U.S. under Trump Series: Did Trump bit more than he can chew?

President Donald Trump, author of the famous book, ‘Art of the deal’ has been struggling to make a deal, as the negotiations seem tougher than he might have assumed in the first place. In all fairness, in his little more than 2 years in office, President Trump has triggered a lot of jitters challenging the status quo, which has created opportunities in securing agreements in decades-old conflicts and dispute but can it bring all together to the finish line. If not, the United States could end up in a much worse position than it was before Trump challenged the status quo.

• President Trump’s hard stance on North Korea and Twitter spat with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-Un has for the first time in almost 70 years created a window of opportunity to secure not only a peace agreement with South Korea but complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. However, President Trump’s hard stance has antagonized the Korean side, which has once again resorted to missile testing.
   
• In the Middle East, President Trump has created a major jolt by announcing U.S. recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights and Jerusalem and even moved U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. However, that move has angered the Palestinian Authority upset and angry, which in turn refused to get back to negotiations under U.S. umbrella citing Israeli bias and putting President Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ in limbo.
   
• President Trump has also taken a hard stance against Iran by announcing U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord, and re-imposing sanctions, however, the move has antagonized U.S. allies in Europe, who still back the deal.
   
• Recent week has seen the Sino-American trade negotiations blow up with each side resorting to imposing tariffs on goods from the other side. The rhetoric suggests that the tariff war is set to continue.  
• The situation is also dire in Venezuela, where the United States has been trying to topple the Maduro regime but it is clear from the last coup attempt that U.S. backed candidate Juan Guaido can’t commence significant support from the people of Venezuela.

With less than two years of Presidency remaining, we are not very optimistic that President Trump would be able to conclude the opportunities triggered by the stance taken by him so far, and that could be a sticking point in his looming re-election bid. He has so far renegotiated trade agreement with South Korea, Mexico, and Canada.