ELECTION/FOREIGN POLICY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump had hoped to head into the 2020 campaign season as the world’s consummate deal-maker. He may instead enter his reelection campaign not just empty-handed, but vulnerable to the charge that his policies have helped sow chaos across the globe. His trade war with China keeps escalating, with mounting costs to the U.S. economy. Diplomatic overtures to Iran and North Korea have so far failed to yield the president’s desired outcome. Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan, two years in the making, is nowhere to be seen. And America’s retreat from Syria, where the president once boasted he had defeated ISIS, has allowed the terrorist group to regenerate, according to a new Pentagon inspector general’s report. Trump’s critics see these data points as alarming signs that the president is out of his depth on international affairs, if not complicit in the breakdown of global order. And while his allies enthusiastically support his efforts to squeeze Iran, some are quietly nervous — if not openly scornful — of his policies elsewhere.”
–Eliana Johnson, “Trump’s vision meets growing global chaos,” Politico, August 8, 2019 5:01 am