Desperate Attack by Liberal UK Journalist on Trump’s Successful Foreign Policy Record

Simon Tisdall, a writer for the notoriously left-wing, anti-Trump British newspaper The Guardian,  published one of his typical screeds against President Trump in yesterday’s edition titled “Trump fed our worst instincts. His global legacy is toxic and immoral.”  There was desperation in this column as this liberal journalist raced to discredit President Trump’s foreign policy record before Joe Biden takes office.

The purpose of Tisdall’s column appeared to be to rebut my December 17 Fox News op-ed Biden’s ‘back to the Obama years’ foreign policy will weaken US national security.  Tisdall derided my op-ed, claiming that:

Trump fans such as Fred Fleitz, writing for Fox News, conjure a mirror image of these shameful derelictions. Trump ‘restored American leadership on the world stage, put the interests of the American people ahead of the dictates of globalist foreign policy elites, and kept our nation out of unnecessary wars,’ Fleitz wrote. Biden, he predicted, ‘will surrender U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations and Europe’ and allow Russia and China to ‘walk all over the U.S.’

As John Adams said, facts are stubborn things. The facts are that President Trump will leave Joe Biden with a much safer world than when Biden left the White House in January 2017. Trump did keep America out of unnecessary wars and reclaimed U.S. sovereignty from the UN and globalist elites.  Prospects for peace in the Middle East have improved due to Trump. He also lowered tensions with North Korea and was much tougher on China and Russia than previous presidents, especially Obama.

Let’s go through Tisdall’s laundry list of liberal criticisms of President Trump’s foreign policy.

He claims Trump’s America First strategy hurt U.S.-Europe relations and alienated Germany. Most Americans know this isn’t the case and supported President Trump for defending American sovereignty.  They also know that resentment of the U.S. by European elitists didn’t start with the Trump presidency.

Tisdall also was forced to concede that the president got it right on NATO when he wrote that “Trump’s demand that European allies spend more on defense was not unreasonable,” although he claims Trump’s “bullying” brought about only limited change.

Tisdall falsely asserts that Trump treated Japan and South Korea with disdain while the U.S. engaged in “misconceived talks with North Korea.” The truth is that Trump was tough on South Korean President Moon because he has been too willing to strike a deal with North Korea and forged a close and productive relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Abe.

Although it is true that Trump failed to get a deal to denuclearize North Korea, Tisdall ignores how Trump significantly lowered tensions with Pyongyang and convinced it to halt nuclear and long-range missile tests. When Tisdall says Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea was “misconceived,” he wants his readers to forget that in January 2018, following 17 North Korean missile tests in 2017 and a September 2017 underground nuclear test that may have been a North Korean H-bomb, it was widely believed the U.S. and North Korea were on the brink of war.  It seems that Tisdall’s hatred of President Trump prevents him from admitting that Trump’s North Korea diplomacy – while imperfect – probably prevented a war.

Concerning Trump’s Middle East policy, Tisdall grudgingly gives Trump some credit for promoting peace  in the region with the Abraham Accords, but also tried to dismiss this achievement by claiming the president’s main contribution in this endeavor was to “help entrench Benjamin Netanyahu, a hard-right prime minister opposed by a majority of Israel’s voters, who is on trial for alleged corruption.” This incoherent remark reflects globalist hatred not just for Netanyahu, but also growing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments on the Left.

Tisdall makes several other false claims about Trump’s Middle East policy, the most important of which was that “by wrecking the Iran nuclear deal, he made a dangerous problem infinitely worse.” While Tisdall and his globalist cronies certainly believe this, America’s friends and allies in the Middle East, who are directly affected by the growing threat from Iran, do not and supported the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy on Iran.

This is why recently-retired U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey, who signed a “never Trump” letter in 2016, has urged Joe Biden to continue Trump’s Middle East policies because he says they made the region more stable. Jeffrey also said that none of America’s Mideast allies wants to see President Trump leave office.

But the most disturbing part of Tisdall’s column concerned China when he claimed Trump “poisoned” U.S.-China relations and that this is Trump’s “most troublesome geopolitical legacy.” Tisdall then followed up with the bizarre assertion that “in 2017, there was still an outside chance that the old and new superpowers could find ways to get along. That’s gone. China is now viewed by Americans of all stripes as the No 1 threat.”

It may seem incredible that an experienced foreign affairs commentator with a major UK newspaper would be so blind to the growing threat from China to global order and security, especially after its criminal negligence and lies allowed the coronavirus to become a deadly pandemic. But such naiveté from globalist elites allowed China to become such a threat. It’s therefore no surprise that Tisdall refuses to give President Trump credit for standing up to a threat that he won’t admit exists.

Admitting that Donald Trump’s foreign policy was successful would mean acknowledging global instability will increase if a President Biden returns to the disastrous foreign policy of the Obama administration.

Tisdall knows this and is trying to mislead on Trump’s foreign policy record to make Biden’s policies of weakness, appeasement and surrendering U.S. sovereignty look better. He may convince his fellow globalists and some in Europe, but people around the world – especially in the United States, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific – know Trump’s solid foreign policy legacy cannot be discredited by leftists like Tisdall.