President Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters think that his negotiating style is pure genius. But their assessment is puerile. Arrogantly disinterested in the long game and failing to hold anything sacred, Trump has caused immense damage to U.S. alliances over the past 10 days. Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping will be laughing and toasting himself in the mirror. At least at the moment, Trump is the CCP’s greatest tool.
True, some of Trump’s fire-from-the-hip rhetoric has served America well. Only this rhetoric was able to force the Europeans to stop freeloading off the back of the U.S. military in NATO. That great alliance, which holds great value for American prosperity and security, is now becoming a true burden-sharing collaboration. Still, because of Trump’s absolute and unquestioning sense of his own genius, China is winning the war for the minds of the world. And communist China, without question, poses the greatest threat to American freedom, security and prosperity since at least the mid-1800s.
By his absurd and immoral threats to seize Greenland, the sovereign territory of an unusually reliable ally, Denmark, Trump has done grave damage to America’s moral standing. True, the prospect of an actual attack on Greenland was always remote. Such an order would have been illegal under the Constitution and thus almost certainly rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And true, Trump has now backed down, pledging he won’t use force to secure Greenland. The president now appears satisfied to accept a deal for military basing rights and energy agreements in Greenland that he could easily have secured without his threats.
Yet, Trump’s heavy-handed threats have caused far more damage to America than they have drawn benefit. In the eyes of allies, Trump’s Greenland waltz made America appear utterly unpredictable and casually capricious. But that was just one side of Trump’s spite coin. Apparently unsatisfied with the thermonuclear bomb he dropped on America’s diplomatic standing, Trump decided to make matters worse on Thursday.
He did so by telling Fox Business that “We’ve never needed [NATO]. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.“
These remarks sparked righteous uproar from allies that lost sons and daughters fighting alongside the United States following the 9/11 attacks on their ally. Some allies, such as the United Kingdom, with 457 killed in action, and Canada, with 159, lost many personnel in hard fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Denmark suffered the U.S. population equivalent combat loss of 2,152 soldiers. Trump is right that some allies, such as Germany, did restrict their forces from higher-risk areas. But his willful ignorance in painting everyone with the same brush has caused understandable outrage.
Even British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a man who usually takes pains to avoid criticizing Trump, was infuriated. He described the comments as “insulting and frankly appalling.”
Trump may take these leaders for granted, but he cannot take their populations the same way. These allied leaders are elected. Trump’s pointless disdain is making anti-Americanism the populist choice, even if allied leaders know better. Take Trump’s friend and, if the polls are to be believed, the next prime minister of the U.K., Nigel Farage. He posted that “Donald Trump is wrong. For 20 years our armed forces fought bravely alongside America’s in Afghanistan.”
But where damage control is needed, the Trump administration has instead decided to flood the zone. Recognizing their boss perceives self-reflection as a sign of human fallibility, the unholiest vice of which Trump is uniquely immune, the White House defended Trump’s remarks, saying that the president is “right.” It will be left to U.S. military leaders and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to quietly apologize.
Again, Xi will be laughing. Trump is making it nearly impossible for allies to send forces to fight with the U.S. in the event that China attacks Taiwan. And contrary to assumptions that they would never do so regardless, the Washington Examiner understands that the U.K., France, and other European allies have worked with the U.S. on Taiwan-related contingency war plans. Some in MAGAworld might argue that if the Europeans didn’t send forces to fight with America in a Taiwan conflict, Trump could threaten to withdraw from NATO. But that policy choice would, in and of itself, cost America and its global dominance nearly as much as it would the Europeans.
China’s gambit for global dominance is that of predictable but tolerable dissatisfaction. Put simply, Xi wants European leaders and leaders the world over to know that if they appease China’s threats to Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, its human rights abuses, its global loan sharking, its vast and full-spectrum espionage, and its trade manipulation, Beijing will throw them the occasional economic deal. They might not like this new world order, but they will at least know what they’ll get from it. Trump’s American offer is increasingly only that of occasional cooperation amid otherwise callous chaos.
DID GEN. DAN CAINE TELL TRUMP THE MILITARY WON’T ATTACK GREENLAND
Trump insists the U.S. has “never been more respected.” Unfortunately, as global polls suggest, the exact opposite is true. Honor matters. Trump is increasingly behaving far more like an ignorant enemy than, as he used to, an eccentric friend.
The president must do better. Otherwise, to borrow from such British slang, America will be “Billy no mates” on the day the next war comes. And if China seizes Taiwan, America has a very big problem.