Trump causes international dustup

Donald Trump’s oft-loose talk created fears during the campaign that his election could threaten the hard-won gains of minorities at home or create the prospect of blundering into a war or other crisis abroad.

Well, following his unexpected election, it took just 24 days for the inexperienced president-elect to provoke either accidentally or deliberately his first international dustup by becoming the first American leader to speak directly to Taiwan’s president since U.S.China relations were formal- ized in 1979.

The incident, including the initial call and Trump’s series of increasingly antagonistic anti-China tweets, raised questions about both what Trump did and how he did it. And in the process, the president-elect, the vice president-elect and the incoming White House chief of staff all misrepresented the situation to the American people.

Trump disclosed last Friday’s phone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen by tweeting, “The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency.” Two days later on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Vice President-elect Mike Pence called it “nothing more than taking a courtesy call from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan.” Reince Priebus, who will be Trump’s White House chief of staff, used similar language on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

But both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post noted that several top Trump aides had ties to Taiwan, including his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and said the call represented a long-planned effort by some Trump advisers to show China that his presidency will take a far more aggressive attitude toward the Asian power.

On Wednesday, The New York Times detailed the degree to which the call was orchestrated over a period of months by former Senate Republican leader and GOP elder Bob Dole, a paid lobbyist for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s semi-official diplomatic representative in the United States.

Trump’s allies hailed his move. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to China reportedly under consideration for secretary of state, called the phone call “shrewd,” adding it would provide a “useful leverage point” with China.

But while initial Chinese reaction was restrained and primarily aimed at the Taipei government, Beijing escalated its displeasure after Trump’s weekend tweets criticizing China’s military moves in the South China Sea and the currency policies he condemned during the campaign.

In a press briefing Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman indicated Beijing had conveyed its displeasure directly to the president-elect’s representatives, The Wall Street Journal reported. And the People’s Daily, the leading Communist Party newspaper, said in a front-page commentary, “Trump and his transition team ought to recognize that creating trouble for China-U.S. relations is just creating trouble for the U.S. itself.”

The incident also raised the prospect of yet another potential conflict of interest between Trump’s business dealings and U.S. interests. The New York Times reported Monday a woman claiming to represent Trump’s company discussed potential investment opportunities near Taiwan’s biggest airport with local officials last September, though a company spokeswoman said Friday there were “no plans for expansion into Taiwan.”

In any case, Trump has demonstrated—some seven weeks before taking office—he intends to pursue his campaign declaration that unpredictability is a useful tool for strengthening U.S. leverage abroad.

Still, he may well have done so at the wrong time and in the wrong place, by challenging the One China policy that has been the hallmark of U.S.China relations for decades. That created the prospect of a rift at a time when the U.S. needs Chinese help in dealing with one of the world’s most threatening situations, North Korea’s drive to attain the long-range rocket capacity to launch a nuclear weapon toward the U.S.

Viewed primarily from a domestic political standpoint, giving China a verbal lashing probably played well with Trump’s supporters, as did pressuring Carrier to keep 1,100 Indiana jobs from moving to Mexico and decrying the burgeoning cost of a new Air Force One.

But signs are lacking as to the degree Trump and his advisers weighed the potential international implications of his act. And the episode showed that, when the president-elect picks his secretary of state, he needs to select an experienced person who can stabilize his administration’s approach and curb his sometimes impetuous way of dealing with serious policy matters.

Still, questions will remain as to whether Trump, who has made clear he likes to stir the pot and create uncertainty, would listen to such advice.