"Wrecking Ball In Chief"

"Wrecking Ball in Chief": These were the well-chosen words Susan Rice used to describe President Trump in her op-ed column in today's NYT, reacting to his and our country's withdrawal from the Iran agreement.

This adds to and for me is by far the most worrisome of the destructive foreign policy decisions President Trump has made:

1. Withdrawal from the Trans-Atalntic Partnership has hurt our economy, lessened our leadership position in Asia and been a boon to the Chinese.

2. Withdrawal from the Paris Climate treaty has curtailed our leadership position in the world and works against the environmental challenges our world faces.

3. The renegotiation of NAFTA is fracturing our relationships with our closest allies and is risking damage to our own businesses.

4. The decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem fractures whatever small possibility exists to bring Israel and Palestine together in a settlement.

5. Our sanctions against steel and aluminum undercut our partnership with our European allies as well as Japan.

6. We launch a missile attack on the government of Syria, but present no strategy or plan to resolve this conflict. Nor is there any evidence of a strategy or plan to resolve the still-boiling trauma in Ukraine.



What unites these dangerous actions and absence of action are two things, both perilous:

1. The utter absence of a cohesive foreign policy strategy and plan other than  an arrogant, dismissive "we will go it alone", "it is only our interests that count", "we don't need to collaborate"  mind set. Needless to say, this mind set feeds and supports all the most dangerous instincts and actions of other countries with whom we see ourselves in some form of conflict, e.g. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia.

2. The willingness to uni-laterally and will-fully abrogate agreements and treaties which have been drawn after extended discussion with allies and sometimes with those with whom we disagree. The "word" of our country has been badly compromised. This will have negative impacts we can not predict today

What makes the withdrawal from the Iran agreement the most concerning of all Trump's dangerous actions is that it elevates the greatest risk our world faces: nuclear proliferation and ultimately nuclear destruction. It does so in a way that pokes a big thumb in the eyes of our closest allies. We talk about Russia wanting to sow discord between Europe and the U.S. You could not choose a decision more likely to do that.

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What are we to do?

In the short term, continue to value, insist on and support a "free press" and the "rule of law", including investigations of the kind Mueller is conducting.

In 2020,  ensure Trump leaves office by electing a man or woman who brings the values, character and wisdom the Presidency demands--including: 1) recognizing that we have to work together with other countries if we are to achieve our nation's and world's future and (2) that our President must model values which we would want our children to emulate. In my lifetime of now almost 80 years, we have had Presidents with some character traits and who have taken some actions which I cringe at. But never have I seen a President whose commitment to truth and to respecting other people has been so utterly lacking.