Pocketbook issues were a central theme heading into the midterm elections, but foreign policy could soon be center stage. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering ramping up military action against Iran and was recently said to be considering deploying the “mother of all bombs.”
Several U.S. presidents have taken bold international steps in the wake of midterms: In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton teamed up with Britain to bomb Saddam Hussein’s regime over its refusal to abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions. In 2007, despite his party having lost control of the House and Senate over the floundering war in Iraq, then-President George W. Bush ordered 30,000 additional U.S. troops into that country to try to tamp down civil war.
Now that voters’ judgment of Trump’s presidency will no longer manifest in ballots, here are three areas he might focus on:
Iran
The conflict Trump said would be over in four to six weeks has dragged into its ninth month with no face-saving end in sight. The rebound in crude oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, made possible by the U.S. Navy’s high-resource, high-intensity mission to protect a portion of one of the world’s most important transit routes, has brought average daily oil exports closer to prewar levels. In September, Trump declared Washington’s “total control” over the waterway. Tehran’s leverage over the strait, its greatest leverage in the war, has grown shakier as a result.
But the Iranians aren’t close to submitting to Trump’s terms for a peace deal. A week after the narrative around the strait shifted— “The Battle of Hormuz Is Turning,” The Wall Street Journal headlined an Oct. 1 editorial — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps began accelerating attacks against ships in the region. That week, missile and drone strikes on tankers carrying crude and other commodities out of the Middle East reached their highest level since the conflict began, reminding Washington, its Gulf Arab partners and shipping companies worldwide that the regime retains the firepower to wreak havoc in oil markets. Crude prices started rising again, demonstrating that normal traffic flows aren’t a certainty as long as a peace agreement remains elusive.
Trump’s rhetoric notwithstanding, U.S. strategy has failed to force Tehran into a more lenient negotiating position, even as the U.S. blockade has halted Iran’s oil exports and deprived the regime of critical revenue. The Iranian peace plan offered in September looked nearly identical to the June memorandum of understanding that fell apart after a few weeks. The regime’s position, which one of Iran’s top negotiators restated on Oct. 28, is firm: Only after the United States ends its naval blockade and wider war, lifts sanctions on Tehran’s oil industry, and unfreezes Iranian financial assets will the Strait of Hormuz return to the pre-conflict status quo. These terms remain unacceptable to Trump. Although unpublicized U.S. strikes have occurred on Iran’s Qeshm Island for weeks, a more expansive U.S. air war is plausible now, though it’s unlikely renewed warfighting would bring the United States closer to victory.
Cuba
The Trump administration has prioritized economic coercion in its efforts to push the Cuban government into negotiating political and economic reforms. The U.S. Treasury Department regularly adds additional sanctions on the Cuban economy. The U.S.-imposed fuel embargo, which Washington is enforcing by intercepting ships bound for the island, is making the Cuban people’s lives unbearable as their electricity grid collapses and hospitals rely on overworked generators. Remittances from the U.S., which many Cubans rely on, are also restricted.
Trump’s strategy has managed to squeeze out some economic reforms, most significantly Havana’s decision to expand the private sector and court more foreign investment. But Cuban officials remain dead-set against reworking their political system to please Washington. Havana’s unwillingness to bend has frustrated Trump, who has flirted several times about “taking Cuba.” Reports that the U.S. Army Reserve is evaluating what manpower can be made available in a potential Cuba contingency, combined with earlier U.S. military planning on how a Cuba incursion could unfold, are reminders that Trump has military options. Regime change at gunpoint is not out of the question.
The Americas
Normally viewed as a second- or third-tier priority in the realm of U.S. grand strategy, Trump has been far more aggressive in this region than most of his predecessors. Between intervening in elections in Honduras, Argentina and Colombia, and ordering extrajudicial strikes on boats it says are carrying cocaine to the U.S., the Trump administration has effectively turned the Western Hemisphere into its personal playground. Trump’s war on drugs has branded even the most low-level drug trafficker a terrorist worthy of death. The military campaign has changed regional perceptions of what is considered acceptable in the fight against drug trafficking. It has also expanded the U.S. military footprint in Latin America. Dropping missiles on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, once unthinkable, has been normalized; U.S. troops are supporting combat missions against criminal groups in Ecuador; and although incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Trump’s preferred candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, in Brazil’s presidential election, Latin America’s conservative wave of Trump-aligned governments continue to court U.S. military aid to combat drug trafficking networks in their respective countries.
It’s possible that boat strikes could evolve into land strikes. The U.S. has already conducted at least one such action, against the chief of the Tren de Aragua gang, in Venezuela, over the summer. And Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing populist who won office on a tough-on-crime platform, is eager to partner with the U.S. military on joint strikes against the long list of rebel groups battling his state. The U.S. military has moved surveillance and strike drones from Africa to the Western Hemisphere, in part to map out where the drug cartels and criminal groups are hiding. The writing is on the wall.
Although some speculate that a Democratic-majority Congress would restrain the president, this is hardly a sure thing. Trump’s foreign policy, already bellicose, could soon be even more unhinged.
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