EDITORIAL: Trump ‘sovereignty’ call sounds like code for intolerance

SHARE EDITORIAL: Trump ‘sovereignty’ call sounds like code for intolerance
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President Donald Trump speaks to world leaders at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Bluster doesn’t work, except maybe when cutting real estate deals, but try telling that to Donald Trump.

The president’s foreign policy is largely bluster, devoid of practical strategies, and he demonstrated the limits of that approach again Tuesday in his address to the United Nations.

EDITORIAL

Calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a “rocket man on a suicide mission” and threatening to “destroy” the country won’t stop Kim from lobbing more missiles over Japan as he pushes to develop nuclear weapons. Trump has been threatening North Korea for months, to no effect, in only slightly less colorful language.

The hard reality is that there are no good solutions to the growing threat of North Korea, but a shooting war would be the worst solution. It could lead instantly to the devastation of South Korea’s capital city of Seoul, which is closer to North Korea than Chicago is to Naperville.

Only stepped-up multinational economic sanctions, which Trump did call for, and direct negotiations with the “rocket man” make any sense. It’s worth a try. In diplomatic circles, the thinking is that Kim might step back from his pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for a reduction in military exercises by the United States and South Korea.

In a similar blustering way, Trump ripped the Iran nuclear deal as an “embarrassment,” which was not helpful to the cause of Middle East peace, unless he has a better idea, which he does not.

If the United States were to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, a possibility that Trump hinted at on Monday, key partners in the negotiation, most notably Russia and China, likely would drop sanctions against Iran, which then would resume its nuclear efforts. Bombing Iran would only temporarily slow Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

The truth of the matter is that the Iran deal is working, though it’s sometimes hard to notice the war we are not fighting. Iran is living up to its end of the bargain, and international sanctions can be reimposed instantly the minute it does not.

Trump’s approach to foreign policy is shaping up as a mixed bag of inconsistencies. He can be mildly interventionist, as in his decision to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan, but he generally prefers just to yell at countries that annoy him, such as China, Mexico and Venezuela. And while he hasn’t abandoned the “art of the deal,” he’s a sucker for magical realism, hopelessly trying to make nice with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and assigning his nephew, Jared Kushner, to single-handedly resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Above all, as Trump made clear Tuesday, he believes in nationalism — for everybody. Every nation’s first obligation, he said, should be to “protect their sovereignty.” It then follows, we presume, that every nation should circle its wagons. A nation’s foreign policy should be limited to responding to direct threats to security, such as al-Qaida and ISIS.

That’s an appealing notion, given how often the United States has overreached around the globe. Vietnam and Iraq come to mind. We have paid for our hubris.

But if Trump is proposing “sovereignty” as the north star that guides our nation’s foreign policy, beware of where that leads. Respect for the sovereignty of other nations can become an excuse to look away from human rights violations around the world. A fear of loss of sovereignty here at home — as absurd as that notion is — already has become an excuse for turning away refugees, banning Muslims and wholesale deporting undocumented immigrants.

The more paranoid protectors of American sovereignty fear — or so they say — that Spanish will one day become the first language of the nation and the Sharia Law will supplant American justice. They are also, it is important to note, mostly Trump supporters.

Trump says he believes in national sovereignty and “America first,” and so do we. We just can’t help wonder where he’s going with that.

Send letters to: letters@suntimes.com.

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