Foreign Relations?

Well after a couple of years of this administration, have we seen improvement in any of our foreign initiatives?

According to the dontard he has accomplished great things, but lets think about it.

We are embroiled in what looks to be an escalating trade war with China that shows almost no signs of improvement.  It is clearly in the interests of both parties to resolve it, but progress seems non-existent and while China is losing some market, we are paying the tariffs, losing our ability to export commodities there and it will cost us jobs.  Not a great accomplishment yet.

North Korea was ballyhooed but it seems like nothing has really changed.  They are still developing Nuclear Weapons and we are still imposing sanctions.

Iran was going to be forced to give up supporting terrorists and be forced to the negotiating table after we withdrew from a deal they were complying with.  They aren't negotiating and might be attacking cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Russia has continued its aggressive behavior and continues to consolidate its gains in the Ukraine.  No progress at all.

We decided to try to effect regime change in Venezuela but so far it hasn't worked and has led to an expansion of Russian and Cuban influence in the area.

We had started to see a bit of a thaw with Cuba, but that seems to be over now.

We have managed to evict ISIS from its strongholds on the land but the organization is not destroyed.

Syria, with Russian support seems to have no chance at regime change.

Israel, at least the hardliners there may be receptive to our action of moving the Embassy to disputed Jerusalem, but that obviously strengthens the terrorist recruiting ability.

Many of our allies now think we are unreliable and while some of them have increased defense spending, it hasn't led to a reduction in ours.

Canada and Mexico still haven't agreed to a new trade agreement and while they are likely to, it is very similar to the one we had.

Most of the world looks at us as unpredictable and unreliable, which might be the plan.  If its a good strategy is a matter of opinion.

These are the major areas, but the list could continue, our reductions in foreign aid, but I'm just not seeing any great accomplishments.

Not really seeing what I would call accomplishments at all.

North Korea

Yesterday marked the 65th anniversary of the armistice that stopped the fighting in the Korean war and it also saw the return of some remains of soldiers who died in that war.

Obviously the symbolism of the first had something to do with the timing of the second, but certainly there is nothing bad about returning the remains.

North Korea is one of the most closed societies on the planet and has a lot to gain from normal diplomatic relations.

It finally got some recognition with the threat of nuclear weapons and since those were its best bargaining chips, its going to play them carefully.

Its main goals would appear to be the formalization of peace, the removal of sanctions, and the removal of the American troops in the South.

There may be other things, but they will become obvious as time passes.

Our position seems to simply be the elimination of their nuclear program when for all these years it was tied to other objectives, like a reduction of the threat to the South.

North Korea is a country that would hardly be worth talking about except they have managed, despite being a fairly backward nation, to maintain a large military presence and have represented a threat to peace in the Korean peninsula since the 1950s.

They also have seemingly figured out that our dontard is mostly interested in getting his ego stroked and public relations so they can proceed without much real cost.

Still any progress there is a good thing, as long as the threat to the South is curtailed.

Its just hard t imagine they aren't ready to unify the peninsula as soon as we leave.

Talking is Good?

With the surprise announcement that we will have a high level meeting with North Korea between the heads of state, we seem to be making progress.

Discussions are better than simply tweeting back and forth and possibly some real progress will be made.

It should be noted that getting the American President to meet with this dictator on equal terms is a great prestige builder for him but if it eases the chance of a nuclear war, so be it.

It should be noted that while we pay a lot of attention to it, North Korea is an economically distressed dictatorship that has managed to scrape together something of a nuclear program.

Still its a promising sign.

We also have the watered down steel and aluminum tariffs that exclude Canada and Mexico now.

The end result of these is undetermined, but its unlikely to end well.

Hopefully saner minds will prevail and its likely he is doing it to appeal to a part of his base that has been hurt by loss of these jobs.

The greatest growth opportunities for business is in the developing world and pursuing those opportunities involves a favorable trade environment.

Of course we also need to be competitive in what we offer, but creating trade barriers or withdrawing form trade agreements will hurt those opportunities.

Yes, it allows trade in both directions, so it creates winners and losers.

Of course cheaper prices are good for everyone ultimately.

President Strangelove

When you look at the devastation the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused you also have to realize that today's bombs are much more devastating.

Science and technology certainly don't stand still.

We have gone 72 years since that event and haven't seen another one used as a weapon.

During the cold war and maybe especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis we seemed close at times but bot sides realized that it was in fact MAD to start such a war.

There can be no winners, only losers.

Consider two countries that concern us North Korea and Iran.

Iran, by all accounts, doesn't have a nuclear capability and has agreed to suspend or dismantle required technology for  period of time in exchange for the lifting of certain sanctions,

The agreement certainly isn't perfect but it would achieve its intended purpose.

It wouldn't achieve results that weren't included as part of it which is of course true of every agreement.

We all know that any agreement entered into by the previous administration is going to be called inadequate.  We know that the current occupant is a jealous person.

However, the agreement was likely as good as we were gonna get but if he tries to renegotiate it we'll see if he can get anything at all.

North Korea is however a different kettle of fish.

They already have the bomb and perhaps a means of delivery.

While clearly we could wipe the country from the face of the earth, it wouldn't be consequence free.

Further, if just one bomb got sent to a major city, the devastation would be horrific, beyond our prior knowledge of horrific.

We also have a much less stable leadership group there.  Of course our leadership is totally unstable.

We may be closer to a nuclear catastrophe than even during the cold war, mainly because the person in charge is mentally unstable and unreliable.

Of course I doubt any of North Korea's allies would launch nukes to defend that country, it would end up being MAD.

They aren't led by morons after all.