Donald Trump

As NATO turns seventy, history's most successful multilateral alliance faces significant internal challenges. 

President Trump’s reversal of half-century-old U.S. policy will in practice change little in the strategic territory occupied by Israel, but it could have far-reaching diplomatic reverberations.

The Trump administration's conviction that the World Trade Organization violates American sovereignty endangers the organization and the international trading system.

The Trump administration is repeating the mistakes of America’s interwar isolationists, who believed that the nation could and should insulate itself from global troubles. To understand this attitude, we need to look to the past. 

It is time to put denuclearization on the back burner and adopt realistic approaches toward North Korea. An all-or-nothing approach will yield nothing, leaving the United States worse off than before the diplomatic outreach began.

President Trump has made reducing the U.S. trade deficit a priority, blaming trade deals like NAFTA, but economists disagree over how policymakers should respond.

President Trump’s walk away from his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being compared to President Reagan’s walk away from the 1986 Reykjavik summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — a U.S. leader with the strength to say no deal and suffer the short-term political fallout of a failed summit, with the eventual outcome being historic progress in nuclear arms reductions. At Reykjavik, after intensive negotiations, Reagan walked away from the possibility of eliminating all U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles and the consideration of the elimination of all nuclear weapons because the deal would have included constraints on strategic defense that he believed were not in the U.S. interests. Despite the widely held view that the summit was an abject failure, the relationship established between Gorbachev and Reagan during the summit set the U.S. and Russia on the path to eliminate their nuclear weapons stockpiles by over 80 percent in the intervening years. While the Reykjavik analogy is appealing on its surface, there are a number of differences between the two situations, including the fact that Kim is no Gorbachev, a leader who was committed to reform. The more troublesome and fitting historical analogy may be the dissolution of President Nixon’s historic realignment of U.S.-Soviet relations due to the corrosive impact of Watergate on his leadership domestically. Détente and Watergate were inextricably linked from the outset. The two major events unfolded and unraveled simultaneously, very similar to Trump’s North Korea summits and the Russia investigations. The Singapore summit came on the heels of the Manafort indictments and this latest summit in Hanoi was a split screen with the Michael Cohen hearings.  In 1972, Nixon flew home from his transformational summit in Moscow, with the first major Strategic Arms Limitation agreements in hand to triumphantly address a ioint session of Congress. Two weeks later, the Washington Post reported the Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee. By the time Nixon resigned more than two years later, détente with Russia was under siege from both liberals and conservatives in part, as Henry Kissinger noted, because Watergate erupted and weakened the presidency. As Kissinger observed in his memoires, “To maintain the dual track of firmness and conciliation required a disciplined Executive Branch and a Congress and public with confidence in their government; …Unfortunately the erosion of Nixon’s domestic base prevented us from fully implementing our strategy.”  Denuclearization of North Korea is a very difficult but necessary goal. As the president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have stated, the outstanding challenges include, verification mechanisms, the definition of “denuclearization,” details on timing for sanctions relief, all challenges the U.S. has grappled with in previous negotiations made only more complicated by the major advancements made in North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons program. It is clear from the president’s assessment of the outcome of the Hanoi summit that such negotiated achievements continue to remain out of reach. But, if Trump’s diplomacy is to be successful, the success of the agreement has another important hurdle, domestic support. The president will need to convince the Congress and the American public that the deal is a good one that will keep the U.S. safe and secure — not a politically convenient one, patch worked together to distract from his domestic problems. Walking away was the easier part of that strategy. It is much harder to make the case for a deal. As the history of previous North Korea agreements and the Iran deal demonstrate, to be sustainable, the agreement should be a treaty, which will require two-thirds support — therefore, bipartisan support — in the Senate. But whether the agreement is a treaty that requires Senate advice and consent or an executive agreement, which technically would not, it will still need congressional support.  Trump will need the Congress for sanctions relief, a central component of the negotiations. Furthermore, one of the biggest challenges that previous presidents faced in their efforts to stem the tide of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions was convincing the Congress to fund the economic carrots that were elements of previous deals with a brutal authoritarian regime that could not be trusted. Trump has been promising North Korean economic development as a quid pro quo for North Korean denuclearization and saying that this can happen quickly. While that would most certainly include international and regional support, it will also require support from both the House and the Senate for the U.S. contribution to that effort. Whether Trump will be able to provide the leadership domestically remains to be seen. But it is a hurdle that should not be dismissed or overlooked under the misleading glow of a Reagan at Reykjavik comparison.

