Gullible’s Travails
Trump’s reign of error takes in a lot of territory, but arguably the worst failure of his presidency and the hardest to repeal is in the field of foreign policy. The latest episode concerns Afghanistan.
As a candidate, Trump decreed a withdrawal of all troops. Negotiations have been in progress lately but he apparently grew impatient and arranged a secret meeting at Camp David where he would show the foreign policy pencil necks how to wheel and deal.
Suddenly he cancelled it in the wake of the latest terrorist atrocity and American troop death. “What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?” he twittered. Duh! Taliban kind of people?
Here we arrive at the recurring problem with Trump’s foreign policy chops, once summed up by Mark Twain as “innocents abroad.” The president combines three deadly and contradictory traits. He possesses unbounded confidence in his own powers of persuasion and knowledge. He is also completely naive and therefore gullible, thus an easy mark. And he is a sucker for flattery, making his even more likely to be conned.
According to Trump, Barack Obama was weak whereas he is strong, code for full of bluster. Obama kept compromising with allies. Trump sees no reason to play nice with others and has jettisoned them. He said Obama made nothing but bad deals, but he has made none. Instead he has undone the Paris climate accord, an arms treaty with Russia, the nuclear treaty with Iran, the trade pact with China’s neighbors designed to curb the power of Xi Jinping.
We are worse off as a result. Enemies are enriching uranium, building a new generation of weapons, taking advantage of us in trade, friends are learning we can’t be trusted to protect the planet or honor our commitments.
It turns out the skillset of a real estate promoter is not useful in the international arena. Yes, he can make big promises, hyperbolic sales pitches and promise imaginary boons. He can lie, cheat, flatter or bully suckers in pursuit of a deal they will later regret. This stuff may have worked on condo customers, building inspectors and bankers, but has proven less useful abroad.
Friendly democratic leaders have told him truths he doesn’t want to hear and he has reacted like a petulant child who takes his ball and goes home when not made team captain. On the other hand, we have seen repeatedly that autocratic predators know exactly how to push his buttons.
Since Trump’s insecure ego needs constant reinforcement, Kim Jong-Un, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to name three have treated Trump with phony respect, played the game of one tough guy to another, told him they are his friends, promised to make fabulous deals that would make hm look good and encouraged him to pay no attention to warnings from his expert advisors at the State Department, Pentagon, CIA, NSA or FBI.
Trump has fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. The result? Putin continues to undermine democratic elections including our own, threatens his neighbors, undermines NATO, murders his critics.
Xi makes no concessions on trade, continues to steal our intellectual property, expands China’s influence in the region by force, rolls back freedoms at home, jails dissidents, seeks to extend autocratic rule to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and engineers a national surveillance state beyond the dreams of Big Brother. Kim consolidates his power, continues to expand his nuclear and missile program, threatens his neighbors and presides over a prison state.
Trump boasts of his wonderful relations with Putin, the love letters from Kim, but is now miffed by China’s recalcitrance on trade, despite having invited Xi to Mar-A-Lago and given him a fabulous slice of chocolate cake. To get even, Trump has inflicted a tariff that is likely to put a damper on Christmas sales and is already hurting American farmers and consumers, and has sent tremors through slowing economies and markets. Not being subject to election, Xi can play a very long game. Trump faces a reckoning if he doesn’t kowtow by November 2020.
His record is filled with similar failures to make advantageous deals or impose his will in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Central America. His boasts ring hollow. His accomplishments are paltry. Trump has proven to be the most gullible president in history and is either incapable of seeing he has been conned or does realize he’s been had but thinks he can keep pulling the wool over the eyes of the voters long enough to be re-elected.
This would be comical except for the danger it poses to our economic and national security. Nor can we rule out his resorting to an international version of the October surprise if he is in danger of losing. In 2018, he made up invading caravans of villains instead of pathetic asylums seekers fleeing danger. His next imaginary threat might turn into a real one since no one in his administration is willing to say no to the conman-in-chief for fear of a mean tweet.