GLOBAL CENTRE STAGE
The fi rst diplomatic move the US President made upon his arrival at the White House was the tearing apart of the Iran Nuclear Deal. The nuclear deal was in many ways representative of former President Barack Obama’ s legacy.
When Donald Trump was elected into the White House in November 2016, there was a cloud of uncertainty over the direction American foreign policy would take under his leadership. After all, the United States was getting deeply involved in the Syrian conflict and had seen its ties with Russia reach a dangerously new low, perhaps the lowest since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, President Trump’ s foreign policy remains the most hotly debated aspect of his presidency, with many claiming that his unconventional methods have succeeded so far.
One of the key aspects of Trump’ s foreign policy seems to be a certain degree of flexibility over the United States’ stance on geopolitical issues. The first indicator of this was the decision to launch airstrikes against the Syrian government in April 2017. The United States launched 59 tomahawk missiles aimed at government-controlled Shayrat Airbase as a response to the alleged use of chemical gas( Sarin gas) by Bashar al-Assad( the Syrian President) on civilians. This came despite Trump’ s campaign rhetoric in the run up to the 2016 Presidential elections, wherein he attacked American interventionism and advocated an isolationist approach for the United States. Trump stated shortly thereafter, " It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
Nonetheless, since then the United States seems to have come to terms with the fact that removing Assad from power would not be as easy a task as was initially planned. Assad has effectively regained control of Syria, thanks to the air cover provided by the Russian Aerospace Forces, and the Syrian Civil War is in its final stages.
The first diplomatic move the US President made upon his arrival at the White House was the tearing apart of the Iran Nuclear Deal. The nuclear deal was in many ways representative of former President Barack Obama’ s legacy. Trump justified the move by claiming that the deal was‘ an absolute farce’, and that there was no way to check if Iran was living up to its end of the deal. 1 Strangely enough, his critics have cited the very same claims regarding his denuclearisation deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Backers of President Trump cite the Trump-Kim meet as the biggest success of his Presidency, and rightfully so. Donald Trump did what no American President had done before him. Not only did he bring North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to the negotiation table, he did this through a bullish approach which very few predicted would succeed. The Trump-Kim meet in Singapore was the centre of the world’ s attention and was touted to go down as a historically significant event.
Nonetheless, there were suspicions that the meeting would have little to no impact on North Korea’ s commitment to denuclearisation. This belief was reaffirmed with the surfacing of intelligence reports claiming that North Korea had in fact“ increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites.” 2 The Trump administration has since then repeatedly shot down queries regarding how it plans to verify that North Korea is living up to its end of the deal.
The brief praises in the aftermath of the Trump-Kim meeting ended when the focus returned to the United States’ increasingly straining ties with its own traditional allies in the European Union. Trump has gone after NATO members for their lack of commitment vis-à-vis contributions to the NATO defence budget is concerned. The narrative was atypical of Trump, with him claiming that the United States was paying far more than its NATO partners, again implying that the United States was in some way being“ ripped-off”.“ We protect Europe( which is good) at great fi nancial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on trade. Change is Coming!” Trump said on Twitter in June in posts that specifically called out Germany.“ The U. S. pays close to the entire cost of NATOprotecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade( they pay only a fraction of the cost – and laugh!)” He has used the same narrative to justify his trade wars against Canada and the EU, claiming the current status quo regarding tariffs was not mutually beneficial and that the United States was on the losing end of the bargain.
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 6 • Issue 8 • August 2018, Noida • 27