Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Foreign Policy Pillar is Looking Hollow at Best

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alliances, allies, Beijing Olympics, Biden, China, Emmanuel Macron, European Union, France, Fumio Kishida, Germany, Japan, multilateralism, NATO, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olympic boycott, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

What’s worse than “terrible”? It’s an important question because if that’s a term that accurately describes President Biden’s last week or so in office, then something even stronger is clearly needed for the setbacks suffered recently by multilateralism – the foundation of his foreign policy. And most troublingly, the idea that U.S. foreign policy success requires the cooperation of major allies has been failing most conspicuously when it comes to dealing with America’s two biggest global rivals – Russia and China.

Let’s deal with Russia first, but not because I view it as the biggest threat to the United States – or even much of a threat at all. In fact, I’ve long and repeatedly written that the fate of Ukraine has no importance for America’s national security, and that Washington should accept some form of the kind of spheres of influence-type deal in Eastern Europe that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed.

But the Ukraine crisis is making the most headlines right now, the subject dominated his long press conference last Wednesday, and Mr. Biden is nowhere near taking my advice. Indeed, that presser added powerfully to the evidence that the United States and its allies are deeply divided over how to respond to actual and possible Russian moves against Ukraine.

As the President made clear, “[I]t’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page.  And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.  And there are differences.  There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens — the degree to which they’re able to go.”

Indeed, that very day, France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the European Union seek separate from U.S. efforts a new security agreement with Russia. Macron did state that “It is good that Europeans and the United States coordinate” but added “it is necessary that Europeans conduct their own dialogue, We must put together a joint proposal, a joint vision, a new security and stability order for Europe.”

Since Europe is a lot closer to Russia and Ukraine that the United States, and will be much more dramatically affected by events in that region, this French position seems entirely legitimate to me. At the same time, it’s tough to believe that Macron would place such importance on a Europe-only effort if he was completely happy with what he knows of American diplomacy so far.

Germany’s views seem even farther from Washington’s. Its new government has not only refused to join some other European countries (notably, the United Kingdom) in supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine. It’s blocked at least one NATO country – Estonia – from sending its own Made in Germany arms to bolster Kiev’s military.

Moreover, trade-dependent Germany, whose trade with Russia in energy and other goods is substantial, doesn’t even seem very keen on deterring or punishing Moscow for invading Ukraine with the kinds of sanctions that are widely viewed as the strongest – cutting Russia off from the global network used by almost all the world’s financial institutions to send money across borders for all the reasons that money is sent across borders. At least Berlin is sounding more open to halting final approval of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline if Ukraine is invaded.    

Asian countries seem more prepared to resist aggression from China, especially the military kind (as opposed to Beijing’s economic efforts at intimidation). Since this post last September reporting on steps they’ve taken to transition from U.S. protectorates to countries more closely resembling genuine allies, some have made even more encouraging moves.

For example, Indonesia reportedly “is preparing itself militarily” to deal with Chinese moves against islands located in its territorial waters and major straits through which much of its (and the world’s commercial shipping) travels. The Philippines – another Southeast Asian country embroiled in maritimes disputes with China, has just bought cruise missiles from India, and reportedly some of its neighbors are interested in these devices, too.

At the same time, despite a virtual summit between President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan’s policy on using its forces to help any U.S. attempt to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack remains ambivalent at best. South Korea looks more hesistant still.

Nor is Japan backing the United States to the hilt on sanctioning Russia economically following a Ukraine attack, or even close. After the Biden-Kishida session, an anonymous U.S. official said (in a briefing posted on the White House website) that although the Japanese leader “made it clear his country would be ‘fully behind’” Washington on the issue, his response concerning economic responses Tokyo would support was “We did not get into the specifics about possible steps that would be taken in the event that we see these [potential Russian] actions transpire.”

The refusal of so many U.S. allies and others to join the Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott versus the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing also casts major doubts on the President’s emphasis on multilateralism. Can any countries declining even to keep their officials alone out of China for the games (as opposed to their athletes) be counted on to push back more concretely and powerfully against future provocations from China?

