Back in January 2017, I made three foreign policy predictions about the Trump administration and promised to revisit those predictions by December 15, 2018. Well, here I am and sad to say, at best, the results are mixed.
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- Let’s start with prediction number 2 first: “Therefore, I predict China will test Mr. Trump early by engaging with gunfire any U. S. aircraft or ship in the South China Sea area. The engagements will continue until Mr. Trump publicly acknowledges there is only one China and that it controls access to the South China Sea.”
This one I’m getting right, but the results are incomplete and complicated. After he won the election, Mr. Trump called President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan and promised to reverse the “one-China” policy. He later backed down from that threat after his inauguration. In 2017 Beijing deployed a nuclear powered naval carrier to a group of highly disputed islands in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands. In January 2018, China warned the United States that it would “defend its sovereignty” in the disputed area. In April 2018, China conducted military exercises that included 10,000 troops, 48 naval vessels and 76 fighter jets in the region. In August 2018, A U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane overflying the area was warned six times to leave the area immediately. In October 2018, the USS Decatur nearly collided with China’s Luyang destroyer in the disputed region. The U.S says the Chinese provoked the incident. The Chinese say the U.S. ship was in its territorial waters.
I still think there will be an exchange of gunfire between the two nations at some point in this region, but it hasn’t happened – yet. We are clearly on the path to an armed incident whether intentionally or accidentally. It will happen, but it didn’t happen within the two year time span of my prediction.
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- Prediction number 3: “I predict that Mr. Trump will remove all of the economic sanctions put in place by President Obama, including those because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, despite vigorous Congressional disapproval and remove U. S. troops from the NATO rotation in Poland. The missiles in Romania will stay for the moment, but don’t be surprised if the U.S. pulls out of the NATO “anti-missile shield” program before the end of 2018.”
Technically, I was flat out wrong on this one. Why technically? Because in July 2017, the U. S. Congress passed by a veto proof majority a law that imposed new sanctions on Russia and limited the President’s ability to remove them. Mr. Trump signed the bill into law, but has been slow to implement the new penalties. So, Mr. Trump didn’t remove the economic sanction because he couldn’t without Congressional approval. He hasn’t removed the troops from Poland because Poland has offered a permanent American base in Poland and promised to name it “Fort Trump” appealing to the President’s vanity. Nevertheless, Congress directed the Pentagon to submit a report to it no later than March 1, 2019, on the feasibility and advisability of permanently stationing U.S. forces in Poland. If a military base is established in Poland, the U.S. could not afford to scrap the “anti-missile shield” program in Europe nor can it pull out of NATO despite the President’s comments or desire to the contrary.
In short, the President couldn’t remove Russian sanctions because of Congress, although he clearly wanted to and he can’t remove troops from Poland because of Congressional action – again.
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- Prediction number 1: Therefore, I predict Mr. Trump will use the U.S. military as his personal property police when his real estate and personal property are attacked.
I saved this prediction for last, not because it was wrong – it was, but because my thinking was too small. The United States has never had a sitting President who own personal property and real estate in another country. This fact took on a new life with Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer pleading guilty to lying to Congress relative to the President’s business dealings with Russia. According to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, Mr. Trump hid during the 2016 Presidential campaign that he was negotiating with the Kremlin to put a “Trump Tower” hotel in Moscow while telling the American public he had “no dealings with Russia.”
Look, Mr. Trump never got to test this prediction because none of his real estate properties were attacked by outside interests during the past two years. Two years later, looking back at this prediction, it never occurred to me that the President of the United States would blatantly use his position to personally enrich himself, but that is apparently what happened according to his former lawyer.
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Back in 2017, I said “President Trump’s foreign policy will be determined by where he owns property, Russia and China.” To a certain extent, sadly all of that was partially true with Trump real estate deals, Russian election interference and Chinese trade tariffs, but my predictions were in fact off. However, we, as a nation, are currently on a path that very well could result in these predictions coming true in 2019. Therefore, I’m going to revisit them again no later than December 15, 2019 (unless I’m dead, in which case this site won’t even exist) and see how accurate these predictions ultimately were. (And I promise not to revisit them again after December 15, 2019).
