Trump’s Contradictory Moves on the World Stage Confound Ally and Foe, but Are They Effective?

World allies and adversaries want to know: Does President Trump’s style — quick about-faces, playing all sides against the middle, telling everyone what they want to hear, or what they’d rather not — add up to a cohesive strategy, or is it merely a result of a mercurial personality?At home, Mr. Trump for weeks trashed Zohran Mamdani as a hopeless Communist who would ruin the president’s former home town. After New Yorkers elected the uptown Islamic socialist as their mayor, Mr. Trump welcomed him as a friend at the White House, where he praised some of Mr. Mamdani’s “good ideas.” As Americans ponder such a transformation, so do people around the world. This week the president instructed the department of state to set in motion “a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” Yet the most prominent Brotherhood-supporting countries, Qatar and Turkey, are missing from the press release.Also this week, Mr. Trump’s aides leaked a 28-point plan for ending the Ukraine war, which sounded suspiciously like a Moscow “wish list.” Later in the week, though, an American plan containing some contradictory points was accepted by Kyiv and praised by President Volodimyr Zelensky. As of this writing it isn’t clear which of the two plans, if any, would end the war. The dizzying ride also puzzled Asians. A major Tokyo-Beijing row erupted after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated the obvious last week in parliament: Japan sees Free China as a vital ally, and will fight Communist China if it tries to capture Taiwan. Mr. Trump made a lengthy phone call to President Xi Jinping on Monday. A White House readout didn’t mention Taiwan. Next, the president called Ms. Takaichi on Tuesday, after which she said that Mr. Trump is her “good friend.”So if the Muslim Brotherhood is a dangerous terrorist entity, why wouldn’t its top sponsors also be designated as such? And if the Russians are right that they should own Ukraine’s Dunbas region after invading it, why worry about Kyiv’s protests? And if a trade agreement with Communist China is so vital to America’s economy why not just cede Taiwan to its would-be Beijing predator?Some of those things might happen, or not, and keeping ally and foe guessing might advance America’s interests. Yet as the executive director at the New Delhi-based Hindustan Times, Shishir Gupta, tells the Sun, “if you continuously change goal posts, and your yardsticks and parameters change, then what does the other side do?”The president, though, seems to relish on keeping interlocutors on their toes. Does it work? Here are some of Mr. Trump’s inconsistencies, and how they help, or hurt America. ASIA: Pivot to Where?Fears in Asian capitals rose Monday when Mr. Trump called Mr. Xi to discuss a trade deal. The call followed a week worth of mutual accusations and threats between Tokyo and Beijing after Ms. Tackaichi said that if Communist China invaded Taiwan, Japan would respond militarily. Mr. Trump’s readout of his Monday call with Beijing was full of praise to Mr. Xi. It omitted any reference to Japan or Free China, which undoubtedly were on the Beijing strong-man’s mind. Since Ms. Takaichi made a reference to Taiwan, Mr. Xi’s rhetoric was “a typical example of bullying by the Chinese,” a Tokyo diplomat tells the Sun. Taiwan’s shores are 60 miles off of Japan’s Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as its own. A People’s Liberation Army invasion of the semi-independent democratic island would harm the economies of Japan and other allies in the region, as well as America itself.On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump called Ms. Takaichi. “Call me any time,” he said, according to the new Japanese president, who is widely seen as a tough leader a-la Margaret Thatcher. “We have faith in the U.S. and in Trump having our back,” the Tokyo diplomat said after the Tuesday call. Japan is a member, alongside Australia, India, and America, of a defense group known as the Quad, which was formed during Mr. Trump’s first term to counter Beijing’s expansionism. Pre-scheduled Quad naval exercises took place earlier this month off the shores of Guam, but Mr. Trump is yet to confirm participation in an upcoming Quad summit at New Delhi. The summit is “on the back burner until such time that President Trump decides if he wants to directly engage China, or he wants to go through a multilateral platform like the quad,” Mr. Gupta says.Delhi has been dismayed at Mr. Trump, who is chasing a trade deal with Mr. Xi, but is yet to complete a long-negotatiated similar pact with India. Similarly, Mr. Trump has praised Pakistan while keeping President Narendra Modi at arms length.By keeping all sides guessing the president seems to believe that he could get from them the best deal for America. Yet in the long run India