Threatening Friends and Courting Enemies

New York Times: “Once again, President Trump is threatening his country’s own partners with everything from tariffs to bombs. Once again, he is fawning over a nuclear-armed tyrant deemed to be one of the biggest dangers to U.S. security. And once again, the world is left trying to make sense of a United States that has upended the world order that it established eight decades ago.”

“Nearly 10 years after Mr. Trump first came to the White House on the slogan of America First, his attack-thy-friends, befriend-thy-enemies approach to international relations has become the feature, not the bug, of U.S. foreign policy. Traditional alliances from Europe to Asia to the Middle East have frayed while the president courts those once seen as its adversaries.”

“Even so, the past few days have thrown the Trumpian worldview into stark relief.”