Though Donald Trump regularly touts how much America is "winning" both domestically and abroad, one conservative columnist pointed out that he's only achieved one thing with the nation's allies -- and it's not a good thing.
The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin on Monday wrote the Trump administration "can claim not a single substantial foreign policy achievement" and that the U.S. is "arguably less influential and more isolated than we were" before the president took office.
American allies in Europe and North America "scorn and distrust Trump," disdain the treaties he's pulled out from, "revile" his tariff threats and " rightly see him as unable to lead the West in an existential battle against illiberal regimes."
Nowhere is that more evident than when it came to his hands-off treatment of Saudi Arabia when it comes to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's likely role in the murder of dissident journalist and American resident Jamal Khashoggi, Rubin suggested.
"Let’s be blunt: The only significant foreign policy 'achievements' Trump can claim are eviscerating our reputation as a reliable ally that defends human rights and giving autocrats the impression that they can get away with murder (and dismemberment and more) without paying any significant price," she noted.
Trump's recent low-energy performances in Paris and at the G20 summit in Argentina show, as Europe expert Thomas Wright with the Brookings Institute told the Post on December 2, that the president appears to have no agenda.
“He ticked through his bucket list of everything he wanted to do and declared victory on all fronts," Wright said. "What does he do now? They’ve not really thought it through."
This situation is the result of "nationalistic know-nothingism, from deploring the very institutions and relationships that have kept us from world war and spread prosperity since the end of the WWII," Rubin mused.
Trump may have achieved a few symbolic wins like moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and leaving the Paris climate accords, but he hasn't answered "the question that follows each of these moves: What next?"
"Trump doesn’t know or care," the columnist concluded. "A vision of American leadership? A road map to combat threats from illiberal regimes? Please. All Trump has ever wanted is a red carpet and praise."
