Fareed: The Trump Effect - Allies Embarrassed, Foes Gloating

[yallerdawg]

WaPo Opinion Page: Trump is turning other countries against the United States

Look at Mexico. For generations, this was a country defined by fiery anti-Americanism. Founded by a radical revolutionary movement, fueled by anger against U.S. imperialism and high-handedness, Mexico would rarely cooperate with Washington. Since the 1990s, the landscape has shifted, indeed almost reversed. Thanks to intelligent leadership in Mexico City and consistent bipartisan engagement by Washington, the United States and Mexico have become friendly neighbors, active trading partners and allies in national security.
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All of this could change easily. Over the past year, as Trump has attacked and demeaned Mexico and its people, the political landscape there has shifted. President Enrique Peña Nieto’s already declining approval ratings plummeted after he was seen as too conciliatory toward Trump. It is now quite possible — in fact, likely — that the next president of Mexico will be an anti-American socialist-populist similar to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was polling at about 10 percent at the start of 2015. He is now at about 30 percent, the front-runner among the potential candidates in next year’s election.

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Now consider South Korea. Trump’s demand that Seoul pay for the THAAD missile defense system, threatening to overturn the existing agreement with Washington, has fueled the forces in South Korea that oppose that system in the first place, along with any aggressive military measures against North Korea. Trump has casually delivered a number of slights to one of the United States’ closest allies, accepting wholesale China’s claim that Korea once belonged to it and threatening to tear up the U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement. South Korea is facing a snap election for its presidency, and the candidate who is benefiting most from Trump’s antics is the left-wing Moon Jae-in. Anti-Americanism has returned to South Korea in force, though not quite as strongly as in Mexico, where Trump’s favorability has been recorded at 3 percent.

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In foreign policy, great statesmen always keep in mind one crucial reality: Every country has its own domestic politics. Crude rhetoric, outlandish demands, poorly thought-through policies and cheap shots all place foreign leaders in a box. They can’t be perceived as surrendering to the United States, and certainly not to a nation led by someone who is determined to show that for the United States to win, others must lose. That’s one big difference, among many, between doing a real estate deal and managing foreign policy.

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R

[murielm99]

2. When my daughter lived in Bolivia,

I would ask her how people there were reacting to things going on in the U.S. She often told me that they had their own concerns, and she did not know. People seldom approached her or discussed those things with her. I wonder how it is now.

She lives in Toronto now, after marrying a Canadian citizen. He won't come here any more. He is afraid of us.

She votes in every election here, though. She never misses a single one. I think it might be tough to be an expat right now.