Own goals

The Trump Administration has had a busy few days committing what look to me like “own” goals, that is goals scored against the interests of the United States and its citizens. Let me list them:

1. Renunciation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP): this will please no country more than China, which correctly saw TPP as an effort to ensure American influence in Asia and limit Beijing’s sway with its neighbors. If you believe that Beijing aims at regional political and economic as well as military hegemony, the path is far more open today than it was last week.
2. An executive order instructing government agencies to act to the maximum extent permitted by law to undo the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare: before issuing this order, the Republicans had some chance of convincing people that Obamacare was collapsing under its own weight, but now the administration has taken on responsibility for destabilizing the system Obama established. A replacement is nowhere in sight, so 20 million people will likely have Trump to blame for getting nervous about losing their health insurance (and maybe eventually losing it).
3. The pledge to prevent China from “taking over” international territories in the South China Sea: It is difficult to imagine how this would be implemented in practice if not by war, but just as important is that several other countries friendly to the US have also built islands in the South China Sea, well before China embarked on that enterprise. Even to pretend to be consistent, we would need to block take overs by at least Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, which wouldn’t get us far in enlisting their help against the Chinese.
4. A rambling and partly incoherent speech at the CIA that disrespected the intelligence community with which he was trying to repair relations: If I hadn’t been told he was a teetotaler, I’d have thought him tipsy. He brought a claque to applaud and managed to say little (some would say nothing) to suggest that he appreciated or understood the sacrifices our intelligence operatives and analysts have to make.
5. Continued insistence on obvious lies: These include gross overstatements of the crowds at Friday’s inauguration as well as the number of people who voted illegally. The media is now getting used to calling out these falsehoods bluntly. Republican members of Congress, who are the only hope for upending this administration, should be chagrined. Trumpkins will continue to believe the lies, but there is no evidence that the majority of Americans are Trumpkins.
   

The nationwide demonstrations Saturday suggested the opposite: the reservoir of people concerned with protecting Obama’s achievements is large and activated. Trump wisely avoided denouncing the demonstrations, which suggests someone in the new administration understands the risks involved in alienating women, the men who support their rights, and perhaps even minorities, who turned out in force. Few previous administrations have excited such opposition so early, none on the scale of last weekend.

More own goals await. With Israel expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is likely to arouse a strong Arab reaction, one that could damage warming Sunni relations with Israel and handicap the administration’s intended hostility towards Iran. Ditto any move to ban Muslims from entering the US. The hostility to Iran, if realized, could hurt prospects for cooperation with Russia, which is allied with Iran in supporting Bashar al Assad in Syria. Trump has promised to “eradicate” violent Islamic extremism. That would require a far greater presence abroad of American troops and civilians than the administration has indicated it wants. Trump’s reference to a possible future opportunity to “take Iraq’s oil,” which is an obvious war crime, will have generated resentment in the Arab world and should generate concern in America about the possibility of massive new intervention abroad.

The Trump administration is rife with contradictions. The more it attempts to realize its radical changes in American foreign and domestic policy, the more apparent those contradictions will become. Admittedly, I don’t wish Trump well. But if the last few days are any indication, the administration will fail on its own way before its opponents have gotten organized to make it do so.

PS: For those in need of comic relief:

PPS: And this, from the Dutch: