There is no dealing with the madman Trump

United States foreign policy under President Donald Trump is moving in a strange and reckless direction. He and his team need to come to their senses. They need to be far more circumspect about their public statements and avoid the kind of provocative, even blatantly untrue, comments that are outraging America’s allies around the world. 
Trump is moving the US in a radical new direction guided by an ill-defined vision. He insists on portraying the US as the victim of an evil world that constantly takes advantage of its friendship and generosity. The aim, he says, is “America first” – as if that were never his predecessors’ priority – but his actions ostensibly in the national interest will have a contrary effect on the US economy and security. No world leader can belittle and disregard foreign partnerships in the way Trump has done without causing severe domestic harm.
In his campaigning, it seemed like Trump was kicking at Mexico simply because he felt he could away with it while tapping nationalist sentiments at home. The pursuit of power is rife with bad taste and low blows. Now, however, President Trump is continuing such tirades, telling his Mexican counterpart he might send troops across the border to get its “bad hombres” under control.
In a 25-minute phone call over the weekend to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump took umbrage when reminded that Barack Obama had agreed to take in 1,200 asylum-seekers now awaiting resettlement in Australia. Trump, already embroiled in the furore over his first attempt to close US doors to refugees, told Turnbull that he’d talked to three other world leaders that day, but this call had been “the worst by far” – and promptly hung up on him. Later on Twitter he assured his faithful admirers that he would study this “dumb deal” Turnbull mentioned.
Trump continues to antagonise China, although his overall intentions there remain unclear. Certainly China’s aggressive land-grabs in the South China Sea are a widely shared concern, but this is why the world needs the White House to be level-headed in its dealings with Beijing. Trump cannot afford to be unpredictable. 
His temporary travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries that have never posed an overt terrorist threat on US soil has further irritated the global community. It is so far-reaching and contrary to humane practices, and Trump’s belligerence and disdain for facts are so offensive, that the British Parliament has rejected any notion of him addressing it during his first official visit to London. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was sufficiently upset that she reportedly “lectured” him about American commitments under the Geneva Convention. 
Trump’s team has meanwhile put Iran “on notice” – whatever that means – for carrying out a missile test that the US-Iran nuclear-development agreement allows. The only developed nation not shocked by Trump’s antics is Russia, partly because he continues to defend President Vladimir Putin’s bloody actions in Ukraine and relentless bombing of rebel forces in Syria. 
There is, as well, a bizarre affinity for outrageous conspiracy theories, as reflected in Trump’s appointment of Michael Flynn as chief national security adviser. Like Trump, Flynn has demonstrated an inability to tell truth from forgery. The news website Politico reckons that Flynn has, in recent months, retweeted posts by other people making at least 16 dubious claims. These include the preposterous pre-election allegations that Hillary Clinton was involved in the child-sex trade and that Obama was a closet jihadi laundering money for Muslim terrorists. Post-election, the absurd claims keep coming, a flood of “alternative facts” we are expected to embrace as the truth – or at least as unassailable orders from the boss.