Trump policy: ‘Beat ‘em or buy ‘em’
Foreign affairs as a business
Gordon L. Weil
In a competitive world, one rule keeps cropping up.
The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding is a prime
example. The rule is “beat ΄em or buy ΄em.”
By any standard existing beyond the confines of the White
House, President Trump led the U.S. into defeat in its effort, along with
Israel, to strip all power from Iran.
Trump now hopes to extract economic advantage from the ashes of military
failure.
He learned this rule in the real estate business. One way to beat a competitor is to buy
it. Your market share increases and you
reduce competition. You argue that the
loser should be happy, because you bought him off generously. His pride has a price. Pay it and his pain is lubricated by
cash. If necessary, you can make him
your subordinate partner.
The Iran war was sold as a military necessity, aimed at
preventing it from acquiring a nuclear weapon to threaten the Middle East. Its leadership could be forced into
submission, ending the country’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, terrorist
groups staging furious opposition to Palestinian subjugation.
From that perspective, Iran was not defeated and could develop
a weapon superior to nuclear arms – control of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran war revealed the limits of American
power.
The MOU alternative to unattainable military victory would tame
Iran by investment and economic recovery.
Prosperity may be a better weapon than missiles. Iran will become more integrated with Europe
and North America, reducing it as a threat.
That’s difficult to accept for MAGA hardliners, who bought
the exaggerated tale that Iran’s nuclear missiles could begin flying next week,
when the conflict was mostly about power.
In the end, buying them when you couldn’t beat them is the card that consumer
discontent with high-priced gas at the pump has forced Trump to play.
This approach explains Trump’s principal foreign policy
representatives – Steve Witcoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Both are real estate developers without any
diplomatic experience. Every problem to
Trump and his agents can be solved by them as in business, and trained foreign
policy or intelligence experts should be ignored.
That way of thinking explains why
Trump claimed he could solve Russia’s war on Ukraine in a day. All Ukraine had to do was give up some real
estate, and Russia would settle. He thought
Russia would prevail sooner or later, so Ukraine would save lives by ceding territory. He did not consider Ukraine’s desire to
survive as a nation, which goes well beyond a land swap.
Consistent with his business
sense, Trump believed that Ukraine would go along with his plan in return for
increased American investment. He also
dabbled with the idea that Russia might be similarly bought off. The backing of U.S. investors (and profit
for American corporations) should be a sufficient incentive to seal the
deal. It wasn’t.
Trump has repeatedly used this
buy-it-if-you-can’t beat-it policy. He
sees it as a great success in Venezuela, where American companies may return to
exploit its massive oil reserves, and he showed he could topple its leader, if
not its regime.
He sees Gaza, wiped clean by
Israel, as ripe for western-style development and the use of incentives to get
the Palestinians to move out. While it
may be impossible to suppress Palestinian hopes for their own country,
prosperity and emigration might work.
The real obstacle is Israel, whose hardliners simply want the U.S. to
leave the land to them.
Greenland is a good example of the
policy. Trump could envisage Denmark,
looking at a handsome payoff, being willing to sell the island to the U.S. It matters less that the U.S. today could
have whatever military bases it wants there than that the vainglorious
president would get credit for expanding U.S. territory.
Trump’s insulting proposal to make
Canada the 51st state is the same policy.
He saw that country as a weak dependency that might easily give up its
pretensions of having its own culture and history to get in on his
leadership. Its goods would no longer
face the artificial trade barriers he had just created.
In Iran, Ukraine, Palestine,
Greenland and Canada, Trump has been confronted by nations that are willing to
make sacrifices to preserve their identity.
Just as Old Glory means something to Americans, their flags stir
emotions that cannot be purchased or readily suppressed.
Given the changed nature of war
caused by drones, Trump’s planes and his proposed battleship could not impose American
will militarily. Nor can Russia and
maybe not even China. Economic
cooperation is far better than military action, but it is taking long and
painful conflicts for Trump to understand that.
Still, something’s missing that
goes beyond war or foreign policy as a business. Respect for others. With that, foreign policy might work better.
