The destructive subversion by the united political left, the bulk of the media outlets, and the GOP's neoconservative conspirators finally impact the President's policies. President Trump, surrounded by bad advisors and let down by his party, is stumbling, and erroneous policy decisions and bad 'deals' have amassed.
It is hard to assess whether bad advice and improper counseling or the weakening of Mr. Trump's leadership instincts and deal-making capabilities are to blame. But the fact is that the constant resistance to any of President Trump's policy decisions and the unyielding hatred and negativity by which his opponents harass him show effect. His judgment appears to be clouded and generates wrong choices and failed policies. Attempts to euphemistically sell them as successful can't deceive over their inherent weaknesses.
Here a brief analysis of the most striking failures and disappointments of recent months.
First: Government Shutdown and Emergency Declaration.
This issue was overall poorly planned and untimely scheduled. When Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer adamantly refused to allocate a single additional dollar for the wall, it was void and meaningless to subjecting the country to a week-long government shutdown. It was clear beforehand that nothing was going to change.
Pelosi's stubborn declaration – in apparent antagonism to her party's recent stance on border security – laid bare that the Democrat Party and the majority in the newly elected House of Representatives had abdicated their responsibility. It was no longer about efficiently governing the country and cooperating with the President; it was about denying him any policy success whatsoever and assuring his presidency's failure.
Speaker Pelosi's apodictic refusal to collaborate on the border wall/immigration control issue was exclusively motivated by spiteful ad hominem-hostility toward the President. The conspiracy of Democrats, Never-Trumpers, and most of the media made evident again that they constitute the real emergency in U.S. politics.
The U.S. Constitution does not allow for the dissolution of the House of Representatives – which would have been the only appropriate measure when the lower chamber of the house ultimately rejected any collaboration whatsoever with the President on the issue of a border wall. Had he received sound advice, Mr. Trump should have designated the complete rejection of cooperation from the part of the house of representatives a situation of political distress that endangered the governability if not, in the longer run, the nation's existence.
On these grounds, he should have declared an immediate national security emergency and unleash, by Executive Order, necessary measures to resolve the crisis at the border, including allocating funds for the border wall. Instead, subjecting the nation to the most extended government shutdown and procrastinating the crisis's resolution for several weeks was inappropriate and must be considered lousy leadership.
Second: Breakup of Trump-Un Hanoi Summit
There is substantial evidence that the Trump administration's neocons were intentionally planning to upset the Hanoi summit. A few days before the conference, unknown forces carried out a raid on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid, Spain.
The ten masked attackers were looking for documents and information on Kim Hyok Chol, a former ambassador to Spain and close confidant of Chairman Kim Jong Un. He played a vital role in preparing the nuclear talks with the U.S. Besides, on the day of the Summit, a cyber attack was carried out on the Korean American National Coordinating Council (KANCC) in New York (for more details: Wayne Madsen @ https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/18/trump-cia-now-unbound-and-back-traditional-hijinks.html)
Not granting North Korea a gesture of goodwill and easing up on the sanctions sure was bad deal-making. Breaking up the talks between President Trump and Leader Kim Jong Un and letting the Summit fail because of North Korea's unwillingness to denuclearize without getting sanctions lifted or at least lightened has to be designated an utter folly.
How can a superpower demand total denuclearization and the termination of a decade-long policy without proposing any serious incentives? How easily could sanctions be reinstated, aside from the fact that they barely affect and are highly problematic if not to say unethical? Predicting the North Koreans a 'bright economic future,' as John Bolton put it, will hopefully materialize, but is indeed not enough to cut the deal.
I have explained in my blog essay of September 9, 2017, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/09/why-my-north-korea-resolve-could-have.html that the crux of the negotiations with North Korea is about the issue of guarantees for non-intervention and national sovereignty. Aware that only a minimal nuclear capability serves as the great equalizer and deters even supreme powers from intervention, North Korea justifiably demands reliable and trustworthy guarantees for protecting her national sovereignty and against regime-change intervention. In the essay mentioned above, I refer to and explain Libya's case in 2011 as one of the recent and most striking examples of how a country was betrayed by the United States and "rewarded" for its unilateral denuclearization.
I have repeatedly addressed the damage the neoconservative influence did to U.S. foreign affairs policies in previous blog entries. The breakup of President Trump's talks with the North Korean leader over upholding the entire sanctions regime is now apparently the next big blunder neoconservatism has caused, this time around perpetrated by the usual suspect warmongers Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.
These hawkish counselors' bad advice found its immediate continuation with the third failure Mr. Trump had himself talked into – the policy toward Venezuela.
Third: Interventionist policies vis-à-vis Venezuela
No doubt, the domestic situation in Venezuela and the country's economic demise is alarming. While the desire to help is understandable, we must not forget that the U.S.'s economic sanctions and embargos contributed to the malaise.
As much as a conservative U.S. administration might deride the Socialist President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and wants to see him gone, the premature support of the opposition candidate Juan Guaido was a failure. Guaido dared to declare himself the rightful President, and Washington's blessing sets another awful precedent in the long history of illegitimate U.S. interventions.
Unfortunately, the regime-change operation is in line with the U.S.' unilateral interventionist policies dominating three decades since the end of the Cold War. With overt and covert interventionist policies (i.e., Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine), U.S. administrations have compromised the U.S.' reputation within the international community. While this interventionist imperialism ended in horrible failures, no lessons seem to be drawn by the American foreign policy establishment.
On the occasion of Libya's intervention, I explained why all nations' equal sovereignty and the ensuing non-intervention principle is not only a meaningful stipulation of international law (Article 2/4 of the UN Charter and U.N. Resolution 2131 of December 21, 1965). It is, even more, a morally valid norm for the interactions within the global society and its members (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2011/03/us-and-european-foreign-policy-blunder.html).
Although candidate Trump in his presidential campaign promised to end such policies, this dangerous course of U.S. foreign affairs continues under the pressure of neoconservative elements in the U.S. government.
We will soon find out if President Trump will override the adversarial influence and fulfill his promise to retreat the U.S. from the disastrous policy of waging interventionist wars. Interventions in foreign countries that neither directly impact U.S. strategic interests nor represent a national security threat.
President Trump's domestic policies (economic, regulatory, cultural, legal) are undeniably successful. It is now high time to align U.S. foreign affairs and national security with this path of achievement.
