After 100 days, Trump caught out by his own bombast - EDITORIAL

n the afterglow of his unexpected victory at the US presidential election Donald Trump the new American president, began his term as US president with a stunning turnaround on his election promises. Since his installation he has suffered a number of embarrassing body-blows, has been prone to stunning turn-a-rounds, setbacks in a Congress controlled by his own party and seen the judiciary overturn his executive fiat.   
Trump’s campaign was based on three slogans and candidate Trump himself led the crowds in chanting: “Build the wall”; on the Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it.   
“Lock her up,” promising to appoint a special prosecutor to charge rival candidate Hillary Clinton and imprison her and...  “Drain the swamp” about cleansing Washington-based influence in policy and planning.   
On taking up duties as president, he promulgated an executive fiat proposing a travel ban on persons arriving from seven Islamic countries -- Federal courts halted his proposed travel ban.   
In an even worse defeat the Republican party controlled Congress rejected his attempts to unravel  Obamacare and replace it with his own version of a healthcare programme.   Separately Congress rejected the new President’s demand for a budgetary provision to build a wall on the Mexican border and force the Mexicans to pay for it.   

In the run-up to his election Trump referred to NATO as an obsolete organization and threatened to pull out of that grouping unless other NATO members “paid their share”.   
Since then the new President has had to eat his words so-to-say and had assured the NATO countries of continued US involvement.   
In like manner the President threatened to tear up trade agreements like NAFTA, which still stands. He demanded partners, Korea and Japan pay the cost of US military protection to their countries. He even demanded S. Korea pay the cost of the deployment of the THAAD missile system in that country.   
The President has since assured Japan that he would continue US military partnership. Meanwhile South Korea dismissed his demands for payment for the deployment of THAAD missiles emphasising the systems were managed exclusively by US personnel and the agreement was a provision of land to house the system.   

During his election campaign and even after assuming the presidency, Trump consistently lashed out at China. In the aftermath of the euphoria of his election victory, the new President attempted to challenge China’s ‘one China policy’ by taking a call from Taiwan’s president and justifying his action claiming, the US was not bound by the ‘One China policy’ unless we made a deal with China having to do with other things”.   
Within weeks the new President was forced to eat humble pie. As he began the usual series of initial calls with leaders from around the world, ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine reported “administration officials concluded that Chinese President Xi would only take a call if Mr. Trump publicly committed to upholding the 44-year old policy.”   
And so, three weeks after his inauguration, President Trump re-affirmed the ‘One China’ policy in a phone call with President Xi Jinping. Trump’s first act as president with respect to his China policy was to fold in.   

President Xi had successfully called Mr. Trump’s bluff and proved the US continued to be what the late Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung described as a ‘paper tiger’.   
On the bright side, by accepting the ‘One China policy’ President Trump avoided potentially destabilizing US-China relations.   
President Trump therefore needed some action which could help him portray the strongman image he had drawn for himself.   
To this end it would appear, Mr. Trump has picked on North Korea – an Asian country at odds with the US and known to have in its possession nuclear weapons, but unproven missile delivery systems and  on Syria.   
President Assad of Syria’s Sarin gas attack on civilians in Idlib presented the new President this opportunity. - President Trump dropped a series of ‘Tomahawk Missiles’ on an isolated airfield in Syria which caused no real damage.   
Had he been in school Trump’s report would be riddled with failure. Even his rapprochement policy with Russia is in a shambles.