Well, as of this week, it has now been more than a month and a half since President Donald Trump took office. Frankly, it’s been a disaster since day 1. I’m not even going to delve into Trump’s policies on domestic issues, because honestly, there are so many foolish decisions being made on that front it’s almost mind-boggling.
I instead want to focus on Trump’s foreign policy agenda. Actually, I’m still waiting to see some sort of foreign policy agenda.
New Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been seemingly missing in action until the last week or so, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley more or less warned the U.N. we don’t care about any of them and Trump himself has thrown temper tantrums at Australia and tried to pull off the arm of the Prime Minister of Japan. Please let me know if you can explain how any of that forms into a coherent policy agenda that will “make America great again.”
If things weren’t such a disaster on the domestic front, maybe we would be hearing more about Trump’s already numerous failures in foreign policy. It feels like the only thing we’ve heard about was Trump’s foolish decision to carry out a raid in Yemen, which resulted in American deaths as well as multiple civilian casualties.
The most despicable thing about that whole incident has been Trump’s use of the raid as a means of boosting his popularity in the weeks since the raid took place. First, he effectively blamed the military for what happened. Then, when Trump actually made somewhat sincere remarks about the American solider who was killed in Yemen during his address to Congress, pundits across the board talked about how presidential he is.
Just to be clear, Trump made a stupid mistake, didn’t own up to it, then used someone’s death as a means of scoring political points. That’s a good thing?
Honestly, it’s starting to feel more and more like Trump never actually had a foreign policy plan (shocker).
We’re all still waiting for Trump’s “secret plan” to defeat ISIS to take effect. He signed an executive order to have the Pentagon come up with a plan and former oil executive-turned-statesmen Tillerson just announced a global summit to work on a plan as well. So, basically the president never actually had a plan.
Trump promised us he, and he alone, knew how to solve the ISIS problem because he had “the best people” helping him.
So long as Trump follows through on his foreign policy vision, America is in good shape
Every politician lies, but they also don’t make foolish guarantees they can easily defeat terrorist organizations that have taken over towns and territories throughout the Middle East.
Basically, what it boils down to is that on foreign policy, much like everything else, Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His only plan appears to be having other people make decisions for him. While it might be good for our safety to have other people making decisions, it’s a bad sign for the country when the guy in charge has absolutely no clue what he’s doing.
Oh, and by the way, this doesn’t even touch on Trump’s Russia nonsense.
Connor Touhey ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science, history and journalism.
