Pointing out that Washington has long used the term ‘rogue nation' to describe the actions and policies of countries and organizations in opposition to US foreign policy, China Daily notes that the pejorative is now regularly used to reference the policies, edicts and tweets of the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Citing a May 14 article in the Washington Post by Brookings Institution neoconservative Robert Kagan, Beijing noted that modern DC diplomacy is now tracking along either of two foreign policy formats: as a post-World-War-II defender of the international order, or as an increasingly isolationist nation ditching the economic and military promises it made to its allies.
"It turns out there was a third option," however, according to Kagan, cited by China Daily.
"The United States as a rogue superpower, neither isolationist nor internationalist, neither withdrawing nor in decline, but active, powerful and entirely out for itself," the high-profile, former Republican Party member stated.
Noting only the recent disruptive Trump administration policy moves on Iran and trade, Kagan observed that the US leader was ignoring the current world order while viewing global opportunities through a narrow perspective of personal gain.
In referring to the US as a rogue nation, China Daily noted many historical examples of go-it-alone policies by Washington, including the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq under President George W. Bush; the sharp escalation of drone strikes under President Barack Obama; Trump's orders to attack Syria with cruise missiles in 2017 and again this year, and an ongoing US embargo against Cuba.
In observing that the US should be considered a rogue nation, Beijing also noted Trump's withdrawal from a host of other global alliances besides the 2015 JCPOA Iran nuclear deal, including quitting the UN Human Rights Council, dropping its membership in UNESCO, turning away from the 2016 Paris climate accord, deep cuts in legacy funding to the United Nations and the latest threats of additional tariffs on the imports of long-term allies.
This dizzying list of forgotten US promises must also include, according to Beijing, Trump's apparent abandonment of long-standing trade agreements with Washington's closest economic partners, including China.
As reported by China Daily, Kagan and his neoconservative base are hardly the only experts, analysts or political observers who feel the same way.
Former UN climate change special envoy Mary Robinson stated in 2017 that Trump's appalling about-face on US participation in the Paris climate accord "renders it a rogue state on the international stage," cited by the Huffington Post.
Economics Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz pointed out that Trump's withdrawal from the Paris accord rendered the "US a step closer to being a rogue nation," cited by the Irish Examiner.
The Sydney Morning Herald's political and international editor Peter Hartcher on May 9 lambasted Trump for taking the US out of the historic Iran deal, noting that "Donald Trump's America has just become a rogue nation."
But the latest threat of imposing new sanctions by November 4 against nations that continue to buy oil from Iran — including India, China, France, South Korea, Italy, Japan and a host of others — will make the US a rogue ‘superpower' according to Kagan, cited by China Daily.
The Trump November 4 deadline demands that long-term economic and military allies of the US follow the edicts of Washington exclusively, rather than using the guidance of the United Nations Security Council, according to Beijing.
China Daily, however, noted that Americans are not representative and do not necessarily support the increasingly irrational actions of its current president and his administration.
At the Council on Foreign Relations, senior fellow Edward Alden pleaded just last week for Washington's allies to suspend judgement of the US as a rogue nation, providing reasoning suggesting that Congress, business leaders, the agricultural sector and public opinion will soon "force Trump to his senses."