Athletes and sports fans know well the expression “Change a losing game.”  For all you others, it means that if a strategy or approach is failing, switch to an alternative.  But for the future of American foreign policy, the most important part of it remains unspoken, and the one that the President needs most urgently to heed:  “Change it before you’ve lost.”   

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time to Test U.S. “Allies” on China

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allies, America First, Asia-Pacific, Barack Obama, China, Emmanuel Macron, EU, European Union, France, globalism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, RCEP, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Parternship, Trump

President Trump’s globalist critics in the foreign policy Blob (the Washington, D.C.-centered complex of former diplomats and military officers, genuine academics, think tank hacks, and their Mainstream Media mouthpieces) think they’ve uncovered major new proof that the administration’s America First-type foreign policies and trade policies are failing catastrophically. Actually, the developments they’ve seized upon make clearer than ever the dangerous folly of their own outdated strategies, and the urgent need for a Trump-ian course change.

What’s gotten the globalists excited: Reports that America’s allies the world over are turning their backs on Washington and either moving into China’s orbit or cultivating better relations with the People’s Republic.

In the Asia-Pacific region, fifteen countries, including American treaty allies Australia, Japan, and South Korea, have decided to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a Chinese spearheaded trade agreement that doesn’t include the United States. Although Washington is apparently free to join, RCEP’s progress is seen as a big defeat for the United States, and for Mr. Trump in particular, because for years Beijing has been pushing it as an alternative to the Asia-Pacific-focused Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal signed by former President Barack Obama but nixed by President Trump on his first full weekday in office.

TPP was touted as a counter to RCEP that was vastly preferable for the United States because its protections of the environment and labor rights, and its curbs on state-owned enterprises, created standards that China could not hope to meet any time soon. Therefore, the agreement allegedly represented both a means of containing Chinese power and a powerful inducement to the kinds of Chinese reform long sought by Washington (and at least nominally sought by the President).

In other words, it supposedly was a globalist masterstroke that was foolishly trashed by Mr. Trump. And he’s now getting his richly deserve comeuppance via the Chinese-developed RCEP, which, it’s said, doesn’t address the above issues nearly as effectively as TPP, but which has nonetheless attracted many other signatories also spurned by the Trump rejection.

As known by RealityChek regulars, the anti-China case for TPP was bogus from the start, along with its claims to promoting the kinds of reforms throughout the Asia-Pacific region that would benefits American exporters. For the agreement contained a wide open backdoor for numerous products with high levels of Chinese content, which would have enabled Beijing to realize many of TPP’s benefits without incurring any of its obligations. Nearly as bad, for all their lofty ambitions, those obligations would have been impossible for Washington to monitor and enforce adequately, as most signatory governments’ bureaucracies, along with their national industrial bases, were too large (and in the case of the governments, secretive) to track.

Moreover, these glaring TPP weaknesses raise questions that hardly strengthen confidence in globalist views both of the agreement and, just as important of U.S. Allies. Specifically, TPP’s China back door and verification shortcomings weren’t exactly secrets. And they surely reveal that the Australias, Japans, and South Koreas of the world were never very interested in containing China or pressuring it to reform in the first place. The decision of these countries to go along with an RCEP that doesn’t even try seriously to achieve these goals casts even deeper doubt on their reliability for any future American efforts to work multilaterally to cope with China.

And as for the inevitable counter-argument that the Trump TPP pullout gave these Asia-Pacific countries little choice but to accept a second-best deal more advantageous to Beijing, it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. After all, all these countries had years to work with the George W. Bush and Obama administrations to develop regional trade arrangements that could realistically hope to achieve their intertwined China and reform objectives. They all (along with those globalist Presidents) completely blew the opportunity.

