Pivoting East

In my last post, I took Donald Trump to task for his ham fisted and Chavez-like method of keeping companies in the states.   Trump went well being the usual tax incentives to try to prevent companies from offshoring and resorted to threats, promising a 35% tax on goods made by U.S. companies that relocate their operations elsewhere and ship goods back into the U.S.  This is the kind of coercive government that many conservatives feared and exhibited the worst side of Trump.

While we commemorate the 75^th anniversary of Japan’s sneak attack on the U.S., we are once again faced with challenges from the East.  Under the Obama administration, they were allowed to fester and worsen.   Trump’s opening moves on the domestic  front are open to criticism but on the foreign policy side, Trump executed a brilliant move.  By taking the congratulatory phone call of Tsai Ing-Wen, duly elected president of Taiwan, Trump accomplished several objectives with one single blow.  It was perfectly calibrated and proportional. 

First, it was a bold signal to China that the U.S. is no longer willing to play patsy to them.  China has continued to manipulate its currency and thereby drain manufacturing from the U.S.  While North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs that now threaten our allies and perhaps our west coast, China has done little to curtail North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, even though it is in a position to exert leverage over them.  China regularly pilfers our intellectual property.  More ominously, it has asserted itself militarily be building islands and bases in the South China Sea.  It was almost certainly behind the cybertheft of the personnel records at OPM last year.  Our response on each of these fronts was muted.  It was reported that the navy had to beg Obama to challenge free navigation of the seas around the islands constructed by China.  And if there was any response at all to the OPM hack (which included individuals with top level security clearance), we didn’t hear about it. 

Second, it was a signal that the U.S. is back in the business of supporting free peoples.  Under the Obama administration, the Green Revolution was quickly and violently snuffed out by the thugs in Iran while Obama stood silent.   Obama granted Cuba huge unilateral concessions and recognition even though it vowed it would not change and Cuban dissidents were not invited to the opening ceremony marking the restoration of diplomatic ties.  In his most recent South American tour, he told the not Argentinians not to get stuck on any particular ideology, but go with “whatever works,” begging the question of “for whom does it work?”  We have given the cold shoulder to the only functioning democracy in the Middle East and the Obama administration was even discovered to have supported Netanyahu’s opposition.  After eight years of abandonment, taking the call from Taiwan was a powerful message that the U.S. is once again prepared to stand with free peoples.

Third, it was a negotiating lever.  With Cuba, Russia and Iran, Obama had a bad habit of granting unilateral concessions in the false hope that it would buy him something.  We opened an embassy and took Cuba off the list of sponsors of terror.  We unilaterally withdrew our planned anti-missile defense system from Poland and the Czech Republic and got nothing for it.  We chased the mullahs around like love struck teenagers and permitted them to self report compliance (no anytime, anywhere inspections) and promised to help them defend their nuclear program.  The call with Taiwan messaged to China and the rest of the world that the U.S. is no longer negotiating from a position of weakness and is willing to be assertive once again in staking out our position.

Obama promised to pivot East in his foreign policy.  This is what pivoting East looks like.