Thread by @jeffreyprescott

[Thread] Let’s take a look at Trump’s “America First” foreign policy in action, over just the last few days. Trump spent 48 hours on the ground at the G-20, made no major public address, no press conference, and cancelled or downgraded meetings with America’s closest allies.

He went into his most important meeting, with China’s President Xi Jinping, without a clear plan and came out of it with a confused outcome — at best kicking the can down the road, at worst sending us further off a cliff.

wapo.st/2FZ3C3E?tid=ss…

Distracted by scandal at home, and with fresh Russian aggression in Ukraine, Trump made a show of cancelling his meeting with Putin, but still found time to talk face-to-face — details we only learned about from the Kremlin.

salemnews.com/cnhi_network/k…

By contrast, China’s Xi arrived at the G20 following a meeting of the most important Asian economies (which Trump skipped) and state visits to Papua New Guinea, Brunei, the Philippines, Spain, Argentina, Panama and Portugal.

How that played in Japan:
asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-…

At the G-20, Xi met individually with more than 10 world leaders and gave a speech that hit these notes:
“In the years since the global financial crisis, China has contributed over 30 percent of global growth….

"China will continue to deepen market-oriented reform, protect property rights and IPR, encourage fair competition and do more to expand imports.... In the latest World Bank Doing Business report, China moved up 32 places in the ease of doing business ranking from last year....

"China will continue to improve its business environment, and hopes that all countries will work together for a free, open, inclusive and orderly international economic environment.”

As @niubi notes in his invaluable daily China update, in these remarks there is “much to be skeptical about, but Xi is showing up in lots of places bearing gifts and saying the right things, and that still counts for a lot…”

No wonder that America’s standing in the world has plummeted since Trump took office and, for the first time ever, China’s leaders are seen as more respected than ours.
news.gallup.com/reports/225587…

With Trump, we’ve come to equate the aversion of disaster with success — “grading on a curve” as @AmbassadorRice has put it.

nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opi…

Hence the collective sigh of relief when Trump returned without causing a *major* international incident. But we ought to be able to expect more from an American President.