Trump's 'America First' means Americans lose

[applegrove]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/global-opinions/trumps-america-first-means-americans-lose/2018/11/22/ae4d4256-eda7-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html?__twitter_impression=true

The Editorial Board - The Washington Post

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He is right: The world is dangerous and always has been. But his craven capitulation to Mr. Khashoggi’s murderers will make the world more dangerous, not less. This is not a case in which tender concern for human rights must be weighed against U.S. strategic goals. On the contrary, what Mr. Trump presents as hardheaded realism is, in fact, a grave attack on U.S. national interests.

We say this not simply because Mr. Trump’s justifications are factually fraudulent. He wildly inflates the amount of business Saudi Arabia has sent America’s way. He falls for royal flattery and fatuously allows himself to be lied to. He fails to see that Saudi Arabia is far more dependent on the United States than the reverse. He neglects the plain fact that every major action taken by the reckless crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, even before this murder, has harmed U.S. interests: his disastrous war in Yemen, which has redounded to Iran’s benefit; his failed effort to subjugate the small neighboring nation of Qatar, a U.S. ally; and his bizarre kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister, also a U.S. ally.

No, Mr. Trump’s strategic blindness runs far deeper than just misreading this alliance. He is also undermining the basic understanding that has worked to the United States’ advantage since World War II under presidents both Republican and Democratic.

Those leaders all accepted that, with less than 5 percent of global population but more than 20 percent of the global economy, the United States, more than any other nation, depends on and benefits from predictable rules. It needs a world where business executives can go forth and come home without fear of kidnapping, where ships can ply the oceans without armed escorts, where contracts are honored and disputes fairly adjudicated. It needs a world where journalists can report and inform Americans on the true conditions on the ground.


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