The NYT op-ed writer may have gone about it wrong, but his essential point was valid

Namely, that the administration's foreign-policy team has to keep sending the grown-up message to regions like east Asia to counter the Very Stable Genius's blurtings.

Zach Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute puts it thusly:

The United States has “abandoned its traditional presence in the Asia Pacific,” declares Korean expert Oh Ei Sun. “Donald Trump is checking out of Asia,” warns Peter Hartcher, international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. From Tokyo to Singapore, critics are questioning U.S. staying power in Asia. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just announced several major new Indo-Pacific initiatives, so why are U.S. friends in Asia so concerned?

The answer, of course, comes back to President Donald Trump. His decision not to attend this year’s critical Asia summits is just the latest signal that the United States is simultaneously pursuing two separate policies: Trump’s and his administration’s. The president’s “America First” agenda is fundamentally at odds with his administration’s efforts to, in Pompeo’s words, “deepen engagement” in Asia. These two cannot be reconciled. The unfortunate result is a muddled set of policies and a diminution of U.S. influence in Asia.

Here's what the grownups are pursuing:

The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy both articulated a regional strategy of deep engagement. The administration labeled this approach the promotion of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” But critics asked for specifics. In July and August, the administration provided its first concrete details when Pompeo gave two major speeches on Asia policy.

In Washington, Pompeo announced that $113 million would be funneled into three new efforts: a digital connectivity and cyber security partnership, an initiative to enhance development growth through energy, and an infrastructure transaction and assistance network. Several days later in Singapore, Pompeo committed to shift nearly $300 million in funding into accounts for foreign military financing and countering transnational crime in Asia. Meanwhile, administration officials continued to push for a doubling of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s (a U.S. government agency that helps American businesses invest in developing markets) access to U.S. Treasury credit, to over $60 billion.

These are worthwhile initiatives. The dollar amounts may not be huge — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi quickly belittled the new initiatives by saying, “it should be 10 times higher, for a superpower with $16 trillion of GDP” — but that is the wrong way to think about these commitments. China’s state-driven development model lends itself to large dollar figures, but the U.S. approach is privately driven, so American government efforts are more of a force multiplier.

The U.S. government isn’t betting that $113 million will make a difference on its own, just that it will incentivize far more private investment. Washington’s hope is that this private investment will be more attractive over the long term than Beijing’s massive but underdelivering Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to connect land and sea trade routes running from China through Eurasia to Western Europe and Africa.

Although China was seldom mentioned in Pompeo’s remarks, the contrast with Beijing’s approach could not have been clearer. He noted,

Our good faith as a partner is evident in our support for economic development that honors local development and national sovereignty. The United States does not invest for political influence but instead practices partnership economics.

He also defined the goals of a free and open Indo-Pacific as protection from coercion, good governance, respect for fundamental rights and liberties, access to seas and airways, peaceful resolution of disputes, fair and reciprocal trade, open investment, transparency, and connectivity. It was hard not to read these as direct refutations of China’s regional approach.

Pompeo and other members of the administration are to be commended for putting forward a positive regional agenda with real specifics. Unfortunately, there are reasons to believe that last month’s speeches may signify the high-water mark of the administration’s Asia policy.

But here's what they're up against:

Administration officials have done their best to argue that they represent the president, but Trump continues to undermine them. Last week, just days after Mattis promised that there were “no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises,” Trump tweeted “there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games.” This is not only bad policy — the exercises are crucial to the allied deterrence capability yet the last one would have cost only $14 million— but it also undercut the secretary of defense, which will make his role as “secretary of reassurance” even more difficult.

Meanwhile, Trump is pushing trade policies that contradict the administration’s own “free and open” principles. He has used national security as an excuse to put in place damaging measures, like auto tariffs targeting close military allies and trade partners. This will directly harm America’s most important relationships in Asia and elsewhere. How long can administration officials push a “free and open Indo-Pacific” while the president continues to favor disengagement and protectionism?

The situation's instability must be resolved:

 . . . this situation simply cannot continue. The president’s disagreements with his own officials cannot be papered over. He is, after all, the elected leader of the United States and his (almost always) decisions bind U.S. policymakers. From his “trust” in Kim Jong Un to his “friendship” with Xi Jinping to his conviction that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the president’s beliefs are driving U.S. policy. And Trump appears increasingly determined to shed administration officials who do not share his views.

The implications for U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific are finally becoming clear. Pompeo’s vision of an America that “is deeply engaged in the region’s economic, political, cultural, and security affairs” is a good one. It is a shame that the president doesn’t appear to share it.

 

So while the palace-intrigue aspect of this may cause the casual observer's eyes to laze over, it has serious implications.