Trump's string of foreign policy bankruptcies

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Trump’s string of foreign policy bankruptcies

By Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
June 9 at 7:20 PM

-snip-

This month, the president picked a new target, Mexico, which he showered with threats of tariffs and demands that it instantly shut down the flow of migrants and drugs across the border, before accepting a cosmetic settlement. Before Mexico was Iran, with which Trump appeared ready to go to war in early May if it did not completely reverse its foreign policy. And before that was North Korea, which Trump first threatened with “fire and fury” and then heaped with “love” in a similarly ineffectual attempt to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

There is a pattern here. Trump targets a foreign adversary. He makes a maximalist demand: change your regime; disarm completely; “immediately stop the flow of people and drugs.” Shunning coordination with allies or Congress, he adopts dramatic measures that he supposes will quickly force a result: oil embargoes, tariffs, threats of military action. Then, when it turns out that it is, in the real world, not so easy to oust a Latin American dictator, strip North Korea of its nuclear weapons or force Iran to abandon its regional ambitions, he retreats — or simply moves on to the next target.

What’s left behind is a string of foreign policy bankruptcies, much like the serial real estate failures that used to be Trump’s detritus. A small army of State Department special envoys is struggling to clean up messes; in addition to North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, they can be found in Afghanistan and Syria.

Trump, meanwhile, projects equanimity. North Korea is back to launching missiles? The president is not “personally” bothered. “My people think it could have been a violation,” he said after a launch last month. “I view it differently.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trumps-foreign-policy-formula-bluster-bully-and-forget/2019/06/09/5c5c1bdc-8877-11e9-a870-b9c411dc4312_story.html

[Skittles]

1. he is fucking ridiculous

[ROB-ROX]

2. When the Russian Ship Tried To Crash Into The Navy Ship

He said NOTHING. The crappy used car salesman is useless and a TRAITOR. I REALLY WANT SOMEONE TO MAKE A MOVIE OF THE IDIOTS BOY SO REPUBLICANS CAN SEE WHAT THEY VOTED FOR AND WHAT THEY GOT...........a nothing burger TURD.