The Hole Keeps Getting Deeper

There’s a saying I remember from my army days; ‘when you’re in a hole, stop digging.’ Watching the trajectory of events in US politics over the past several weeks that saying keeps coming to mind.

I sometimes wonder if I’m being paranoid in my fear that in both domestic and international relations, we’ve been dropped in a big pit, and the shoveler-in-chief, rather than stopping and reflecting on the consequences of his actions and words, just continues to dig.

Here are the indicators that worry me.

On the one hand, we bag the Iran nuclear deal that, while not perfect, was a step in the right direction, while at the same time push frantically forward to make a ‘deal’ with the North Korean regime over an existing nuclear weapons capability—which, by the way, North Korea is unlikely to ever relinquish. We have people scrambling to organize a June 12 summit meeting before we’ve had all of the preliminary meetings to set the stage for a realistically productive summit. A case of putting the cart before the horse if I’ve ever seen one. The summit will, in my opinion, based upon over thirty years of experience in international relations as a diplomatic practitioner, either be a total bust, and leave us in worse shape than before, or it will be a colossal PR exercise with both leaders claiming a public relations victory. The North Koreans will be going into the summit with a victory of sorts—Kim Jong-un has already been blessed with desired legitimacy merely by Trump agreeing to the meeting.

The other troubling sign (or signs) relate to our deteriorating relations with our G-7 allies. Tariffs on Canadian goods for ‘national security’ reasons, causing Canada to be a bit cheesed off with us. Man, when the Canadians are mad at you, things are really bad. The administration’s response to this: ‘our relations with our allies are a 10, because the people smile at me.’ And then there’s the call for including Russia in the G-7, making it the G-8. I’m sure the Russians like that, but the G-7, in response to our heavy-handed and bullying approach is already the G-6 plus a weak one. How is including Russia in the G-7 contributing to US security, when our own actions are threatening to embroil us in a global trade war that will cause many American industries and workers to take it ‘in the shorts’ when the affected countries retaliate. Who is the winner from this suggestion? Why, the Russians, of course.

Then, there was the action to relax sanctions against the Chinese firm ZTE, to help reduce Chinese unemployment. How does that help the US economically or politically? ZTE is a company that has long been suspected of unsavory anti-US activities, both economic and security related. So, if we relax sanctions, we help China, but what US company or individual benefits? I think most rational people who follow events closely enough know the answer to that question, and those helped by this action are all in the same family.

We’re so deep in a hole now, it’s hard to see the rim. And, what are we doing? We keep digging.