The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board panned President Donald Trump’s emerging alliances with hostile nations China and Russia against U.S. allies.
“It’s hard to know what President Trump is up to at any one moment because he operates so much on tactical impulse. But he has long coveted grand bargains with Russia and China, and that may be his motivation now as he hardens his hostility to Ukraine and Europe and courts a Yalta 2 summit with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping,” the board opined.
The WSJ was quick to point out that the Yalta analogy doesn’t even apply because the original team of the first Yalta summit, Stalin and Churchill were U.S. allies in 1945. But the trio do resemble Trump’s plan in the way they seek to “carve up the globe,” according to the WSJ, and that is “the danger with what Mr. Trump says he’s open to now.”
“As we wrote before the 2024 election, this was one of our main fears for his second term,” said the board, pointing out that Putin has floated a meeting with China and Trump to divvy up Ukraine — which would pose a clear threat to U.N. allies.
“A new triumvirate that divided the world into spheres of influence would blow up America’s global credibility as a reliable ally. U.S. allies may be punching bags these days, but the U.S. network from NATO to Japan, South Korea and Australia allows America to deter aggression and maintain peace before threats are dire,” said the board.
And all that damage is pointless, said the board, because Trump can’t “force Ukraine into capitulation.” Plus, Trump “would own the ugly scenes of carnage that followed if he pulled intelligence and targeting help.”
“Curb your enthusiasm about a China alliance as well,” warned the board. “Mr. Trump might want China’s promise not to help Iran, but … Mr. Xi wants Taiwan in his strategic soul, and he aspires to subdue the island without having to take the risk of a blockade or military assault.”
Xi, predicts the WSJ, will no doubt exploit any opening Trump provides to push the U.S. out of the Pacific, even if that means abandoning 23 million free people “across the Taiwan Strait.”
“Trump’s advisers may tell him that voters don’t care about the post-1945 ‘global order.’ But the public understands that China and Russia aren’t American friends, and they know looming trouble abroad when they see it,” said the board. “GOP lawmakers are already unhappy with the President’s appeasement of Mr. Putin, especially given that Mr. Trump has so far failed to rebuild the U.S. military.”
Handing over Europe to Russia, and the Pacific to China, would open a “major party division” at a time when Trump is rapidly cascading into his “lame duck” period.
“It’s true that Congress and the courts can’t stop a determined President on foreign policy, but they can make him pay a political price,” said the WSJ. “A second Yalta is arguably the worst idea of the second Trump term, and the President would be betting far more than his own legacy.”