by Colin Cleary
If past is prologue, a Trump victory would be calamitous for U.S. global leadership. The following are eight examples of Trump’s foreign policy failures. The most damaging is the last.
Failure 1: Afghanistan
It was the Trump Administration that negotiated U.S. capitulation to the Taliban in the Doha agreement of February 2020.
Trump conceded to the Taliban demand to exclude the Afghan government then in office from the talks — even though the United States had expended thousands of lives and spent trillions of dollars in supporting it.
Trump agreed a ceasefire between U.S. forces and the Taliban — as well as to a timetable for U.S. withdrawal within 14 months. He further conceded to the Taliban demand that the ceasefire not extend to their attacks against Afghan government forces.
Trump also agreed to pressure the Afghan government to release 5,000 imprisoned Taliban fighters, who promptly rejoined the war. And so, the war continued with the Afghan government losing territory as U.S. forces withdrew.
By the time the Biden Administration arrived in office, the die was cast. The bottom line: Responsibility for the ignominious collapse of August 2021 rests largely with Trump’s Doha capitulation to the Taliban and his selling out of the Afghan government.
Failure 2: Iran
The 2015 Obama Administration Iran nuclear deal was designed to do what it said: Stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for relaxation of economic sanctions. IAEA inspectors certified that Iran was complying.
However, in 2018 Trump — ever eager to rip up whatever had been done by his predecessor — suddenly withdrew from the deal and decided to impose maximalist sanctions on Iran.
HIs stated goal was to get Iran to concede on a broad array of fronts — including its support for proxies, not just on its nuclear program.
What actually happened? Iran resumed enrichment and is now far closer to developing a nuclear weapon. And Iran did not stop — but accelerated — support for its proxies and other malign behavior.
Bottom line: Trump torpedoed a deal that was working and succeeded only in further radicalizing Iran.
Failure 3: North Korea
After threatening the North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump suddenly pivoted, and decided that he could use his skills as a salesman to get Kim to de-nuclearize completely.
While he exchanged “love letters” with Kim, Trump gave away the key bargaining chip of agreeing to hold a summit between the North Korean dictator and a U.S. President — for nothing. When Trump’s efforts predictably failed, North Korea accelerated its nuclear program and resumed its nuclear threats.
Bottom line: Trump succeeded only insofar as he gave the murderous Kim a global publicity platform, while embarrassing the United States and undercutting its South Korean ally.
Failure 4: Climate change
As millions of Americans seeking flood insurance in low-lying areas can attest, the effects of climate change are painfully evident today.
The problem can obviously only be solved by global engagement and that also requires U.S. leadership. The longer we wait, the more trillions of dollars will be needed to pay for the damage.
Yet, Donald Trump — virtually alone among world leaders — denies that the problem even exists and ostentatiously pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017.
Technologies are in place now to solve climate change, but government action is needed to speed the transformation. Even so, Trump mocked green technologies and took such actions as appointing a coal industry lobbyist as head of the EPA.
Bottom line: Trump failed to protect U.S. interests on climate at enormous cost to the American taxpayer, to the environment and to U.S. global leadership.
Failure 5: Venezuela
In 2019, Trump decided to launch a maximal sanctions campaign against the regime of the Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro. Trump’s stated goal was to remove him from power.
Nearly six years later, Maduro is still there. However, Trump’s campaign of maximum economic pressure hit Venezuela’s poorest most severely and helped propel over 600,000 Venezuelan migrants to the United States. Bottom line: A double failure for Trump.
Failure 6: NATO/alliances
When he served as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump made a mockery of NATO and U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea. He viewed all of these international relationships solely in terms of clientelism — seeking to extract payments in exchange for providing security, rather than as alliances based on common values.
Trump publicly called into question U.S. willingness to abide by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty — the core provision of collective defense — if allies did not “pay” as he saw fit.
John Bolton — former Trump National Security Advisor and among the many former senior Trump officials who have repudiated him as unfit — has said Trump “came within an inch” of pulling out of NATO in 2018 and may well follow through if he is re-elected.
Bottom line: Trump failed as leader by treating U.S. alliances as a protection racket in which the United States is being short-changed not as force multipliers that enhance U.S. security and standing. This played right into the hands of Putin and Xi.
Failure 7: Ukraine/Russia
Trump’s embrace of Putin and his chiding of the United States’ European allies while in office encouraged Putin in his belief that NATO would fold in the face of his planned all-out invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s stance thus helped convince Putin to invade.
Trump has since made clear that, even before he takes office, he would seek to force Ukraine to surrender on Putin’s terms, rewarding aggression and war crimes — and setting the stage for future Russian assaults.
European security rests on the credibility of the United States. Trump undermines that credibility. Bottom line: Trump is a Putin appeaser.
Failure 8: American soft power
The United States takes pride in having been the first in the world to institute a government based on the enlightenment values of constitutionalism.
The tradition of the peaceful transition of power is at the core of U.S. democracy and has been an inspiration to those struggling under dictatorship around the world.
Trump’s attack on American democratic institutions and traditions — epitomized in the January 6, 2021, riot — was a massive blow to American prestige.
Global public opinion of the United States was abysmal under Trump. His destruction of American soft power represents Trump’s greatest foreign — as well as domestic — policy failure. The nation repeats this at its peril.
*Lecturer in U.S. foreign policy at George Washington University and retired State Department Foreign Service Officer
**first published in: Theglobalist.com
By: N. Peter Kramer
