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Trump Turning Countries Against the United States
Television, print media, and the American public are not properly focused on the impact this administration is having on our standing in the world. This is due to an endless series of destructive executive orders, tweets with false accusations, attempted bans of Muslims, a terrible Supreme Court lifetime appointment..... and so much more.
Fareed Zakaria of CNN and the Washington Post, points out that the impacts will be significant and long lasting:
...far more damaging in the long run might be what some have termed the Trump effect: his impact on the domestic politics of other countries. That effect appears to be powerful, negative and enduring. It could undermine decades of U.S. foreign policy successes.
He points out that for generations Mexico was anti-American but shifted since President Clinton came into office in 1993.
Thanks to intelligent leadership in Mexico City and consistent bipartisan engagement by Washington, the United States and Mexico have become friendly neighbors, active trading partners and allies in national security. Mexico buys more U.S. goods than China and is the second-largest destination for U.S. exports, after Canada. Sales to Mexico are up 455 percent since the passage of NAFTA.... Mexico is an ally of the United States in most international negotiations and organizations.
However, strong relations with Mexico are being quickly destroyed as Trump seeks to build a border wall, rip up NAFTA, and blames them for drugs and crime. Mexican politicians who do not respond sharply to Trump will be voted out, replaced with anti-American leaders with long-lasting impacts to Mexicao and us. Tackling issues of drugs, border control and migration would become much harder if the Mexican government recoiled from cooperating with the United States.
It is now quite likely the next president of Mexico will be an anti-American socialist-populist similar to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was polling at about 10 percent at the start of 2015. He is now at about 30 percent, the front-runner among the potential candidates in next year’s election. A victory for López Obrador would be a disaster for Mexico and also for the United States. It would take Mexico back to its days of corrupt socialism and dysfunctional economics, all sustained by populism and nationalism.
Relations with South Korea, of unparalleled importance due to our need for an ally against a nuclear North Korea, are in the worst position in many years. Last week, left-wing Moon Jae-in was elected as President and his rise to power was buoyed by anti-Americanism.
Trump’s demand that Seoul pay for the THAAD missile defense system, threatening to overturn the existing agreement with Washington, has fueled the forces in South Korea ... Trump has delivered a number of slights to one of the United States’ closest allies, accepting China’s claim that Korea once belonged to it and threatening to tear up the U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement.... It could mean decades of difficulty for U.S. foreign policy. Dealing with North Korea is hard enough as it is, but with a recalcitrant South Korea that is determined not to be viewed as overly pro-American, it would become impossible.
Iran and Cuba merit watching as well as Trump harms already delicate relations.
Politics in Iran have become more favorable to hard-liners, and the reelection of the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani...is now in jeopardy. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to be ... supporting a far more anti-U.S. candidate. In Cuba, Raúl Castro has gone from inching toward better relations with the United States to lambasting Trump and his policies.
Zakaria offers a stern warning on the dangers posed by a continued Trump presidency.
Around the world, the United States’ friends are embarrassed and on the defensive, and its enemies are gloating.... Every country has its own domestic politics. Crude rhetoric, outlandish demands, poorly thought-through policies and cheap shots all place foreign leaders in a box. They can’t be perceived as surrendering to the United States, and certainly not to a nation led by someone who is determined to show that for the United States to win, others must lose.