Opinion: Trump fails (again) to hit Biden-Harris on national security

Anyone remember the Abraham Accords ?

The most significant step toward peace and normalized relations in the Middle East — and the ideal contrast for Donald Trump against the foreign policy chaos of the Biden administration — was nowhere to be heard in Tuesday’s presidential debate . Too bad Trump only remembers his own personal grievances.

That Trump choked in the clutch (again) is hardly new or news. The former commander in chief’s failure to take advantage of the abject incompetence of President Biden and his national security team is yet another missed opportunity that is turning a race Trump should lead handily into a coin flip .

Looking at nearly four years of Team Biden security policy, it’s hard to find anything they have done right. Even in Ukraine, their first instinct was to run away . This administration has no vision, no strategy, does not understand the importance of deterrence, is utterly flummoxed by leaders and countries that don’t share its worldview and is generally weak and impotent.

Although it is true that national security polls behind domestic issues, it is still on the minds of many Americans. The recent September YouGov benchmark has 64 percent of Americans calling national security “very important,” which ranks it ahead of abortion, crime, civil rights and education, among other issues. National security is also tied for fourth when respondents are asked to rank their most important issue.

But the real problem is that Biden’s national security failures contribute to the immigration crisis and inflation — two domestic issues where his approval continues to be abysmal. Out of the laundry list of failures, three messes stand out.

Meanwhile, Team Biden’s non-strategy on the war in Ukraine and the handcuffs it has put on the Ukrainians have been a gift to Vladimir Putin, lengthening the conflict, increasing costs and bleeding the Ukrainian nation.

The Biden administration has been completely bluffed by Putin, imagining all sorts of red lines that could make him go nuclear. As a result, they have refused to provide adequate arms and permission for Ukraine to fight back in earnest.

From the start, American policy should have been that anything Russia does to Ukraine, Ukraine can use our weapons to do to Russia — that is, if Russian missiles hit 200 miles into Ukraine, Ukraine can hit Russia 200 miles in, etc. Given the superiority of American military technology, that would have provided a balance of terror. Instead, Russia has been able to bomb Ukraine with impunity, impairing its ability to fight. This has also created massive damage, which requires more aid, which weakens political support for the war. It’s a doom-loop born of sheer incompetence.

The war has managed to make inflation worse , and continuing supply-chain inefficiencies are keeping prices high. Biden’s main “weapon” against the Russians has been sanctions, which have been a total flop, and he has barely deterred the Chinese and Iranians from aiding Russia. Their flagrant flouting of Team Biden’s lame warnings just makes us look even worse on the world stage.

Theodore Roosevelt coined the sage advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Joe Biden is a loudmouth whose national security team lives in fear. That is a recipe that encourages aggression — which is precisely what has come to pass.

Whether Hamas, Iran, North Korea, China or the various warlords in North Africa, America’s geopolitical opponents are acting with impunity, safe in the knowledge that the consequences will be easily brushed off. But it is Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela that is creating the biggest problems for the U.S. right now.

The Chavez-Maduro police state rigged its elections. Amid its economic collapse, more than 7 million Venezuelans have migrated. American communities are struggling with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, including violent gangs , straining community resources and most certainly contributing to Biden’s high disapprovals.

Maduro acts with impunity and violence to maintain his oppressive grip, along with aiding declared enemies of the U.S. He has threatened to invade Guyana, a small neighboring country that hosts major U.S. oil production investments.

And why not? After seeing Biden’s pathetic response in Ukraine, he cannot help but be encouraged.

If there was ever a set of reasons to use stronger measures, including force to oust Maduro, this is it. And it doesn’t have to mean an invasion; force could mean blockade, no-fly zones, arming an opposition. At the very least, that there is no campaign by the U.S. within the Organization of American States for a united front is incomprehensible.

When deterrence does not exist, aggression is allowed to flourish, and you don’t recover deterrence with empty rhetoric and worthless sanctions.

Biden’s pusillanimous policies are reserved for America’s enemies. Meanwhile, his team treats American allies like trash.

Consider Nippon Steel’s proposed buyout of U.S. Steel. Understand that the world is awash in overcapacity of steel production, mostly because of China. The U.S. and Canada have imposed large tariffs against China, and other countries, including Brazil and Chile, have done the same . Yet China continues to dump steel on the world market.

This is the unavoidable economic reality that U.S. Steel is facing. The company is too small and undercapitalized to compete in the global market. In the steel industry, size matters more than anything. It’s get big or shrivel. The Japanese company is offering not only a high premium to buy out U.S. Steel, but it has also offered a guarantee of major investment that would allow its new American division to compete.

But it appears Team Biden has given the United Steelworkers’ union a veto on any deal. And the union, still living in the 1960s, is exercising that veto. Biden and Kamala Harris are banging away with a tired jingoism, claiming to protect American steel industry jobs, heedless to the possibility that the rank and file steelworkers may actually favor and benefit from the buyout, not to mention shareholders who would take a bath if U.S. Steel stock tanks.

But the implications are beyond Biden and Harris desperately grasping at votes in Pennsylvania. Japan is a key ally in opposing Chinese aggression and hegemony in Asia. Biden wants to fortify the alliance to combat China and needs cooperation to make technology sanctions work.

Team Biden appears uninterested in a face-saving (and job-saving) compromise. As a result, an important Japanese company could be humiliated and the American alliance with Japan weakened. Japan has been a solid American ally, partaking in none of the arrogant whining that America gets from Europe.

Moreover, dozens of Japanese companies are almost as American as Japanese. Investment from Japan has been highly profitable for the U.S. and its communities. Yet none of that matters to Team Biden.

For Harris, the specter of Biden continues to haunt her campaign for the presidency. His bad policies and weakness have built the near impossible issue environment she now has to navigate. Lucky for her she’s facing Trump, who seems determined to equalize the race with his own mistakes.

Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.

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