Feb 11, 2017 7 min read

If President Donald Trump’s post-inaugural foreign policy bears any resemblance to his pre-inaugural Twitter rants, this country is in for a rough four-year ride. So far, our new commander-in-chief has not found a spot on the globe, save Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to alienate.

It is true voters did elect Trump as President Obama’s successor on Nov. 8, and that his supporters believe they sent him to Washington, D.C., to shake things up. However, in the weeks since his election, he has also managed to shake up a world that is hungry for order and American consistency in policy making.

In Latin America, is Trump prepared to reverse course on the new American relationship with Cuba? This would certainly come not out of any belief that communism is evil, but as payback to the Cuban-American voters of South Florida. Would such a move prove to be self-defeating? The 57-year-old policy of containment and embargo is a colossal failure.

With past as prologue, Obama sought a new direction, with the idea of injecting the American experience into Cuban life. Allowing both Americans and Cubans to travel between the two countries to establish connections in education, business, trade, and cultural exchanges, could have a profound influence on Cuban society. It also provides Cuban-Americans with greater opportunities to visit relatives and friends on the island.

So what is the alternative? To close the U.S. embassy, reimpose restrictions on travel, and go back to the way it was before is clearly not the solution. If anything, it would be counterproductive. A rollback of relations now between the United States and Cuba would only play into the hands of Cuban hardliners hoping to grab power after Raul Castro is no longer president.

One last argument for the current Cuban-American rapprochement is that the United States has done this before, and primarily during the administrations of Republican presidents. Richard Nixon opened the door to better relations with China with his trip there in 1972. During that visit, he met and shook hands with Mao Zedong, a mass murderer unparalleled in human history. Nixon began the normalization process that led to full diplomatic relations under President Jimmy Carter.

So when Obama landed in Havana and shook the hand of Castro, this was but the start of a long process carried out in other authoritarian countries by his predecessors. President Trump would be wise to allow this new breakthrough an opportunity to possibly bear similar fruit in years to come.

In Asia, our relationship with China is a complicated one. The foundation of that relationship is America’s “One China” policy. It formed the basis for the establishment of diplomatic relations with The People’s Republic back in 1977. Since then, it has been the policy of the United States that there is only one Chinese nation, located on the mainland. Trump’s prearranged call from Taiwan’s leader after his election, and his subsequent tweets questioning America’s continued recognition of only one China, has rattled the Chinese leadership.

Granted, our relations with China are problematic. Trade imbalances, Chinese island-building and militarization in the South China Sea, and China’s refusal to rein in the nuclear ambitions of North Korea must be addressed. Trump’s belief that he can negotiate any deal using the One China policy as leverage, amounts to playing a dangerous game. It could possibly precipitate an ugly trade war, a confrontation at sea, or provoke menacing military moves toward Taiwan by China. As president, Trump has to put aside his anti-China campaign rhetoric and reassure Beijing that the fundamentals of the Sino-American relationship are unchanged.

In Europe, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has successfully kept the peace, even In the darkest days of the Cold War. Now, Trump’s comments that NATO is “obsolete,” and Europe must be sent a bill for further protection by the United States, worries our allies. Trump’s love affair with Vladimir Putin is most distressing. At a time when our intelligence services have unanimously agreed that Russian hacks were designed to throw the election to Trump, our new president continues to wear blinders, preferring to see it as an attempt to delegitimize his victory.

Putin’s strategy is clear. It is simply to undermine Americans’ faith in our democratic institutions, and to sow similar doubts in the upcoming elections taking place in various European countries like France and Germany. Right-wing nationalist movements despise military alliances and are equally suspicious of America’s role in the world. Their success at the ballot box could also undermine NATO’s resolve. There has never been a more important moment for Trump to recognize the value of a strong and united NATO, led by the United States.

Putin believes that the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the loss of its hegemony over Eastern Europe, were dark days for Russia. His goals are nothing less than the full restoration of Russian influence and power. The sooner Trump comes to realize this, the better he will be able to formulate policy.

Finally, Trump’s recent pronouncements about the Middle East are particularly disturbing. Again, he would alter decades of American foreign policy, endorsed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, and move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has appointed David Friedman to be his new ambassador to Israel. Friedman has compared Jews, who favor a two-state solution to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. The decades-long American policy of advocating two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security must not be abandoned.

Through the years, American diplomats have tried to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to finally reach a just settlement. Trump needs to commit himself and America’s diplomats to working again toward that goal.

Other dangers in Iraq, Syria, and Iran will challenge Trump’s foreign policy acumen. Iraq is in a fight for its existence. Iraqi soldiers, with the aid of American advisers, are working hard to drive ISIS from Mosul and other cities in northern Iraq. In Syria, with the help of Putin, the dictator Bashar al-Assad now stands triumphant in cities that he and his Russian ally have reduced to rubble in order to conquer them. When confronted with the horrors of this genocide, our new president can only offer silence thus far. In doing so, he risks joining the United Nations, the Obama administration, and others in their complicity in this tragedy.

Then there’s Iran. We can be sure that Saddam Hussein took many secrets to his grave when he died in 2006. Some would have involved American help in his eight-year war with Iran. What happens when Trump tries in vain to renegotiate the nuclear deal he denounced during his presidential campaign? Will he let the genie out of the bottle by walking away, perhaps leading to inevitable U.S. airstrikes against well-protected Iranian nuclear facilities? A new Middle East conflict, involving the United States and Iran, would most definitely follow.

It is interesting, and indeed hopeful, to note that in recent Senate confirmation hearings, Trump’s nominees for secretary of state, secretary of defense, and CIA chief did not agree with their boss. In sworn testimony, each has declined to second their commander-in-chief’s tweets and public statements that deviate from many years of accepted American foreign policy. To a man, there was no divergence from the long-held positions of the American government. Maybe that is because they are policies designed to give solace to our friends and allies in the world, as well as to put our international adversaries on notice. Especially in these early days of his presidency, Trump would do well to listen and learn from those he has chosen to advise him.

For better or worse, we cannot help being heavily invested in our role in the world as Trump now envisions it. Therefore, tweets can never serve as an adequate substitute for a substantive and thoughtful foreign policy.

Carl Haberl is a retired schoolteacher and resident of South Strabane Township.