Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a frequent opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to the Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Follow her on Twitter @fridaghitis. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Read more opinion on CNN.
“The world is going to respect us again,” Donald Trump promised in 2016 as he campaigned for the presidency, “Believe me.” The world, he said, was “laughing at us,” but that would change if he became president.
Now the world has had a chance to watch America under President Trump and the signs of respect are becoming all but impossible to find.
In fact, evidence that America’s foes have lost respect for the world’s only superpower is everywhere, and they are becoming more troubling with every passing day, raising the question of how safe America is at this pivotal moment in history.
Who’s afraid of the United States? It turns out the ones who are scared about America are its friends, concerned about the reliability of Washington as an ally. As for America’s enemies and rivals, they are sending unmistakable signals that they view Washington now as a pussycat that occasionally pretends to roar.
That’s the predictable result of more than three years of Trump slathering praise on the world’s worst dictators while mistreating some of America’s closest allies.
Is it any wonder, then, that China and Russia are acting with brazen disregard for the US? After years of hearing Trump defend Russian President Vladimir Putin, take his word over that of his own security experts and disregard bipartisan warnings about Russia’s threat, it now seems Putin’s goons have been arranging to have American soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Both Trump and Russia say the story is false, but new information is being continously reported by multiple news organizations. Such an operation might have been too risky in Moscow’s view under any other US president. But, somehow, the Kremlin apparently didn’t fear a strong reaction – a big gamble, but it looks so far as if the downside did not materialize.
Putin also chose this time to hold a referendum allowing himself to remain president for Russia indefinitely (as Xi can now do), a move so antithetical to democracy that one can envision any other US administration decrying forcefully.
Beijing, too, is running roughshod over America’s interests and America’s friends, as if Washington simply did not exist; as if the world’s most powerful country could be safely ignored.
China has decided to essentially ignore the commitment it made to the people of Hong Kong, to the United Kingdom, and to the rest of the world 23 years ago, when the UK transferred control to China under a promise that Beijing would keep Hong Kong’s system, including many of its democratic freedoms, in place for 50 years.
On July 1, the anniversary of the handover, China made official its decision to crush democracy forces in Hong Kong, putting in effect a new far-reaching, vaguely worded security law.
The people of Hong Kong, in their millions, had been demonstrating last year against a much less draconian law, hoping to preserve their freedoms. China didn’t care that the US expressed support for their cause. It arrested hundreds of people on the first day of the law.
Never mind American tariffs or pandemic-related epithets, Beijing knows Trump – and, hence, views America – as a paper tiger.
That’s why Beijing has been harassing America’s friends across Asia. Chinese military forces have crossed a disputed border with India, high in the Himalayas, clashing with India’s military in the worst confrontation in years, leaving perhaps dozens dead.
Taiwan, which is self-governed but is claimed by China as its own territory, has been enduring stepped-up intimidation efforts by Beijing. Taiwanese watch Hong Kong and fear for their own future, and China is adding to those fears with verbal assaults and military flights into Taiwanese air space.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is plainly not concerned about what Trump might do. The US president with the soft spot for dictators has spent the past three years expressing admiration, respect and even envy for the Chinese leader who could stay in office for the rest of his life.
According to John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, Trump asked Xi to help him win the 2020 election. Trump denies it, but he very publicly asked China to investigate Vice President Joe Biden, his Democratic rival. If Trump made other private requests of Xi, he handed China the means to influence US policy in exchange for its silence about that conversation.
Even North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is getting in the game, showing that everyone feels like they can threaten the United States and its allies without fear of consequences. The bloodthirsty dictator who co-starred with Trump in one of the most cringeworthy foreign policy melodramas of this administration, complete with exchange of “love letters,” appears to be threatening the US with nuclear weapons. The state news agency just said that “the only option left,” is to “counter nuke with nuke.”
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With Trump’s prospect for reelection dimming, the European Union, gradually reopening after bringing the pandemic under control, was unafraid to take the reasonable – if less than courteous – step of banning Americans.
And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is looking at ways to overcome international condemnation and annex a portion of the West Bank, fearing that the door is closing on the prospect of another Trump term in the White House.
Turkey has been launching airstrikes threatening Yazidi civilians in northern Iraq, according to US officials, and it may be engaging in ethnic cleansing against Kurds in Syria. But it has nothing to fear from this administration.
While US allies worry about what is happening to America, its foes see more room to maneuver than they had in the past. They may also worry that America will be under new management soon, and now is the time to act: to take over Hong Kong, to help push the US out of Afghanistan. And all the while, Trump is watching his chances of reelection slip.
It makes for a combustible combination, an increasingly desperate president, who has shown he’s willing to do almost anything to win votes and a world where US rivals are unafraid of America. Respect for America has clearly not improved. It’s a perilous time.
