Here's how Donald Trump's game of musical chairs is taking a risky turn

The appointments of Pompeo and Bolton and the removal of McMaster and Tillerson suggest greater military belligerency and war risks but little substantial change.

The appointments of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to replace less hawkish members of the White House team comes at the same time as threatened new trade tariffs on China’s alleged theft of American intellectual property, a problem recognised within China, on top of tariffs on steel and aluminium, and the strengthening of US-Taiwan relations.

Those moves appear to be classic Trumpian ‘transactionalism’ – a big rhetorical roar designed to open negotiations and force concessions, or the ‘art of the deal’. This was clearly seen with steel and aluminium tariffs, initially on all states yet from which the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Argentina, are now exempt pending talks on trade and military spending. The difference, however, is that the latter are US allies while China has been declared a strategic competitor and revisionist power.

The aim seems to be to leverage US market access and military power against other states to shore up the US’ position, to reverse widely perceived ‘decline’ through America First ‘principled realism’ which US President Donald Trump claims will ‘make America great again’.

Trump threatens 'fire and fury' against North Korea if it endangers US

President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it endangered the United States, as tensions with the isolated and impoverished nuclear-armed state escalated into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet of his administration.

In chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange, Mr. Trump sought to deter North Korea from any actions that would put Americans at risk. But it was not clear what specifically would cross his line. Administration officials have said that a pre-emptive military strike, while a last resort, is among the options they have made available to the president.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending much of the month on a working vacation. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Referring to North Korea’s volatile leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump said, “He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with fire and fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
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Trump's exit of Paris climate accord strengthens China and Europe

President Trump’s much-anticipated decision to exit the Paris Agreement on climate change strikes another blow against the current multilateral international order by his administration and reinforces its America First stance toward the world.

Trump declared his administration’s intent to stop honoring and cease all implementation of the nonbinding parts of the Paris Agreement. This includes the goals and actions to reduce emissions outlined in the U.S. Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) as well as any further contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which provides money to poor countries to lower emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.

With this action, which goes against the positions of almost all other countries in the world, President Trump officially, and entirely voluntarily, ceded hard-won U.S. international leadership. Already, China and the EU are showing signs they are willing to fill the leadership vacuum.

Even if slightly hyperbolic, Fareed Zakaria on CNN declared it as “(t)he day that the United States resigned as the leader of the free world. It is nothing short of that.” Other U.S. foreign policy analysts have intoned the same. What does this move mean for the U.S. and its foreign relations?

Fulfilling a campaign promise
With the announcement to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, President Trump elected to go with ideology over pressing environmental concerns, recommendations by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and business leaders, and public opinion. These and other groups believe that it would have been more prudent to remain within the Paris Agreement and keep a prominent seat at the table as future decisions are made.
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