Author: Kim Hjelmgaard / Source: USA TODAY
President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to appeal for political unity, offering Americans a choice between “greatness and gridlock” while claiming to have shown strength facing down international threats from Iran to North Korea.
But political scientists said the speech masked an essential point: Trump’s foreign policy has exacerbated many of the problems he’s trying to solve, claimed credit for progress to which it is not entitled and alienated key allies along the way.
And those foreign partners – and even the foes – from Asia to Europe, from Latin America to the Middle East, voted with their rhetoric Wednesday by meeting Trump’s speech with silence.In fact, with the exception of a spokesman for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who welcomed Trump’s announcement of a second summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, Feb. 27 and 28, few said it warranted paying close attention.
More: Trump to meet Kim Jong Un in Vietnam for the pair’s second summit
More: State of the Union: The chance of Trump’s agenda getting through Congress and other takeaways
“My review of Trump’s second SOTU? Mostly the usual spurious assertions related to foreign policy,” said Karin von Hippel, a former senior counterterrorism adviser in the U.S. State Department and now director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank that specializes in defense and military affairs.
Hippel noted Trump’s speech did not even really mention his national security strategy and assertions such as that NATO members were spending more on defense because of pressure on the military alliance by his administration failed to acknowledge that non-U.S. spending on NATO has been increasing since 2015, before he took office.
“Trump said the U.S. would be at war with North Korea if it weren’t for him, even though it is hard to imagine another leader ratcheting up the rhetoric to such a dangerous level,” Hippel said, referring to various incendiary barbs traded between Kim and Trump before they agreed to pursue face-to-face diplomacy over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons ambitions. She added that Trump’s claim in the speech of a new approach to fighting the Islamic State group as being responsible for its defeat was also misleading.
“He has largely followed the Obama playbook,” she said. “And by the way, ISIS still poses a significant threat, even if it has lost most of its territory in Syria and Iraq.”
Late last year, Trump declared that ISIS had been defeated and announced plans to withdraw troops from Syria.
Martin Bialecki, who edits “Internationale Politik” and “Berlin Policy Journal,” two Germany-based publications with a focus on international affairs, said Trump’s address was an “America Alone” speech.
“He made a lot of reference to World War II and the great history of the U.S. in that regard. He also made it crystal clear that the U.S. will not be reclaiming political leadership any time soon. Trump preferred to…
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