Dem
47
GOP
53
Trump likes being a divider, setting one person or one country against another. But some of his actions have been unifiers. In particular, he is busy driving India, the world's largest democracy and a longtime U.S. ally, into an informal cooperation with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. That's a pretty large and powerful bloc, with 3.1 billion people vs. 780 million for the U.S. and E.U. combined. To save you the trouble of firing up your favorite calculator app, team dictatorship is 4x bigger than team democracy.
Trump seems aware of the basic facts, but not the consequences (e.g., sending soldiers or weapons to help each other, coordinating their economies, resisting U.S. demands). On Friday, he posted a message to his boutique social media site reading: "Looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China." This loss wasn't an act of God, Vishnu, or Shiva. It was an act of Trump, triggered by his slapping a 50% tariff on imports from India to punish India. Turns out India has a couple of cards also. He didn't use ALL CAPS, incidentally. Maybe the satirical tweets from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) are upsetting him.
In addition, at the meeting of the Russian, North Korean and Chinese leaders in China, a few other countries' leaders showed up, including Egypt, Turkey, and Vietnam. Trump hasn't made them full-fledged partners of China yet, but he is working on it. Brazil and South Africa could also loosely affiliate themselves with China and friends. Trump may end up changing the geopolitical alignment in the world. How does this new order help the United States, especially since the E.U. now treats the U.S. with suspicion? It isn't "America First," it is "America alone." Next time Trump needs help from the world (e.g., to catch a terrorist), well... good luck with that.
In pointless pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump claimed he has solved the conflict between India and Pakistan. That is complete nonsense. Among other things, it is a long-standing principle of Indian politics that the (usually) cold war between India and Pakistan must be resolved by India and Pakistan alone. No third-party intervention is acceptable to India. Trump's claim is very insulting to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In addition, having been subjected to 200 years of British colonial rule, India is extremely sensitive to other countries trying to push it around. Trump is completely oblivious to this.
India doesn't want to be pushed around by China, either, so it is not "lost" forever. Its "crime" is buying Russian oil. If Trump were a bit smarter—or listened to people who are, say, Rick Perry—he could have tried diplomacy and offered to sell American oil to India at a good price instead of driving it into the arms of the Chinese. Forcing the E.U. to buy American oil when the E.U. is rapidly moving away from oil makes no sense. It's not going to do it right now, but India would be happy to buy American oil if the price were right. There is no Nobel Prize in the category "Stupidity," though Trump may yet win himself a Darwin Award.
Trump learned the strategy of backing his rivals and enemies into a corner and then threatening them with harsh consequences from the dog-eat-dog world of New York real estate dealings. That doesn't work so well against large countries that have plenty of cards. He seems to have missed that. Maybe he forgot Roy Cohn's warning that you bully only opponents who are much weaker than you and who can't fight back. (V)