On the other side of the world, the Associated Press has just reported on a similar shift by the European Union, that huge economic bloc that also contains many countries allied with the United States through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In an article titled “Europeans look to China as global partner, shun Trump’s US,” correspondent Sylvie Corbet wrote that “When France’s president wants to carry European concerns to the world stage to find solutions for climate change, trade tensions or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he no longer calls Washington. He flies to Beijing.”

She added that on his recent visit to Beijing, Emmanuel Macron “portrayed himself as an envoy for the whole European Union, conveying the message that the bloc has largely given up on Trump, who doesn’t hide his disdain for multilateralism.”

In the process, though, the author made a powerful, if completely unwitting, case for American unilateralism. For according to Corbet, Macron and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping “issued a ‘Beijing call’…for increased global cooperation in fighting climate change and better protecting biodiversity. Both countries have deplored the U.S. withdrawal” from the Paris climate change accord.

Macron apparently stood by as Xi “said the two leaders were sending ‘a strong signal to the world about steadfastly upholding multilateralism and free trade, as well as working together to build open economies.’”

And for good measure, the French president touted China’s record of helping to reduce tensions in the Persian Gulf, and potential contributions to using diplomacy to persuade Iran to return to full compliance with the nuclear proliferation deal rejected by Mr. Trump. In addition, he touted China’s ability to help “develop stable and cooperative trade rules at the international level.”

To which the only serious reply from the American standpoint is, “If Macron and anyone else in Europe really believe this nonsense, and assume that they’re better off aligning with China than with the United States, then America is better off without them.” And this holds not only for trade but for security issues like Iran.

It’s been unconvincing enough for globalists to insist that the United States has no choice but to maintain alliances with countries famous for being defense deadbeats and free-riders, and fence-sitters in the campaign to create a truly open world economy (as opposed to one that winks at all instances of protectionism except America’s). But it’s positively goofy for globalists to claim that these countries would be strong and active supporters of security or economic goals compatible with U.S. and traditional free world interests if only President Trump showed more patience with them.

Of course, it’s possible – and perhaps likely – that these Asian and European moves are ultimately bluffs aimed at curbing Mr. Trump’s perceived worst excesses. But it’s at least as possible that these countries hope to create pressure on the President to accept their longstanding, “Heads we win, tail you lose,” strategy vis-a-vis the United States.

All of which reminds me of episodes when I was little, and blurted out remarks like, “I’m going to run away.” My parents often replied, “Is that a promise or a threat?” That sounds to me like a necessary and indeed long overdue U.S. response to its worrisomely feckless allies.

Im-Politic: Elizabeth Warren, Nationalist?

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Elizabeth Warren, Emmanuel Macron, global poverty, globalization, Im-Politic, nationalism, progressives, Seattle WTO protests, third world, Trade, World Trade Organization, WTO

Whatever its historical roots, “nationalism” has recently become a dirty word. Among the dangers embodied by this concept, as determined by political correctness authorities such as France’s (politically besieged) President Emmanuel Macron, it’s “a betrayal of patriotism. By saying ‘Our interests first, who cares about the others,’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace, and what is essential: its moral values.”

How stunning, therefore, to read Elizabeth Warren’s recent speech on U.S. foreign policy. According to this definition, the Massachusetts Democratic Senator, progressive heroine, and likely 2020 presidential hopeful, is a card-carrying, selfish, immoral (amoral?) America First-style nationalist – at least when it comes to international trade and related globalization issues.

Skeptical? Just read the Warren transcript. On the one hand, she admitted that “The globalization of trade has opened up opportunity and lifted billions out of poverty around the world” – which by any standard is a pretty remarkable achievement. Yet on the other hand, Warren condemned the “trade and economic policies” behind this epic success for failing to deliver “the same kind of benefits for America’s middle class.”

In fact, she emphasized, “U.S. trade policy has delivered one punch in the gut after another to [U.S.] workers and to the unions that fight for them.”

It’s true that, elsewhere in her speech, Warren briefly referred to revamping American trade policy to ensure “that workers are meaningfully represented at the negotiating table and build trade agreements that strengthen labor standards worldwide.” But much more often, she lambasted agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for encouraging “outsourcing jobs to Mexico.”

In other words, either such outsourcing somehow failed to ameliorate poverty in Mexico (even though Warren credits it with uplifting the poor elsewhere), or she assigns little importance to achieving that goal. In either case, Warren has some major explaining to do.

Also fascinating about Warren’s speech: If it’s to be taken seriously (never a sure thing when it comes to politicians’ rhetoric), it would represent a significant, and in my view, welcome change in progressives’ take on trade, globalization, and what’s fundamentally wrong with them.

For since these issues became front-page news during the debate over NAFTA, at the start of the 1990s, critics to the left-of-center have proclaimed that U.S. trade and related policies would remain unacceptable unless they boosted living standards everywhere, not just in America – and that they had betrayed workers in developing countries as completely as their counterparts in the United States.

American progressives’ emphasis on the devastation created in the third world by U.S.-spearheaded trade arrangements came to a head during the Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in 1999 – as did the companion belief that win-win solutions for workers and consumers everywhere should be and could be the very raison d’etre of the global economy. And as indicated by this 2015 statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, it remains their party line today.

The point here is not that no conceivable form of globalization can ever produce globe-wide benefits. Instead, it’s that the road to mutual gain is unlikely to proceed in a straight, smooth, uninterrupted line, and that without recognizing that hard choices are likely for the foreseeable future, and that those global benefits may not be distributed evenly, the worst of all worlds is all too likely.

So here’s hoping that her speech is evidence that Warren is becoming aware of these at-least-likely complications, that she’ll start prompting such globalization realism on the American Left – and that she won’t be deterred by apologists for a failed status quo who, along with most of her fellow progressives, have been reduced to portraying nationalism as part of the problem, rather than potentially part of the solution.

Im-Politic: The Real Veterans Day Hypocrites

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Armistice Day, Constitution, Emmanuel Macron, France, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, nationalism, patriotism, racism, Riverdale Park, sexism, Trump, Veterans Day, voting rights, white nationalists, World War I

Mentioning U.S. military cemeteries in France and my town of Riverdale Park, Maryland in the same sentence, or even the same piece of writing – that’s got to be a first. But due to the overlap of Veterans Day today with the hundredth anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I hostilities, both shed some light on the confused, often downright incoherent, and just as often hypocritical nature of America’s heated, intertwined political and philosophical battles over identity, nationalism, and related issues.

The military cemetery angle is clear enough, due to President Trump’s controversial decision to forego attending yesterday’s Armistice Day ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial outside of Paris. Mr. Trump’s administration attributed the decision to bad weather and the logistical complications it created. I’m no expert on these matters (chances are, neither are you) and for all I know, rain and the herculean task of moving American presidents in foreign countries may have genuinely rendered his initially announced schedule unrealistic. I also suspect that a major role was played by the simple exhaustion of a 72-year old man following a whirlwind last few weeks of criss-crossing America for speeches at campaign rallies aimed at electing Republican candidates in this month’s midterm elections.

Nonetheless, even though this event wasn’t the only, or even the main event on the Trump schedule, or even the only scheduled cemetery visit, I believe that the President should have sucked it up and attended. (Just FYI, he did wind up going to a second such ceremony today.) As a result, I have some sympathy for the critics’ charges that Mr. Trump’s decision undercut his high profile claims of championing patriotic values.

But I don’t have total sympathy, and here’s why: because these presidential opponents generally have a pretty dodgy, and thus often double-standard-infused, record on patriotic values themselves. Why else, for example, would they be so apoplectic about the President’s self-description as a “nationalist.” Many have not only equated this viewpoint with something they call “white nationalism” (a concept whose fatal internal contradictions are, revealingly, ignored only by them and by the fringe neo-Nazi types who have adopted it). They’ve also attacked it for clashing with the idea of diversity, as opposed to “inclusion,” and for asserting (in the words of France’s President, Emmanuel Macron), “our interests first, who cares about the others?”