in many ways is America’s best bet for countering Communist China’s anti-American aspirations. And Delhi might not wait forever before seeking alliances elsewhere. Middle East: Terrorists, but What About Their Sponsors? Mr. Trump’ is making the bold move of designating a movement that several of his predecessors declined to confront. Established in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood by now is a blob of various organizations unified by a jihadist ideology that seeks to enshrine Saria and Islamic values around the world, including by force and war. Legal eagles in several past administrations have debated over whether to designate the movement as a whole, or to hone-in on each of its chapters separately. Mr. Trump’s executive order on Monday seeks to designate “certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters” as foreign terrorist organizations, in order to “deprive those chapters of resources, and thereby end any threat such chapters pose to United States nationals or the national security of the United States.” Specifically, the order cited MB chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. Yet even as the mostly-Sunni countries of Jordan and Egypt constantly battle Brotherhood chapters at home, Lebanon’s main internal enemy is a very different armed group: Shiite Hezbollah.Unmentioned but likely the reason for Mr. Trump’s timing is Saudi Arabia, whose de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, visited the White House last week. Starting in 2017, a Saudi-led coalition isolated Qatar for undermining rival Arab regimes by spreading Muslim Brotherhood ideology.Doha has outlawed the Brotherhood within its borders in 1999, but its mouthpiece, Al Jazeera, is often undistinguished from Brotherhood preachers’ sermons. Mr. Trump forged strong ties with the Emir of Qatar, as well as with another Brotherhood supporter, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.These two leaders were praised by Washington for helping mediate a cease-fire agreement in Gaza. They did so by leaning on their ally, Hamas, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian chapter and currently the movement’s most violent branch. Mr. Trump’s executive order is “the start, not the finish” of designating the entire Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist, a supporter of the designation, the executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Mark Dubowitz, writes on X.Yet if the MB can be called terrorists, when would its enablers at Doha and Ankara be designated state-sponsors of terror?Europe: War’s Endgame?Who is Mr. Trump’s premier envoy? The president’s friend and top trouble shooter, Steve Witkoff, and his son in law, Jared Kushner, attempted to replicate their successful Gaza cease-fire by pushing a similar deal to end the Ukraine war. Mr. Witkoff returned from Moscow on Sunday armed with a 28-point cease-fire plan that included shrinking Ukraine’s pre-war territory and cutting the size of its military in half. Promised American security guarantees were vague, and Ukraine was banned from ever joining NATO.Mr. Trump said he expected a “take it or leave it” Ukrainian answer by Thanksgiving day. Kyiv and its European allies, though, cried foul. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then flew to Geneva to produce a very different plan. It foresaw negotiations over the Donbas region, rather than recognition of Russian ownership. It omitted the NATO ban, and, most importantly, contained strong American guarantees for Ukraine’s post-war security. Kyiv officials enthusiastically endorsed the new blueprint even as Mr. Rubio said it was a “living, breathing document.” Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, told Axios Tuesday that Mr. Trump issued “strong security guarantees, which Ukraine never had before.”Mr. Witkoff, though, was sent back to Moscow to try to sell the revised plan to President Vladimir Putin, which now seems as an uphill task. Mr. Trump nevertheless insisted on Tuesday that “only a few points of disagreement” remained between the sides. Writing on Truth Social, he expressed hope to soon meet with Messrs. Zelensky and Putin — “but only when the deal to end this war is final, or in its final stage.”By Tuesday such an outcome seemed distant. Yet if a deal is made by the end of the week, Mr. Trump’s chaotic style of negotiation will prove to be a great success.An old Jewish tale comes to mind about a rabbi who agreed with opposing arguments of two feuding neighbors. When a student asked if the rabbi didn’t contradict himself by agreeing with both sides, the wise man retorted, “you’re also right.”

Trump’s Contradictory Moves on the World Stage Confound Ally and Foe, but Are They Effective?

Trump’s Contradictory Moves on the World Stage Confound Ally and Foe, but Are They Effective?

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