This week’s report card finds President Trump facing new legal concerns over allegations of election meddling by Russia and payoffs to women. It also comes after his comments on trade and tariffs whipsawed Wall Street.
Conservative analyst Jed Babbin highlighted the president’s foreign policy challenges in giving a C+ while pollster John Zogby drew a negative comparison between Trump and the late former President George H.W. Bush.
Jed Babbin
C+
President Trump’s week was all about trade, but defense issues intruded. It began with highly positive results at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires and then fell significantly with his remarks about tariffs and the arrest of a senior Chinese executive in Canada at the request of the U.S.
I am pleased to announce my nomination of four-star General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the United States Army – as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing General Joe Dunford, who will be retiring….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2018
Trump signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement at the G-20 meeting and seemed to agree with Chinese President Xi Jinping to call off a mutual trade war. And then, only days later, Trump proclaimed that “I am a tariff man,” which caused the Dow Jones average to sink about 800 points in a day and — at one point — over 1200 points in two days.
Meng Wenzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, China’s huge telecommunications company, was arrested in Canada at the request of the Justice Department on charges that she — and Huawei — are guilty of trading with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. She is being extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. China immediately demanded her release. Any prospect of avoiding a trade war with China apparently dissolved at that point.
I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating The Honorable William P. Barr for the position of Attorney General of the United States. As the former AG for George H.W. Bush….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Russians that we would suspend the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in sixty days if Russia didn’t end its violations of the agreement. Russian President Vladimir Putin — intending on scaring the Europeans — immediately accused the U.S. of starting another arms race. Russian officials continued the fright campaign by saying that any U.S. intermediate range missiles based in Europe would be targeted by Russian missiles. The EU reacted predictably, calling’s for U.S. restraint without reference to Russia’s blatant violations of the treaty.
Meanwhile, the Iranians launched a missile that reportedly has sufficient range to reach anywhere in Europe. North Korea is expanding one of its biggest missile bases and has made zero effort to “denuclearize.” U.S. aircraft flew over the Ukraine conflict zone to “send a message” to the Russians, but the message was very unclear given the fact that we aren’t about to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Vagueness in policy is good, but only up to a point. We’ve reached that point with respect to Ukraine.
John Zogby
Grade F
A terrible week in almost every way for President Trump. The stock market is wild, an economic slowdown is on the lips of lots of people, confusion prevails on policy over China, a meeting with Russia’s President Putin was canceled, the president experienced isolation and ridicule at the G-20 Summit.
The jobs report was a good one and his poll numbers about the same — but now the leaders of his own party are distancing themselves from him on his handling of Saudi Arabia. Maybe there’s a little progress on a ceasefire in Yemen, but we have been reminded just this week how a former president mastered the art of dealing with the Middle East.
#Remembering41 pic.twitter.com/9xbFYlZzNs
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2018
The entire backdrop of the emotion over the passing of President George H.W. Bush simply presented us with the contrast of what the presidency has and should mean to the American people. Trump was not even asked to speak and was received coolly by his predecessors and almost everyone else it seems. Trump was at the funeral, but for a lot of reasons he didn’t belong there.
Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.
John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Poll and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is We are Many, We are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in 21st Century America. Follow him on Twitter @TheJohnZogby.
