Extract from The Guardian
From Europe to Asia, Trump is destroying alliances with democracies, while making friends with authoritarian leaders
Vladivostok, Russia – Emboldened by re-election, US president Donald Trump landed in Russia today for the first meeting of the newly formed Group of 3 (G3) with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China to carve up spheres of influence in Europe and Asia.
Meanwhile, Nato limped along as a shell of its former self, with the US only still technically a member because Congress will not allow Trump to withdraw. Japan had recently announced its nuclear weapons program in the wake of the United States withdrawing from the Korean peninsula after a peace treaty was signed to end the Korean war, even though North Korea maintained its nuclear weapons. The rest of Asia raced to secure the best terms possible with China, the new regional hegemon.
It was a series of summits in June and July 2018 – the G7, Nato and Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Putin – that began the great unraveling of global stability and America’s position in the world.
– 16 July 2021
Foreign policy often moves slowly, with ramifications only visible months or years later: when the US assisted the South Vietnam government in the 1950s, few could see the 58,000 American military dead in the Vietnam war; as the US helped overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953, it was difficult to see the 1979 revolution that resulted in a dictatorship that would become America’s main enemy in the Middle East; and too few officials saw that invading Iraq in 2003 would blow up the entire Middle East.
In just the last month, Donald Trump has repeatedly undermined America’s democratic allies and cozied up to autocrats intent on attacking US interests. If current trends continue, today we may be present at the destruction of the geopolitical system that was ushered in after the second world war and secured after the cold war.
Events have moved quickly. After starting a trade war with America’s closest democratic allies, Trump became the first US president to refuse to sign a statement of the G7 at the June meeting in Canada, which he followed by calling the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, “dishonest & weak”. Canada and Europe have shot back with retaliatory tariffs, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the other G7 democracies will uphold democratic principles regardless of America, and the German foreign minister called for a European strategy to counter Trump’s policies.
Straight from the G7 debacle, Trump flew to Singapore for a first-ever meeting between a sitting US president and the leader of North Korea. In the course of his meeting, Trump unilaterally agreed to freeze US-South Korean joint military exercises – a longtime demand of North Korea and China – without consulting the US ally South Korea, and without getting anything in return. This came after a report of Trump trying to withdraw troops from South Korea. While Trump got nothing more from the summit than a photo op with perhaps the world’s most brutal dictator, Trump emulated Kim Jong-un, saying: “He speaks and his people sit up at attention … I want my people to do the same.”
Last week, Trump continued the abdication of American leadership and principles at the Nato summit, saying, “What good is Nato …”, and reportedly threatened to pull the United States out of Nato if other countries don’t spend more on defense. Nato may still exist, but the core of the alliance – the understanding that countries will defend one another when attacked – is missing.
"Despite all of Russia’s aggression towards the US and Europe, Trump repeatedly sides with Putin over America’s own interests and allies"
Next in Hurricane Trump’s path was the United Kingdom, where Trump was met with massive protests. Trump criticized Theresa May’s approach to Brexit at the same time that her government faces a Brexit crisis. He repeated his frequent, racist claims that immigration is “changing the culture, I think it is a very negative thing for Europe”, to which the prime minister responded with a public rebuke: “We have a proud history of welcoming people who want to come to our country …” At the moment, the relationship doesn’t seem so special.
Then there’s Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin. The Russian president interfered in the 2016 US election to help Trump win – something Trump publicly asked for – about which there is an ongoing federal investigation that has resulted in indictments and guilty pleas. Trump claims that Crimea belongs to Russia, that Russia should be allowed back into the G7, and tries to prevent his own government from imposing sanctions on Russia for the election interference. Despite all of Russia’s aggression towards the United States and Europe, Trump repeatedly sides with Putin over America’s own interests and allies – before the meeting Trump said that the bad US-Russia relationship was the fault of the United States and the Mueller investigation, and at the press conference afterwards Trump said he believed Putin’s denial of election interference over the assessment of the US intelligence community.
And all of this in just over one month.
From Europe to Asia, Trump is destroying alliances with democracies, while making friends with authoritarian leaders. He sends signals to our allies that they can’t trust America, and that we won’t stand in the way of our adversaries taking what they want. Trump made clear what he thinks when he called the European Union a “foe” this week and Putin a “good competitor”.
If you think it’s just a few diplomatic flaps, think again. The results of this slippery slope could be a much more violent, darker world – brought to you by the G3.
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