ after they send troops into hostilities.

The Obama administration, however, did not want to seek Congressional approval of our operations in Libya.  But it also did not want to say, as other presidents have said, that the War Powers Act was an unconstitutional limit on the President’s power.² So, the State Department legal advisor, a politically appointed position, came up with the theory that the War Powers Act did not apply to the bombing of Libya because we were not engaged in “hostilities” since the other side could not effectively shoot back at us.  (See here and here,)

The 2019 Political World - In Two Cartoons

The one on the left is from Tuesday's Financial Times.  The one on the right is from today's Wall Street Journal.

Does President Trump’s Hard Line Go Away in Person?

An article in The Washington Post this morning, with the headline “Trump’s hard line approach appears to soften in meetings with world leaders,” starts out:

“President Trump entered his meeting with President Xi Jinping over the weekend promising to take a tough approach on trade negotiations and pressure his Chinese counterpart into a sweeping deal.

But the meeting did not produce an agreement – and Trump’s stance seemed to only soften as he announced he was relaxing limits on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and delaying new tariffs on Chinese goods in hopes of restarting trade talks with Beijing.”

Foreign Policy in 2020: We Need a President Who Has Thought These Things Through.

While the world looks at the possibility/risk of war between the United States and Iran (understandably), let me suggest that I hope we have people thinking about Russia, China, and our future relations with them.  I doubt very much that President Trump is doing this or that he has asked anybody to do this.  However, perhaps people such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and/or National Security Adviser John Bolton are having it done at the staff level.

As for the Democratic candidates for President, maybe some of them are thinking about this, though it seems most of them are focusing on how to stand out among the twenty-some candidates running.  And in-depth foreign policy analysis isn’t the kind of issue that is going to separate you from the crowd.  (I don’t know how you tie foreign policy to “free” stuff, which seems to be what many of the Democrats are talking about.)  Still, hopefully some of them are actually thinking about this some – because it is important. 

Is “Tariff Man” Messing Up the Economy?

At one point in his dealings with China (which continue), President Trump called himself “Tariff Man” – apparently because he likes tariffs and thinks they are good things to impose and/or to threaten other countries with.  Which brings me to the tariffs that President Trump threatened to impose on Mexican imports into the United States if Mexico didn’t do more to stop people from entering the U. S. illegally. 

I have commented previously on President Trump’s arguably rogue or unilateralist approach to foreign policy.  I am not a fan of it.¹  I don’t think it’s good in the long run – or the short run – but I also don’t think it does any good for me to complain about it again and again.  And it gets tiring.  Therefore, this post.

But I think President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico in this case causes a different kind of problem that I haven’t commented on before, at least with respect to President Trump, so I wanted to do so. 

Republican Versus Trumpian

Back in the middle of May, Janan Ganesh, a columnist for the Financial Times, said, per the headline of his column, “Trump needs more Trumpians in the White House.”  According to Mr. Ganesh:

“Between them, [national security advisor John] Bolton and [acting White House chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney stand for the kind of Republicanism that Mr Trump was meant to have slain in 2016. …

Mike Pompeo could be the secretary of state in a Republican government of yesteryear.  Treasury secretary Steven Munchin could have served any recent Grand Old Party president.  It is much harder to name members of this administration who are truly in President Trump’s distinct image.

Is Anybody Surprised We Can’t Get Other Countries to Back Our Plan for Syria?

The Wall Street Journal reports the United States is having trouble getting other countries to provide troops and logistical support for an effort to stop an ISIS resurgence in Syria.  Hmm.  I wonder why.  Could it be that the request was initially made in January, after President Trump had tweeted that we were going to withdraw all of our troops from Syria?  The Administration has seen backtracked on the President’s tweet and is now planning on keeping some troops in Syria.  But who knows when the President might tweet another withdrawal.  Why should anybody commit to help when President Trump could change his mind at any time?

It’s not unlike President Obama and his last minute, 180-degree turn on bombing Syria for violating President Obama’s redline on use of chemical weapons.  Why should anybody believe us or cooperate with us when they could be left hanging at any time?

Ryan Crocker on the United States’s Middle East Policy – and More

On Thursday evening, Ryan Crocker and Danielle Pletka spoke to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on “How Effective Is America’s Middle East Strategy.”¹  Mr. Crocker has been ambassador to, in alphabetical order, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Syria.  He has also served in Iran, Qatar, and Egypt.  He has been named a Career Ambassador and has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Ms. Pletka is Senior Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, at the American Enterprise Institute.

Among the things former Ambassador Crocker said (I will also include some things Ms. Pletka said):²

In response to the question what the Trump administration’s Middle East strategy is, former Ambassador Crocker said, “You’re asking the wrong guy.”  He said there is no strategy.  He cannot connect the dots of the various individual things the Administration is doing into a policy and strategy.

Does this Really Disqualify Joe Biden?

Joe Biden is thinking about running for president.  In fact, he recently just about announced, apparently by mistake, that he is running for president.  But, as he has been getting ready to announce, he has been hit with a number of complaints from women about the somewhat weird things he has done in the past.  One woman, who I think was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016, said the former Vice President came up and smelled her hair and kissed her on the back of the head.  Other women have said similar things.  Clearly, former Vice President Biden hasn’t had a good understanding of personal space and the things you should and should not do.  But, so far, the complaints have been about things he did in public, things that were a little creepy and not what people do today, but that’s about it.

Still, it appears a fair number of people, in theory on his side of the political spectrum, think these things should disqualify Joe Biden from running for president. 

Happy Birthday, NATO

NATO has a birthday coming up.  On April 4, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will turn 70.  The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949.  Its first twelve members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, and West Germany in 1955.  Post-Franco Spain joined in 1982.  With the fall of the Berlin Wall, countries in eastern Europe rushed to join, thirteen more so far, with North Macedonia being the thirtieth soon.

There will be a number of articles on NATO’s anniversary in the next few days.  The Economist has already published a lengthy piece on “NATO at 70” in its March 16 issue.  Ivo Daalder, former ambassador to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. wrote an excellent article in last Friday’s Chicago Tribune.  While these articles cover the subject of NATO and its future better than I can, I would like to add a few thoughts to the birthday celebration for what has been best defensive military alliance in history, thoughts related to its future.

Concerns about NATO’s future have increased, especially among the foreign policy elite, since Donald Trump was elected president 2016.  President Trump, after all, said NATO was obsolete while on the campaign trail in 2016,¹ and he has been pretty obnoxious since then about the failure of many NATO countries to increase up their defense spending in line with commitments they have made in 2014 to get their defense spending up to 2% of GDP by 2024.