Conrad Black
No one would call Donald Trump a sophisticated geopolitician, (including Donald Trump). But in practice, he is. He is not a historian, but he is a realistic analyst of the present and is building a fine future for his country. Americans sense this, and will respond to it.*
"Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the outline of a coherent Trump foreign policy is emerging and succeeding. The elements were to withdraw from the role as the default war-maker in the Middle East without creating a vacuum, render Russia less adversarial without facing it down into the arms of the Chinese, and revitalize the Western Alliance to a plausible notion of multilateral contributions and not just an American military guarantee for everyone, ex gratia and pro bono.
At the same time, there would be unrestricted war on terrorist organizations, a revival of nuclear non-proliferation by direct and overbearing threats to North Korea and Iran, and the reconstruction of America’s status as the world’s preeminent economy by tax reductions, deregulation, renegotiation of trade treaties, and encouragement of energy self-sufficiency.
There have been some unfortunate moments from a presentational standpoint, but it is a good plan and it is working.
Changing the Game in the MideastTurkey had attempted to masquerade as the patron of the Arabs and was sent packing in remembrance of the Arabs’ 500 years of involuntary enjoyment of Turkish occupation, and after a regional musical chairs game with ancient rivals Iran and Russia, all pretending a common cause in Syria. Turkey was left standing when the music stopped and largely has reconciled with the United States. The two countries will operate joint patrols to keep the Kurds from aggravating Kurdish discontent within Anatolia (Turkish Asia Minor)." . . .
. . . "Trump has struck up and retained a cordial personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but has steadily moved to break down China’s trade surplus with the United States, encouraged China’s neighbors to join hands in resisting Chinese hegemony in the Far East, and used the preeminence of the United States Navy to assure that the Chinese effort to convert the South China Sea into Chinese territorial waters does not succeed." . . .
. . . "The fixation of the Democrats, and of some gullible Republicans such as Marco Rubio, on the Russians, and the unutterable but now scarcely audible nonsense about collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign in 2016, has caused many Americans to forget the strategic correlation of forces in the world. But the president and his close advisors have realized that Russia could only be dangerous if it were so coldly rebuffed before the whole world that it were driven into the arms of China.". . .
*Provided those bastions of courageous international relations, any Democrat, for example, don't depose this President and return America to Obama's guilt-ridden international subservience. The Tunnel Dweller
Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world as owner of the British telegraph newspapers, the Fairfax newspapers in Australia, the Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and scores of smaller newspapers in the U.S., and most of the daily newspapers in Canada. He is the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, one-volume histories of the United States and Canada, and most recently of Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. He is a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour.
