Joe Biden Destroyed America’s Standing on the World Stage – The recent, eye-opening, and, frankly, bizarre interview that former President Donald J. Trump did with Fox News’ Bret Baer has generated quite a bit of controversy. It has become the Baskin 31 of interviews, offering something for any interested viewer.
A point of contention has arisen from Trump’s interview involving his stated concern that, under Joe Biden, America’s standing in the world has collapsed.
For Liberals, who believe themselves to be the most virtuous and beloved people of all Americans, Trump’s words were basically the equivalent of rubbing holy water on a vampire.
Certainly, America’s popular image under Trump was not that great. Populations around the world, according to polling conducted over the course of Trump’s presidency, consistently indicated that many audiences globally disliked the orange man in the White House.
‘Tis Better to Be Feared Than Loved
But that wasn’t what Trump was referring to when he was speaking with Baer. Instead, the forty-fifth president was talking about the way that the world’s leaders interacted with the United States and formulated their policies toward America while Trump was president.
The fact of the matter is that the world–specifically, world leaders–did have a very different view of the United States.
They feared America under Trump.
And because of that fear, the world’s powers were prevented from taking advantage of the United States the way they normally did.
What’s more, as everyone by now knows, wars involving the United States were nonexistent under Trump. This was because the world’s tyrants feared Trump. During his time in office, Democrats often excoriated Trump for being “too friendly” or “admiring” the world’s dictators.
Sure, Trump did seem to have a creepy affinity for some of the nastiest dictators out there. But, that’s likely because he envied their ability to squelch domestic opposition.
Trump, however, did not seek to make the United States a patsy of dictators.
Instead, Trump sought to have respectful relations with America’s enemies while standing firm against their hostility. Plus, Trump’s braggadocio and his apparent unpredictability contributed significantly to American rivals staying their hand when it came to courting conflict with America.
Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean leaders did not know what to expect from Trump.
Handling America’s Foes
The former president may have spoken in flowery language about Russia’s Vladimir Putin. At the same time, though, Trump had no qualms about blasting apart nearly 400 Russian mercenaries in Eastern Syria, when the Russians appeared poised to overtake a small base of US Special Forces commandos.
Putin refused several opportunities to invade Ukraine—something that he immediately did once Trump was out of office and Biden was in—because he feared Trump’s unpredictable personality.
Which Trump was he going to get, the Trump who pined for a healthier, stabler relationship with Putin?
Or the Trump who just annihilated 400 Russian mercenaries in a place, like Syria, that Trump did not even care about?
Putin chose not to find out. The fear factor and uncertainty were simply too much for the wannabe tsar to bear. He stayed his hand because he both feared and respected Trump.
Similarly, Trump spent most of the 2016 presidential campaign lambasting China. At one point, Trump claimed China had been “raping” the United States in trade. He was right. His rhetoric left some squeamish Liberals sore but the barbaric language he deployed to describe China was in itself a message to Beijing: there’s a new sheriff in town.
In fact, his first act in foreign policy, even before he was sworn in, was to make a controversial phone call with the pro-independence leader of Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-Wen.
From there, Trump crafted a severe trade war aimed at extracting a more favorable trade deal with China over agricultural goods. Contrary to what the free trader-types in the West said of the trade war, the Trump Administration got what it needed.
According to Yang Zhou, an economist at China’s prestigious Fudan University “China’s GDP loss as a result of [Trump’s agricultural trade war] was three times as high as the U.S.” In December 2019, the People’s Republic did, in fact, sign a new trade deal that was more favorable to the United States—despite the damage that was done to the US agricultural sector.
Then, Trump enacted an onerous tech war that was designed to curb China’s access to America’s high-tech sector, specifically to America’s high-tech computer chips.
The tech war did extensive damage to China’s indigenous tech sector. What’s more, it set back Chinese attempts to dominate the Fourth-Industrial Revolution. Beijing was enduring multiple crises, exacerbated by the Trump Administration’s firm Chinese policies.
Trump also used force to contain Iran, which was breaking out of its containment after the failed policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Assassinating top Iranian military thugs while threatening greater military action against Iran and pulling the US out of the Obama era nuclear weapons deal, Trump signaled to that troubled region that America was not going to be pushed around anymore by the mad mullahs.
Beyond that, Trump used that strength to bring about a coordination of interests between the Jewish democracy of Israel and the Sunni Arab monarchies of the Gulf—notably the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
When Trump left office, it looked as though we might have been on the cusp of a Mideast NATO of sorts. Sadly, Biden killed that.
Today, once stalwart US allies, like Saudi Arabia, are becoming willing pawns of China. Israel, meanwhile, increasingly finds itself as the odd man out in that hostile region. Iran is now expanding its power in the Middle East, thanks to the weakness that the Biden Administration has demonstrated.
And then there was Trump’s unorthodox North Korean policy. Initially, it looked as though nuclear war with the crazed North Korean leader was at hand in 2017. Trump’s consistent public displays of strength appear to have dissuaded Kim Jong-un.
Rather than pushing his red button (which Trump publicly assured Kim was smaller than his), Trump got a ceasefire of sorts with North Korea. While he did not end the nuclear threat from North Korea, which continued developing their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, Trump did get Kim to stop popping off ICBMs like they were fireworks on the Fourth of July.
That, in turn, slowed the development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. It also gave everyone a chance to save-face and hit the reset button.
Here again, Trump’s unpredictable nature served him well. Thanks to Trump, he got Kim Jong-un to be more careful in the nuclear weapons arena, at least for a short time, which was a win in itself.
With Friends Like These…
As for America’s traditional allies, it is true that Trump aggravated them greatly. But their ire was born out of the fact that they could no longer bilk the American people. In the case of NATO, for example, Trump insisted that the members pay their fair share and stop relying exclusively on the Americans to keep them safe.
Thanks to Trump’s toughness with American allies, for the first time in decades, NATO states started paying more for their collective defense.
Respect and fear was imbued among the foreign leaders of the world. For all the talk about how unpopular Trump made America with ordinary people around the world—which is not exactly true, considering that no country’s populace is monolithic and Trump absolutely did have fans all over the world—Trump got major victories, thanks to his relationships with foreign leaders.
Trump was the Better President
That behavior had real, positive strategic impacts for the United States. It made America stronger. Further, Trump’s behavior prevented a major war from breaking out for all four years of his time in office.
That’s more than can be said for his successor.
So, Trump was right to worry about America’s standing int the world under Joe Biden’s “leadership.”
Frankly, America has little standing in the world. Even America’s allies are disrespecting Washington; returning to the horrible status quo that existed before Trump.
These are facts that Trump’s political opponents are just going to have to live with. He was a great president for bettering America’s standing in the world.
As Donald Rumsfeld used to say, “Weakness is provocative, strength deters.” Trump deterred a lot of threats by being so strong. It’d be nice if Biden were capable of that, too.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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