At best, however, that’s a bizarre critique for at least two reasons. First, the United States exists in a world of other political units that are known as “nation-states,” and inevitably, their “national interests” (another term that’s not the least bit controversial) won’t always coincide. These interests aren’t always in conflict, either, and when they’re not, inclusion – in the form of fostering international cooperation in order to advance shared goals or repel share challenges – is a fine idea. But when these interests don’t coincide, and can’t be reconciled via diplomacy, inclusion can easily become a formula for delusion, and for harming U.S. interests. And Macron to the contrary, at that point, any national leader deserving his country’s trust would put their “interests first” and not care terribly “about the others.”

Second, Mr. Trump’s actual use of the word had nothing to do with jingoism or chauvinism, much less racism. Indeed, it had everything to do with promoting an entirely reasonable U.S. foreign policy goal. Here’s his description of the term: “All I want for our country is to be treated well, to be treated with respect. For many years other countries that are allies of ours, so-called allies, they have not treated our country fairly, so in that sense I am absolutely a nationalist and I’m proud of it.”

And here’s where Riverdale Park, Maryland comes in. This morning, the town held its annual Veterans Day observance. It took place at a pretty little patch created near the town center, complete with a memorial and a big American flag. Ever since I moved to the town in 2003, I’ve attended this ceremony nearly every year, along with the Memorial Day ceremony (when I was in town, which has usually been the case), and was proud to do so. This year, that streak came to an end.

I’m boycotting, and will continue to boycott, because earlier this year, as I’ve described, the town decided to permit illegal aliens to vote in local elections (along with 16-year olds). It’s a free country, and the decision is Constitutional, but it mainly rankled because, as I also wrote, during the debate, supporters of the idea made plain as day that they not only had no regard for the idea of citizenship, and of the community of values it has represented throughout our country’s history. They stated repeatedly their convictions that that community, along with the Constitution that organized its government and enshrined into law the liberties Americans enjoy, are nothing more than racist and sexist constructs concocted by a claque of dead white males determined to perpetuate their dominance and that of their descendants. Moreover, the town’s endorsement of non-citizen voting unquestionably represented endorsement of that perspective.

And these are folks – and the municipality – claiming to honor those currently serving in the military, and those who have lost their lives defending this political system? Sorry, but I found that proposition stomach-turning, along with the idea of taking part in this sham.

Further, these convictions are hardly confined to Riverdale Park. Polls – not a perfect measure of opinion, I know, but the best we have – show consistently that patriotic feelings are declining sharply among the American public as a whole, and among Democrats, liberals, and the young in particular – the last three categories are coming to dominate Riverdale Park’s population. (See, e.g., here and here. And according to the Gallup survey, the latter two trends predated Mr. Trump’s election as president.)

I have no evidence that most or even many of those with low patriotism levels have chortled at the President’s decision to skip the military cemetery ceremonies. But I’ll bet the number is more than a few. Ditto for a high correlation between the Trump cemetery critics and staunch opponents of his immigration policies – due to the President’s insistence that the United States as a sovereign nation, and even more important, one precious enough to be worth defending, has an absolute right to control its borders and decide who and how many are granted admission.  

There’s no obligation for any American to feel patriotic, and there’s certainly no obligation to like President Trump. Is it too much to ask, however, that Veterans Day, and associated professions of love of country, be made exempt from political football-dom?

Making News: Video of Last Night’s Interview with Thom Hartmann on Populism Now On-Line

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Emmanuel Macron, French elections, Making News, Marine LePen, Populism, RT America, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, Thom Hartmann, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that the video is now on-line of my interview last night on RT America’s “The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann.”  Click on this link to catch a great discussion between Thom and me about the rise of populism in the United States and Europe.  The segment begins at about the 14:40 mark.  Special bonus – you get to see a classic bonehead goof by yours truly!

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.