The abrupt halt to talks in Hanoi between President Donald J. Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un has intensified criticism of the U.S. president’s diplomacy and its U.S. domestic implications. But there are larger regional ripples as well, and the interests of U.S. allies deserve closer scrutiny. While the failure in Hanoi to reach an agreement was a serious setback for Seoul, Japan’s immediate assessment was not terribly critical.   The initial media response in Tokyo largely reflected the U.S. reaction: was no deal better than a bad one? The answer was largely yes, and there were the inevitable questions about the diplomatic performance of the Trump administration. The government response was far more measured. Tokyo has always viewed the North Korea problem from a different vantage point. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has consistently advocated that President Trump not give in to relaxing sanctions imposed by the United Nations on North Korea (DPRK) for its nuclear and missile programs. The Japanese government has long worked with others in the United Nations to build a serious sanctions regime, and Abe worked hard to persuade the international community of the importance of unity in this effort.  Therefore, the announcement that the United States was not going compromise on sanctions must have been welcome news. Indeed, Abe, after a brief phone call with President Trump on his way home from Hanoi, announced his support for the president’s decision to end discussions over Pyongyang’s request for sanctions relief. Yet there are collateral concerns in Tokyo that will need to be considered in any future U.S.-DPRK negotiations. Three issues will shape Japanese thinking about their diplomacy going forward.  First, a negotiated denuclearization seems unlikely in the short term, and this conflicts with Tokyo’s strategic preferences. A bad outcome for Tokyo would be a deal that leaves North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities largely in place, or even worse, acknowledges North Korea’s nuclear status. Here we should expect Japan to continue to admonish the United States and others in the most strenuous terms possible the consequences of a bad deal for U.S. extended deterrence in Asia.  Second, Japan more than any other regional power must be relieved to no longer be on the receiving end of North Korean missile launches. While there was no indication in the run-up to the Hanoi meeting that the United States and North Korea had agreed to diminish or eradicate Pyongyang’s missile production facilities, the freeze on missile and nuclear testing must be welcome in Tokyo. A moratorium on missile testing was central to Japan’s own diplomacy with Kim Jong-un’s father almost two decades ago, and will likely continue to be should Japan-DPRK talks ever begin. But a moratorium on testing does nothing to diminish Pyongyang's missile arsenal, including not only ICBMs but also medium- and short-range missiles that can threaten Japan. Finally, the most difficult outcome for Prime Minister Abe from the breakdown in Hanoi may not be about Japan’s security but rather about the accountability of the Kim regime on human rights. The fate of the Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang remains a highly sensitive issue for political leaders in Tokyo, none more so than Prime Minister Abe. Repeatedly, President Trump and others in his cabinet have publicly committed the United States to advocate on behalf of Japanese citizens in North Korea. And yet, the president’s willingness to absolve Kim of responsibility for the death of Otto Warmbier, the American student detained and brutally beaten while in North Korean custody, must have given Tokyo pause. If the U.S. president is not going to hold Kim responsible for the fate of his own citizens, it is unlikely that he will stand firm on behalf of Japanese. Immediately following the president’s press statement in Hanoi, Prime Minister Abe held a press briefing of his own in which he said that he must now pursue directly Japan’s interests on the abductees with Kim Jong-un.  The failure of talks in Hanoi may not be a complete setback for diplomacy. It is too early to tell how this might evolve. U.S. allies will want to ensure that the Trump administration continues to consult as next steps are considered. No one wants a return to the uncertainty and danger of 2017, to be sure. But equally worrisome in the wake of the Hanoi summit is the possibility that President Trump might lose interest in trying to solve the North Korea problem.

