President Donald Trump often touts how ‘tough’ he has been on China, Russia, Iran, and others, but the actual policy has been less intimidating than he would like you to believe. He has frequently made threatening public statements or Tweets, so it would be easy to assume the actions matched the rhetoric. They have not. The American military presence in Asia has waned just as China has begun to demonstrate a bit more muscle of their own due to a combination of disintegration or weakening of alliances and backing down when challenged. In the Middle East, we have ceded ground to Turkey, Iran, and Russia, even leaving essential allies high and dry without any warning. Perhaps the best characterization would be that of a cowardly bully.
Foreign policy sometimes seems esoteric or unimportant to our daily lives, but the global economy and world order rely heavily on American enforcement of international law. Our military protects our interest and its presence is an important part of projecting power abroad. Rogue regimes follow international laws on trade and conduct because they know that violating those norms might draw consequences they would rather avoid. The existence of overwhelming force is almost always enough to prevent the necessity of its use. However, if the use of that force is sufficiently unlikely, it loses its efficacy as a deterrent. The upshot here is that international competitors or those you would seek to deter from bad action must believe you will actually follow through on the implicit threat of reprisal if they behave badly.
Trump’s barrage of Tweets may have created a bit of uncertainty among them initially, but the believability of that threat has decayed as little pushes have been met with no response. Iran in particular took advantage of that with what was essentially piracy in the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously there were eventually some consequences for General Solemani (assassinated early this year) for some of his adventurous action for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard across the Middle East. Still, Iran launched a face-saving missile bombardment of an American base and continued their aggression in the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is one of the most strategically significant in the world with a sixth of the world’s oil supply and a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas traveling through its waters. Further, the betrayal of the Kurds of northern Syria continued to erode any remaining trust we had in the region. Admittedly, President Obama’s decision not to follow through on his ‘red line’ with Syrian use of chemical weapons on their own citizens was an unforced error, but it pales in comparison to international violations that Trump has let pass unnoticed.
The more important shift, though, happened in Asia. Influence was ceded to China and alliances were shredded. At the same time, combative trade policy has done nothing to endear us to the Chinese. An essential piece to our foreign policy since WWII has been the use of allies, but Trump’s bellicose attitude towards Korea and Japan have them both rethinking their positions and looking at different relationships with both China and the US. The Philippines, a longtime ally and host of American military forces, has declared an end to that close relationship and has openly courted China. China has taken advantage of this perceived weakness by simulating attacks on Taiwan and projecting more power towards our allies in Asia. This contrasts with Obama’s shift to Asia with shows of force to keep China in check despite attempts to militarize the South China Sea with man-made islands.
Most of these policies are easily reversible should Biden win, but even old stalwarts like Australia have voiced concerns about the reliability of the US. There is no other country to step up and coordinate diverse forces against Chinese incursion. The Middle East is in constant flux and steadiness is sorely needed to prevent flare-ups of violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin would like nothing more than to continue stepping into the role of primary influence in the region to expand Russian control over global oil supplies, which are crucial to the balance of power. Protecting democracy against autocrats has never been more important and Trump is simply not the man to do it.