Trump — The view from afar …
Donald Trump has captured an inordinate amount of time from us recently — and I’m only talking about those of us in Australia. Imagine how our northern brothers and sisters feel?
Apart from all of the publicity about the decisions that largely affect only those of you in the USA, the coverage of your President’s statements about North Korea (well, tweets really) have attracted more than their fair share of attention. This especially applies when some of the rhetoric involves actual (or potential) threats against not only the US but Australia and its neighbours in the region — including Guam.
Having said that I am not here to bang on about the details although I do want to make a few observations from the privileged position of someone who is both a friend of the US but is not as close as South Korea or Japan to the action.
Since taking office, President Trump has displayed what to my uninformed eyes appear to be reliable predictors of his next moves.
For example, it has come to our attention Down Under that some of President Trump’s associates are currently facing an investigation into possible collusion or influence from Russian actors. For the purposes of this article the details don’t really matter.
Whatever the outcome of these investigations, it is interesting to note that President Trump’s “response” to the ever increasing tempo of the investigations has been to become outwardly aggressive towards Russia in an apparent effort to distance himself from its leadership — particularly Vladimir Putin — someone who had previously enjoyed a form of affection and admiration from Trump with the promise of a bright future for the two countries.
Call me a cynic but the timing of the change in the temperature in this relationship had an almost inversely proportional relationship to the increased focus on Trump’s alleged dealings with the same country. If this was simply a ruse to deflect attention from a pesky investigation that might implicate President Trump, or his associates, the story might end there.
What is more troubling from an outsider’s perspective is that the same form of reverse psychology seems to be at play in Trump’s approach to North Korea’s latest round of attention seeking behaviour and elsewhere.
Witness the reports of the telephone call between the newly elected President and Australia’s very own Prime Minister. Trump’s anger at the “deal” done with the 44th President appeared to set an early tone for the relationship between our countries only to be replaced by a later concession to honour the agreement after all having made the point that the President was not to be underestimated.
A more troubling example of the President’s attempts at subterfuge is to be found in his dealings with a key ally — in the form of South Korea - at a time when most pundits had suggested that cooperation and solidarity would represent a more logical approach. Just as President Trump made a few veiled (and not so veiled) threats to annihilate North Korea (a strategy that would probably lead to the destruction of a fair part of Seoul) he simultaneously announced that the trade deal with South Korea was under a cloud.
While many commentators have collectively and metaphorically scratched their heads over the apparently illogical nature of Trump’s strategy, it is wise to consider the possibility that Trump is employing the same modus operandi as he used (and continues to use) in dealing with the “Russia problem”. While many would think that a profoundly wise President should preserve the relationship with South Korea at all costs, the act of doing what would appear — on the surface at least- to be the opposite is yet another example of Trump’s increasingly predictable personality.
What is more troubling (in the case of the Korean peninsula) is that Trump’s apparent indifference to the economic relationship with South Korea is that this may actually be an attempt to quarantine South Korea from the consequences of what President Trump may do next. I sincerely hope that this is not the case and that the President will accept the counsel of his experienced advisers.
Unfortunately , the unpredictability of the President’s actions to date make this difficult.
We can all only hope that I am completely wrong.
