Trump Accomplishments

[SunnySide]

Trumps (only) accomplishment ...

Made American foreign policy unpredictable.

China knows that previously our foreign policy was always to de-escalate and slow moving. China was just doing death by a thousand paper cuts to us. They knew that if their violations or ingresses were small enough in nature that didnt warrant a major US response, they could slowly just repeat the same pattern over and over, moving the ball ever so slightly down the field but while maintaining the status quo because no single event was big enough to set off the alarms. Then looking back 50 years, they would have achieved their goal by taking a long and patient road.

Also, China knew that the US would debate and debate before ever doing anything about anything so we are always slow to respond and always look to de-escalate.

Now, Trump is so unpredictable. Look at Iran, their response to us killing their rock star General over the last 40 years was so muted because they were warned that Trump is erratic and he may go all in if he feels he has to save face. So Iran dialed it back, not wanting to prompt the unpredictable.

The Chinesse man made islands in the S China Sea are a good example. Couple of buckets of sand a day isnt alarming. But do that every day for 10 years ... and you have yourself a landing strip and military outpost established directly in contested waters.