The march to war against Iran is echoing the drumbeats of America's last major Middle Eastern invasion.

The march to war against Iran is echoing the drumbeats of America's last major Middle Eastern invasion.

Robert Lighthizer has been railing against China’s bad behavior for decades. Now, he has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make it stop.

This was originally published on the Quint and is reposted here with permission. For a speech that US President Donald J Trump told supporters was likely to contain as much as “40 to 50 percent” foreign policy, the actual State of the Union address gave foreign policy short shrift. As Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, the foreign policy part of the speech comprised around sixteen minutes of the nearly ninety-minute address. But given the large landscape of foreign policy issues Donald Trump could have presented for the American people to assess, it was more than a little surprising to hear the limited scope: leaving the INF Treaty, bringing troops home from Syria and Afghanistan, the next summit with Kim Jong-Un, the trade war with China, and brief sentences about Venezuela, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. These are all important, certainly, but so are many other priorities crucial to US national security—and about which the Trump administration has said much more, in other contexts. True, Trump featured pet campaign themes of the alleged immigration crisis on the southern border (which is not a traditional foreign policy issue), trade negotiations (with China, Canada, and Mexico), and NATO allies treating the United States “very unfairly.” He honoured US World War II veterans, a gracious moment. Trump spoke about Afghanistan and the present effort to see if a negotiated peace with the Taliban could be achieved. This part of the speech could have been more extensive, especially given that the US deployment in Afghanistan is now in its eighteenth year, the United States’ longest war. It remains unclear whether and under what circumstances an agreement with the Taliban might be reached, and whether that agreement will prove acceptable to the sitting Afghan government. A word about regional security might have provided more clarity on why this situation remains fiendishly complex after all these years, and could have provided greater recognition of the trials those US troops face who have served there. It could also have been a moment to recognise the roles of NATO allies and partners serving as well, and important contributors to Afghanistan like India and Japan. The president’s lack of attention to the security challenge China presents—one of the two countries his own National Security Strategy names as geopolitical competitors—was puzzling. To the extent China appeared in the address, which it did, the context revolved entirely around trade. But his own administration has developed a policy framework that takes China’s increasing assertiveness across the larger Indo-Pacific region and indeed across the technology and commercial spaces as security challenges. It’s called the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy. It’s true that the president has not personally served as messenger for the more extensive statements about the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, leaving that to Vice President Mike Pence, or his secretaries of state (Rex Tillerson, and now Mike Pompeo). But the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, to the extent that its details have been unfurled, has largely garnered support from both sides of the aisle and for that reason alone would have been useful to highlight, especially given the president’s desire to present a “unity” address. We heard little, for example, about the important diplomatic work underway to respond to the Belt and Road Initiative around the world. For example, the Trump administration has revived the Quadrilateral consultations among four great democracies—Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Nor did we hear anything about the recently-passed BUILD Act (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development), which enjoyed great bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. This new law rescued the functions of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation by creating a new consolidated International Development Finance Corp, and doubling its finance capacity to USD 60 billion. It will help the United States remain competitive in the infrastructure finance space, especially in the Belt and Road era. Most usefully, the new agency gives the US government an important tool to help mobilise private capital by underwriting risk. Finally, in what appeared to be a brief reference to a forthcoming development assistance program, the president offered one sentence about a new initiative focused on economic empowerment of women in developing countries. He then pivoted immediately to “calamitous trade policies” and the trade war with China, an utterly confusing shift. It would have been good to hear more about how the Trump administration plans to help increase economic opportunity for women in developing countries, and indeed where specifically this new initiative will focus. But the president chose not to elaborate on these foreign policy concerns. The foreign policy speech he didn’t deliver could have had some bipartisan wins and a greater sense of unity across these national security priorities. Too bad he didn’t give it. My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

Paving the road to 2020, Congress will need to steer the course and avoid potholes in 2019.