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War and conflict
OpinionWorld Opinion
Anthony Rowley
Anthony Rowley

MacroscopeTrump’s war is uniting the world, just not how he might have expected

The war on Iran could prompt middle powers to go beyond forming coalitions independent of the US and align more openly with China

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A protester wears a mask of US President Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on March 16, during a demonstration against Trump’s request to dispatch warships to the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: AFP
Anthony Rowley
Before his first term as US president began in 2017, Donald Trump was probably best known for his book, The Art of the Deal. But by launching, together with Israel, a widely unpopular war on Iran, Trump has arguably dealt himself a very weak hand. There is little “art” in it.

The headline splashed across the front page of the Financial Times on March 17 – “Allies reject Trump’s call for warships” (to force open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has partially closed after US and Israeli attacks) – said it all. His bluff had been called, so to speak.

The US leader might have been wise to read Dale Carnegie’s bestselling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which was published in 1936 and has since sold over 30 million copies. It advises on how to become an effective leader without resorting to manipulation or coercion.

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Certainly, Trump has won no friends by his rash and widely condemned assault on Iran. Far from influencing other national leaders in his favour, he has almost certainly set them on a course to form political and economic alliances that go beyond Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call for “middle-power” coalitions. There is now a real incentive for major powers to set aside their differences and form a united front in the face of a common threat of a wider conflagration and possibly a global economic recession.

China and Japan are critical in this regard. US relations with both have been thrown into question by the war and Trump’s call to Beijing and Tokyo – together with Western European powers – to help in cleaning up the energy-supply mess created by his actions and those of his comrade in arms, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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The dynamics of the US relationship with Japan – and quite possibly Japan’s relationship with China – have been thrown into doubt and disarray by Trump’s war. This has become clear from the events surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s visit to Washington on March 19.
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