I waited after President Trump returned from Asia before writing this piece to try and see what came from the trip.\u00a0 I wanted the trip to be successful.\u00a0 Whenever the President, regardless of party, regardless of how we voted, regardless of how we view his performance, travels abroad we need him to be successful.\u00a0 Domestic politics goes aside during these trips because so much is at stake and it is about our country as a whole:\u00a0 National security, nuclear weapons, fair trade, the environment, etc.\u00a0 I watched coverage of the trip and hoped there was real substance beneath all the flare because so much was at stake.\u00a0 Like many Americans, I was disappointed.\u00a0 And then I watched the President\u2019s awful, self-aggrandizing, and inaccurate speech during which he praised himself for 35 minutes.\u00a0 Now is time to look at the trip.<\/p>\n
The trip accomplished little.\u00a0 Much to my chagrin, our President got played and thus so did we.\u00a0 President Trump loves sycophants and surrounds himself with people who tell him how great he is rather than help him lead and govern (same as he did in business).\u00a0 Each nation on the trip followed the classic Trump playbook.\u00a0 Appeal to his ego with all kinds of fanfare and tell him how great he is.\u00a0 Distract him with the classic \u201cshiny ball\u201d while taking advantage of him and manipulating him.\u00a0 The host nations all did this very well, giving little and taking much.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there was very little substance beneath all the inane love fests and symbolism.\u00a0 It looked great but accomplished little.<\/p>\n
In fairness, I want to acknowledge that President Trump did a decent job on North Korea.\u00a0 There was no way to completely solve the issue during this trip, but the rhetoric and the show of unity were very good and sent the right signal going forward.\u00a0 China may not actually accomplish anything with North Korea, but even they spoke positively about helping.\u00a0 China is rightfully weary of having three U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the area and this may help them make a bona fide effort with Kim Jong Un.\u00a0 However, moving a little south was a different story.\u00a0 While addressing the South Korean government, the President made the unfortunate choice to go off message and shamelessly promote his private business, specifically the Bedminster National Golf Club.\u00a0 This was apparently more important to him than assuaging South Korea about our existing trade agreement.<\/p>\n
The most important issue for our Asian partners is trade, followed closely by regional security.\u00a0 Every other nation proceeded on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement. President Trump opposed TPP during the campaign, but he never understood it or its importance to the rest of the nations.\u00a0 Secretary Clinton made a big mistake changing her position to oppose TPP rather than explain why it was important to the U.S. \u00a0The U.S. opting out of TPP does nothing to stop it, but only prevents the U.S. from benefitting from the arrangement.\u00a0 American workers have good reason to be weary of these agreements because they often do not see the benefits.\u00a0 However, the key is to properly negotiate the agreements, to include the interests of American workers and companies, and then ensure proper enforcement of the terms.\u00a0 TPP is a reality and gives incredible access to 40% of the world\u2019s economy.\u00a0 By opting out, all Trump did was prevent the U.S. from accessing this significant market and put us at a disadvantage.\u00a0 With the U.S. gone, China again rules the roost, free to exploit and control this huge economic zone.\u00a0 Further exacerbating this situation, through trade often comes security.\u00a0 Many nations rely on multilateral trade agreements to bolster their security arrangements and TPP is no different.\u00a0 We have given China, as well as Russia, both huge U.S. economic and security adversaries if not outright enemies, the unfettered ability to dominate the region and continue hurting U.S. businesses and security interests.\u00a0 President Trump suggests he prefers bilateral trade agreements.\u00a0 The problem is that the other regional countries all want larger agreements, not bilateral ones with the U.S.\u00a0 This is especially true with Trump in office because of his infamous business practice of reneging on contracts.\u00a0 The bottom line is that although there is a legitimate debate over TPP, the U.S. left this summit with nothing whatsoever while China left with everything.<\/p>\n
The big challenge with this and similar trips to the region is the critical strategic relationships we need to maintain for our national security and the economy.\u00a0 We need good relations with every country in the region to promote trade as well as geopolitical stability.\u00a0 Some of the region\u2019s leaders and governments have abysmal records when it comes to human rights, freedom, and democracy.\u00a0 Historically, presidents have addressed these concerns up front during discussions and then moved forward with other matters.\u00a0 This has been the cornerstone of our relations with Russia, China, et al.\u00a0 Until now.\u00a0 President Trump again displayed an inappropriate, undemocratic affinity for the world\u2019s worst dictators.\u00a0 He completely abdicated his responsibility to raise human rights and issues of freedom and democracy as every one of his predecessors has done.\u00a0 Instead, he celebrated the dictators and praised their repressive efforts.<\/p>\n
The recent emergence of Duterte in The Philippines poses a real challenge.\u00a0 The U.S. and The Philippines have had close military and economic ties since World War II.\u00a0 However, Duterte is a violent, repressive leader heading down a dictatorial path.\u00a0 In recent years the U.S. and Vietnam have established good economic and security relations as we have with Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and others.\u00a0 These relationships, along with others in the region, are critical considering Chinese economic and military expansion.\u00a0 We need these countries to see us as a better partner than China.\u00a0 Not only does China continue its practices of currency manipulation, theft of intellectual property, unfair trade practices, etc., but they have been manufacturing artificial islands in the South China Sea to create a territorial claim threatening access to what is the most important sea lanes in the world.\u00a0 In 2016, Candidate Trump understood this well.\u00a0 However, President Trump chooses to ignore these issues, despite their critical importance to U.S. security and economic priorities.\u00a0 Instead, he enjoys public love fests with repressive, dictatorial leaders and ignores U.S. priorities.<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s ridiculous affection for Vladimir Putin, one of the most dangerous leaders in the world and an enemy of the U.S., was again on display during this trip.\u00a0 The President disgraced himself and embarrassed the country when he said he believed Putin\u2019s denial of trying to interfere with the U.S. election, thus not believing the entire U.S. intelligence community.\u00a0 Trump made this much worse by denigrating John Brennan and James Clapper, referring to them as \u201chacks.\u201d\u00a0 Brennan and Clapper are career military (flag officers) and government servants with almost 50 years combined impeccable service to the nation.\u00a0 Additionally, they did not invent the intelligence reports about Russian interference, but rather each had the privilege of representing the hundreds of intelligence professionals in multiple agencies who prepared the reports on this important matter.\u00a0 The impact of their actions may be in debate, but the evidence that Russia interfered with the election is overwhelming and incontrovertible.\u00a0 But Putin is the one telling the truth?\u00a0 President Trump did make one deal on this trip.\u00a0 He apparently made a deal with Putin for a security company owned by one of Putin\u2019s allies to take over the security for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.\u00a0 This may be more immediately dangerous than North Korea\u2019s weapons program…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I waited after President Trump returned from Asia before writing this piece to try and see what came from the trip.\u00a0 I wanted the trip to be successful.\u00a0 Whenever the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,53,208,223,226,293],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-asia","tag-china","tag-north-korea","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-putin","tag-tpp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}