As President Trump travels to China today, his original plans for the visit have been upended. He wanted to arrive as a triumphant conqueror but increasingly resembles a supplicant. Will he strike a “Two T’s” deal – a grand bargain that trades Taipei for Tehran?
Trump has periodically voiced his irritation with China, but at bottom he respects – and even admires – President Xi Jinping as the kind of tough guy that he can do business with on a variety of fronts. The most important one has become Iran, which is threatening to increase its nuclear enrichment program and successfully defying Trump’s threats to blow it into oblivion.
China is Iran’s biggest backer. It previously pushed Tehran into ceasefire talks with Washington. Now Trump is dismissing Iran’s response to his latest peace proposal as “garbage.” He also stated that the ceasefire itself is “on life support.”
China could change that. The price could be high but not necessarily higher than Trump is willing to pay. That foreign policy savant Snoop Dogg once declared that “if the ride is more fly then you must buy.” Trump will be in a buying mood in Beijing, which views America as a declining power ripe to be supplanted. Perhaps Trump will terminate his pending arms sales to Taiwan, making an eventual reunification by force easier. For a president who is already attenuating, if not severing, American ties to NATO, it might make perfect sense to disburden himself of Taiwan, another vestige of American Cold War policy.
Trump will be in a buying mood in Beijing, which views America as a declining power ripe to be supplanted
The legacy of the old war that Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio seem truly fixated by is another island nation. Cuba is seen as easy pickings by Trump and his advisers. Trump declared yesterday that he would like to make Venezuela the 51st state. Cuba could be number 52. According to Axios, an invasion could be imminent.
There is scant enthusiasm among Americans for another military adventure abroad. But Trump appears bored by quotidian politics. Inflation has surged to 3.8 percent. Consumer confidence has dropped below 50 percent. Wage growth is not keeping pace with price hikes. But Trump seems unruffled, averring that “if gas prices rise, then let it rise. It doesn’t concern me.”
The most the President will go for is a suspension of the federal gas tax, which is a mere 18.3 cents. Suspending it would help bankrupt the teetering Federal Highway Fund but do little, if anything, to reduce the financial pinch that consumers are experiencing as a result of Trump’s war.
Anyway, with OPEC oil output at a two-decade low, prices are bound to keep rising. The only thing that can lower them is an agreement with Iran. But as Robert Kagan notes in a perspicuous and widely cited essay in the Atlantic called “Checkmate in Iran,” Trump is well on the road to a historic defeat that could shatter American prestige and power.
Instead of acknowledging his predicament, Trump is fixated on projecting an illusory image of imperial strength. At a moment of economic difficulties, Trump is demanding a billion dollars for his gaudy ballroom from a reluctant Congress. Last night he tweeted out an image of a $100 bill with his glowering visage. It was dubbed a “Federal Victory Note” and on the reverse side it was emblazoned with “God Bless Donald Trump.” But where’s the victory?
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