Just some thoughts off the top of my head. Let’s not get into an I-P discussion. My emphasis in bold.
Updated
Pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Donald Trump's decision to make good on his promise to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal comes after many months of bad-mouthing and downplaying his predecessor's landmark foreign policy initiative.
“This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump said in an 11-minute address from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.
As part of the deal, Iran agreed to reduce its stockpile of nuclear material and to grant international observers access to its military sites. In exchange, crippling economic sanctions were lifted.
According to recent inspection reports from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is complying with the terms of the deal.
The result
Five years ago today, President Donald Trump held up a signed executive order for the cameras at the White House, announcing a unilateral withdrawal from a nuclear deal the United States had signed in 2015 with Iran and world powers.
Despite years of efforts, and after many ups and downs, the landmark accord known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has not been restored, contributing to rising tensions across the region.
The Trump administration’s many designations of Iranian entities and institutions, specifically aimed at making it difficult for his successor Joe Biden to undo his damage, worked in tandem with a changing political climate to prevent a restored JCPOA.
But as Tehran also ramped up the pressure and the US gradually saw its role in the region diminished, Arab leaders recognised a need for change.
The 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, and the subsequent non-response from Washington, appeared to be a turning point for Arab nations.
Note: Trump was still in office.
After two years of direct talks, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed in March to restore diplomatic relations in a deal mediated by China, and embassies are expected to be reopened this week.
With Israel also pushing for snapback and the West accusing Tehran of selling armed drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine, stakeholders will have their work cut out for them in managing tensions during the coming months.
Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem
"Our greatest hope is for peace." Those were the words of Donald Trump in a recorded message at the Jerusalem ceremony.
He has declared an interest in solving the "toughest deal of all" and, despite the outrage over Jerusalem, the White House is still intent on rolling out a detailed initiative of a settlement it thinks is achievable.
They also thought the Palestinians would eventually rally and resume contact after their initial shock and anger, according to the New York Times. So far they have not.
The administration argues it is simply recognising the obvious in accepting Jerusalem as Israel's capital and that the city's final boundaries can still be determined in negotiations.
But confusingly, Mr Trump has also said he has taken the issue "off the table". And he has failed to say anything about Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem.
So whatever the intent, he appears to have sided with Israel on one of the most volatile issues in the peace process and prejudiced the final outcome of any talks.
Trump holds up aid to Ukraine
The White House sought to freeze aid to Ukraine just 91 minutes after President Trump spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone in July, a newly-released government email has revealed.
The email, telling the Pentagon to "hold off", was sent by a senior White House official.
It shows that a senior White House official, Mike Duffey, contacted senior defense officials about withholding Ukraine's aid just over an hour-and-a-half after Mr. Trump ended a 25 July call with President Zelensky.
In the phone call, Mr. Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate his political rival, Democrat Joe Biden.
Ignoring Russia’s instructions to the Taliban
(Multiple items on the above link)
The lack of any significant U.S. response to the revelation that Russia has offered money to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops shines yet another ugly spotlight on the foreign policy of U.S. President Donald Trump—or, more precisely, the utter lack of one.
Many months after the Russian bounties first became known to the White House, and weeks after they became public, Trump still has taken no action and expressed no empathy for soldiers or their families, claiming that this issue, too, is just a hoax cooked up by his enemies.
North Korea
On the issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, what masquerades as Trump’s policy is nothing but a series of photo opportunities with dictator Kim Jong Un. Other than stating the need for “complete, verifiable denuclearization” by North Korea, there appears to be no strategy for even a single incremental step on the way to such a goal.
Middle East Peace Plan
In the Middle East, the administration’s mysterious, so-called peace plan between the Israelis and Palestinians—developed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—was so secret that it never really made an appearance before being shrugged off.
As the November election approaches, there is no discernible objective of Trump’s policies other than currying personal favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, more importantly, with Trump’s evangelical Christian base—while undermining the long-standing bipartisan nature of U.S. support for Israel.
Russia and China
Perhaps most damaging to U.S. strategic interests and global stability is Trump’s complete mishandling of Russia and China, where he has veered between mere transactional tactics and his desire for photo-ops with authoritarian strongmen.
