Donald Kirk
The politics of American political campaigning shows the fragility of the wheeling and dealing of the Biden administration and the danger of the whole ornate structure of relationships and commitments falling apart, crashing and evaporating.
The phenomenon of Donald Trump seriously emerging as a possible, maybe likely, winner of the presidential election in November is downright alarming. Having listened to the man’s campaign speeches before the New Hampshire primary, I can only think that he intends to blow apart the deals, the promises and the hopes engendered by President Biden’s policies at every critical hot spot.
Can anyone seriously believe, as Trump has claimed repeatedly, that there would have been no war in Ukraine, none in Gaza and no bellicose threats from North Korea had he been president? Trump has said again and again that Biden has been “the worst president” in U.S. history. Looking back on his four years in the White House, Trump may be talking about himself.
It's hard to know where to begin to recount his misdeeds and failures, but let’s ask, how does he think he could have stopped Russia’s President Putin from invading Ukraine? He has said Putin resolved to take over the whole country to keep it from posing a threat to Russia by joining the NATO alliance, but Ukraine was never a likely candidate for NATO membership.
If Ukraine had joined, the U.S. and its NATO allies would have had to send their own troops into the country to fight the Russians – a step far beyond the arms they are now providing. And if Trump had been president, cozying up to his friend Putin and denying aid to Ukraine, the country by now would be a satellite of Moscow, as it was during the era of Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship over the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites.
Trump’s affection for Kim Jong-un is as ridiculous as his friendship with Putin. Can he be serious in claiming the Kimster would not be raining threats on South Korea, Kim’s declared “principal enemy,” if only Trump had been around to dissuade him? Trump’s three meetings with Kim, in Singapore in June 2018, then in Hanoi in February 2019 and finally, in an impromptu session in the demilitarized zone at Panmunjom four months later, got nowhere. They agreed on a vacuous say-nothing joint statement in Singapore. Trump walked out of the Hanoi summit, and nothing whatsoever came out of their meeting at the DMZ.
The danger is that Trump, if elected, would betray the renewed bond that Biden has formed not only between the U.S. and South Korea but also with South Korea and Japan. Now all three are collaborating on defense despite irreconcilable historic differences between Seoul and Tokyo. Trump as president wanted Korea and Japan, America’s long-time allies, to raise their contribution for the costs of U.S. forces and bases on their soil to ridiculous levels, and he also talked of withdrawing more troops from both countries.
It’s not hard to imagine Trump again falling “in love” with Kim Jong-un while agreeing, as he did right after the Singapore summit, to cancel joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Nor is it difficult to imagine Trump weakening the regional defense network that has been worked out, during the Biden presidency, against Chinese aggression.
Would Trump weaken AUKUS, the Australian-United Kingdom-U.S. alliance that’s now seen as vital for regional security? And how would he feel about the Quad, that is, the U.S., Australia, India and Japan? No, the Quad is not a military alliance, but it does provide a framework for discussion of issues, many of which have to do with standing up to China.
Trump likes to give the impression that he really defied China’s President Xi on trade issues, that he got tough on China’s hugely favorable trade balance with the U.S. and theft of technical and other secrets, but he jettisoned a carefully negotiated trade agreement with a number of countries that would have countered China’s own network. It’s unlikely the Trumpster has gotten any smarter about military or economic issues while pillorying Biden, claiming there would be no problem with China, Russia or North Korea had he won the 2020 election.
Oh, that’s right, he did “win” that election but was cheated out of it. Or so he keeps telling us. What’s incredible is that millions of Trumpkins believe him. The Russians are on board with that claim too. Trump’s friend Putin agrees the 2020 election was “rigged,” and Russian students are now taught to believe it too. The Russians don’t need to know about American claims that Russia sought to interfere in the voting.
Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) writes on the confrontation of forces in the region, mainly from Seoul and Washington.