{"id":12088,"date":"2019-12-05T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T18:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12088"},"modified":"2019-12-04T14:20:16","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T22:20:16","slug":"trumps-foreign-policy-the-popping-point-of-maximum-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-foreign-policy-the-popping-point-of-maximum-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Foreign Policy: The Popping Point of Maximum Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Donald Trump promised to shake up U.S. foreign policy. He has certainly done that from the Middle East to Asia. The U.S. is currently engaged in a three-front, maximum-pressure standoff with China, Iran, and North Korea \u2014 involving everything from tariffs to possible military action and the strictest sanctions in memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, Trump critics saw these policy recalibrations as either impotent or counterproductive. Pessimists asserted that China, with a population four times the size of the United States\u2019, was fated for world hegemony. Why antagonize those who might soon control our political and economic future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bipartisan experts talked not of the heresy of \u201cstopping\u201d China\u2019s ascendance, but of \u201cmanaging\u201d America\u2019s relative decline. Translated, the implicit policy conceded that the U.S., in its trade concessions, should overlook systematic Chinese trade surpluses, flagrant violations of world commercial norms, neocolonial provocations throughout Asia, stealing U.S. patents and copyrights, product dumping, currency manipulation, and technological appropriation. Supposedly, the more we appeased China through acts of magnanimity, the more they would reciprocate by becoming like us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our classic model for China\u2019s supplanting the U.S. was the prior gradual hand-off of world hegemony from the British Empire to the Americans, as the United Kingdom in the 1940s tutored us on our global responsibilities and tried to play Athenian philosophers to our Roman legions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2019\/12\/trump-foreign-policy-momentum-china-iran-north-korea\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Donald Trump promised to shake up U.S. foreign policy. He has certainly done that from the Middle East to Asia. The U.S. is currently engaged in a three-front, maximum-pressure standoff with China, Iran, and North Korea \u2014 involving everything from tariffs to possible military action and the strictest sanctions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-38Y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10190,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/challenges-and-opportunities-facing-the-trump-administrations-china-policy-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":0},"title":"Challenges And Opportunities Facing The Trump Administration\u2019s China Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Miles Maochun Yu Strategika In general, America profoundly lacks interest in communist ideology, a phenomenon Karl Marx would have called \u201cthe poverty of ideology.\u201d As a result, our China policy by and large has failed to take into sufficient consideration the primal forces that motivate Chinese communist leadership in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Strategika&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Strategika050717.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12243,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-doesnt-understand-maximum-pressure\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":1},"title":"Iran Doesn\u2019t Understand \u2018Maximum Pressure\u2019","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Iran\u00a0has misjudged not only the toxic effects of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d sanctions on the regime but also the entire psychology of U.S. policy toward Iran. The result is that Iranian unemployment is soaring, its gross domestic product is tanking, inflation is raging,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11434,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mattis-is-more-valuable-than-ever\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":2},"title":"Mattis Is More Valuable Than Ever","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Michael O\u2019Hanlon presented\u00a0recently a persuasive argument why Defense Secretary James Mattis should stay on the job for at least the duration of Trump\u2019s first term in order to finish his current initiatives \u2014 apparently in response to unsubstantiated rumors that Mattis\u2019s reputation has grown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;James Mattis&quot;","block_context":{"text":"James Mattis","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-mattis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9308,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-barack-obamas-foreign-policy-de-stabilized-the-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":3},"title":"How Barack Obama\u2019s Foreign Policy De-Stabilized the World","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister \u00c9douard Daladier warned Adolf Hitler that if the Third Reich invaded Poland, a European war would follow. Both leaders insisted that they meant it. But Hitler thought that after getting away\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The World&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10302,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-transatlantic-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":4},"title":"U.S. Foreign Policy and the Transatlantic Relationship","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Strategika by Erik Jones Tuesday, June 20, 2017 Image credit:\u00a0Poster Collection, INT 280, Hoover Institution Archives. As candidate, Donald Trump made a number of comments about the utility of the North Atlantic Alliance and about the virtues of European integration that left many in the establishment scratching their heads. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Strategika&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9423,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wheres-the-letter-from-democratic-security-officials-opposing-hillary\/","url_meta":{"origin":12088,"position":5},"title":"Where&#8217;s The Letter From Democratic Security Officials Opposing Hillary?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/Town Hall A group of 50 conservative foreign policy elites and veteran national security officials of prior Republican administrations recently wrote an open letter denouncing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. They cited especially his lack of character and moral authority -- and his \"little understanding of America's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Campaign 2016&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2016","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/campaign-2016\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12089,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088\/revisions\/12089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}