Years from now, we will hopefully discover the exact nature of Trump’s personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin beyond mere envy of power.
Trump has already voiced his envy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s status of president for life. And in both cases yet again, there appears to be no overarching objective, no strategy for getting there, no coherent policy process.
There is no evidence, for example, of a desire to preserve arms control with Russia or to stop Russia’s (or any other country’s) persistent disinformation campaigns that are now looming as an ever-larger threat to the integrity of the U.S. election.
At the same time, the Trump administration has made no effort to find areas of cooperation with China, such as climate change, even as the United States challenges and confronts China on issues such as intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices, and control over the South China Sea.
The only possible conclusion is that the objective in Trump’s relations with other countries is not national security but Trump’s security.
China Tariffs
Donald Trump’s tariffs and the trade war his administration launched against China turned out to be far more damaging than many believed.
In new research, ... used movements in stock prices to measure the response to policy announcements on tariffs and the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war initiated by the Trump administration.
“The results suggest that markets interpreted the impact of the tariffs as much more negative than what economists initially estimated,” said David Weinstein in an interview.
The tariffs protect the least efficient firms and reduced their incentives to innovate while hurting the most successful U.S. firms, reducing their ability to innovate.”
It is important to capture indirect imports that are ultimately purchased by U.S. firms because many firms do not import directly from China but instead obtain Chinese inputs through their subsidiaries or the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms.
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Oh, I forgot...
Assassination of Qassam Soleimani
President Donald Trump's decision to carry out a lethal targeted strike against an Iranian general widely said to have American blood on his hands has renewed an international legal debate about the line between warfare and assassination that has never fully been resolved.
Under international human rights law, she noted, a country may kill in self-defense only under extremely narrow circumstances in which the lethal strike was the only option to prevent the imminent attack. She also argued that the deaths of those killed as collateral damage, including drivers and security guards, were unlawful.
"The U.S. government does not believe it is bound by human rights law treaties vis-à-vis our operations overseas," said Bobby Chesney…
But that view may not settle the matter, according to Scott Anderson, a former State Department adviser who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"The U.S. decision to directly target Iranian affiliates within Iraq without the permission of Congress or the Iraqi government raises a number of difficult legal and policy questions," he wrote this week in Lawfare, a website examining national security legal issues.
The U.S. did not always view targeted killings the way it does now.
Just two months before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American officials forcefully restated their position condemning missile strikes by Israel targeting specific Palestinian militants.
Exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Trump purposefully sought to upend conventional domestic and foreign policy, fundamentally altering America’s role in the world.
Trump cast himself as a businessman-turned-politician that would not allow the US to be taken advantage of by the rest of the world. That nationalist mindset manifested itself in several ways, but especially on trade – impacting the cost of goods from around the world and altering the US labor market.
Trump exited the Trans-Pacific Partnership during his first month in office. His administration waged a steel and aluminum tariff war against key US trading partners, causing prices of many products made with the metals to rise. His administration also threatened to issue and, sometimes, followed through with tariffs against a range of European products – including cars, cheese, wine and whiskey.
Trump’s tariffs ultimately levied $80 billion of new taxes on Americans.
Climate Change
Some of these affects were domestic, but certainly climate change affects the whole world.
Trump announced in his first year in office that he intended to exit the Paris Climate Agreement. He said during the announcement, which was aimed at curbing climate change, that the accord placed “draconian” financial burdens on the American people.
I guess the recent hurricanes don’t impact a financial burden on the American people (and in other countries)? /s
Besides Trump’s decision to pull out of the accord, the Trump administration’s record on energy and the environment was largely headlined by efforts to roll back a slew of environmental protections in favor of perceived economic opportunity.
The Republican’s administration targeted 50-year-old Clean Air Act protections, carbon emissions caps, methane regulations, energy efficient light bulb requirements, the length of environmental impact studies for infrastructure projects and gas pipelines, animal protections, herbicide limits and limits for auto emissions.
The President has frequently touted that the US has the “cleanest air” and “cleanest water” in the world, but the US ranks 16th in air quality in the world and the US ranks 26th in quality of sanitation and drinking water, according to the Environmental Performance Index.
