From North Korea to Iran and the trade war with China, rival countries have started calling Trump’s bluff
- Donald Trump got elected promising he could solve disputes in the US’ favour without repeating the Iraq mistake or sacrificing the economy. One by one, other countries have realised he does not have a backup plan when the bluffing fails
Politicians the world over make contradictory promises, but few have had their contradictions exposed as plainly as US President Donald Trump. From North Korea to Venezuela, Iran and now China, 2019 has been distinctly unkind to Trump’s promises from 2016.
In the 2016 election, Trump capitalised on Americans’ frustrations with the US’ relative decline and Barack Obama’s more deliberate responses to foreign policy issues by promising he would make the US respected and, if necessary, feared again.
Less well remembered is that Trump just as savagely attacked the last Republican president, George W. Bush, and his decision to commit the US to an open-ended conflict in Iraq. This helped Trump build an unusual coalition of hawks who felt Obama was not tough enough, and doves who wanted fewer foreign entanglements.
But when one puts these two planks – toughness, but without war – together, a problematic assumption is revealed. Namely that Trump – either through deal-making savvy, charisma or a fearsome bluff – could resolve the knottiest US foreign policy dilemmas without force. And Trump’s business acumen and bold words have so far failed at convincing rival countries to abandon their own interests to accommodate the US’.
