Time for a new Knight in Shining Armour

The readers of this Blog know I am no fan of Donald Trump. I abhor his brand of politics. He takes me back to the 1940s and 50s and the tactics of HUAC and Joe McCarthy. He insults his opponents, often using hurtful and denigrating schoolboy nicknames, he picks on the weak and children and believes that America is for whites only. All is fair game for him, so, long as he gets his political way. And it’s all about money. Trump strikes me as a man who, to borrow from Oscar Wilde, knows “the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

In addition, Trump is a serial liar. The Washington Post regularly lists the lies he tells, now in the hundreds. I am reminded of what former President Harry Truman said about Richard Nixon: “Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.” Harry would have had a field day with Trump.

I want to examine how Trump handles foreign policy. The traditional conduct of American foreign policy has been fixed for decades. It is meant to be seamless between one administration and another with the understanding that incremental changes and nuances are acceptable. For example, Truman’s “Containment” became Eisenhower’s ‘Brinkmanship and Asymmetrical Response’ and Kennedy’s ‘Flexible and Calibrated Response.’ Sea changes are rare and generally not acceptable. Furthermore, the military is subservient to the civil. The Chiefs of Staff do not make foreign policy.

Keen observers of Trump’s policy decisions have commented to me that President Trump conducts his administration by asking for details of what President Obama did on a particular topic and then does the exact opposite. If so, Trump is making it personal. That’s no way to conduct policy, foreign or domestic. Also, there are now so many generals in the administration that it looks like foreign policy decisions are those of soldiers, sailors and airmen, not civilians.

At the end of World War II, western democracies built democratic institutions to preserve peace and prosperity for free peoples. There are numerous examples. In 1945, the United Nations was created as an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote international cooperation and to create and maintain international order. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in 1949 under which a military treaty was concluded. Members offered mutual defence and resistance. “An attack on one is an attack on all.” The World Trade Organisation, created in 1995 as a successor to the 1948 GATT, seeks to ensure global trade is smooth, free and predictable.

It is not surprising that these institutions are in need of reform. The United Nations often dithers and its votes are often partisan, ignoring the facts of a case. An audit of its accounts has not been finalised for decades. NATO has been overcome with red tape and is very expensive to maintain. And the WTO is regarded by many as beneficial for first world nations at the expense of the third world. Nevertheless, the case must be for reform, not disbandment. It is worrying to look at a world where these institutions might no longer exist.

In the first eighteen months of the Trump administration, America has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords and the Iran Nuclear Treaty. It has threatened to leave NATO unless the other member nations pay their proper share of the expense. Trump has started a trade war with not only China but its allies, Canada and UK, in breach of WTO rules. Reagan and W flirted with tariff wars. In the 1930s, a tariff war with Mexico developed into the real thing. Is this what the Trump administration really wants, where America is regarded as the bully in the playground? If so, it can expect a black eye.

To top all this, Mr Trump has suggested to the G7 countries that Russia should be invited back into the fold unconditionally, with no demand that Putin retreats from the Crimea. Instead, Trump threatens that G7 might become G6 if America does not get its way. It seems that the America president is comfortable, allying himself and his country with dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un who have no qualms in authorising murders. Why does the Republican majority in both Houses of Congress not tell him to cease and desist? Maybe Trump’s is a foreign policy they want.

This is the first truly isolationist administration since Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge. In 1916, Wilson was re-elected on a campaign promise to keep America out of World War I. A year later, the States became a combatant. Calvin Coolidge was no fan of foreign allies. In 1927, when the recession which happened in 1929 could have been avoided, Coolidge refused credit to debtor nations, thus condemning America to the economic disaster which lasted a decade. America has had a strong tradition of isolationism, going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both warned of ‘foreign entanglements.’

The Trump administration discards the notion that a multilateral and multi-national approach to the world's most serious problems is worth following. Instead, Trump is heading for the alternative, going it alone. But this is not the 1780s or the 1930s. America is part of a global world.

So it is disappointing, although perhaps understandable, that last week America withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, a protector of those suffering from human rights abusers. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, announced the decision and criticised the Council as a "hypocritical and self-serving organisation". Blunt language but on target. The Council is the world's top human rights watch dog but its 47 elected member states include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Venezuela and the Philippines. Poachers ruling gamekeepers.

In making the decision to withdraw, Israel must have been a factor. Israel has, alone among member nations, the dubious honour of Council scrutiny of its activities in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. The US regards this as unfair, as do some European countries, including UK, when many other countries get away with abuses too horrible to contemplate.

Oddly, the Council ignores violations in North Korea, although a 2014 Council report into North Korea was searing and critical. This is the same North Korea whose leader, one who allegedly enables murder of both his political opponents, allies and even family members, was recently praised by the American president. It is illogical that Mr Trump would seek peace with North Korea in the hope of removing its nuclear threat, while abandoning the Iran treaty under which nuclear energy will be used for peaceful purposes.

I believe the Trump initiative with North Korea is significant. The knee jerk reaction of the press was unhelpful. Did the media really expect a belt-and-braces deal after one meeting? How unrealistic can you get? Let’s remember how Nixon and Kissinger broke into closed China but how it took months of diplomacy to make the first step. The Ireland Good Friday Agreements of 1998 also resulted from many months of negotiation.

However, I get the feeling that Trump went to the meeting with Kim Jong Un because President Obama’s administration could not manage it. America’s current stance raises the question: are we now in a period when liberal, international institutions are about to fail as nations go into their shells?

It is clear that Mr Trump will not listen to his G7 allies. I get the distinct impression that Vice President Pence and a majority of Republican members of Congress share Trump’s views. This fits in well with old Republican ideology of the 1930s. The slide into isolation by Trump and his people can only be stopped in the short term if America votes Democrat in the November mid-terms and regains control of Congress. Traditionally, the Senate is a strong player in the conduct of foreign policy. It has the political tools to stymie a President who is taking an alternate direction.

If I am right that America may well withdraw from important global institutions, the effect on the free world cannot be calculated but it will not be beneficial. Added to this, if Brexit occurs, the UK withdrawal from EU may result in a catastrophe. The economic position of the EU is parlous and a withdrawal by UK may lead to a total collapse. All this could herald a grab for power by those opposed to western freedoms. For example, Italy’s current economic position may be a harbinger. The picture is starting to look bleak.

Is it possible to effect change? I cannot believe Americans as a whole want to retreat from the rest of the world and its accumulated dangers. What is needed is a Democrat firebrand who will lead the Party and defeat congressional Republicans in November. Old faces like Schumer, Pelosi and Biden are still in the front row but they have often been defeated in the polls. How likely is it that they will inspire Americans to follow them?

A Robert Kennedy type figurehead is wanted. America needs a Democratic leader who commands support, who comes with policies to unite a politically divided America and who will lead America with the moral values of caring for the young, the old and the poor while being a strong force for good on the international stage. Yes, I admit I am Capraesque but the times demand it. Sadly, I see nobody emerging from the Democratic pack who will pick up the baton and face down this truly terrible President.