By Forrest Maynock
America as a nation may be entering a new era of cold war.
The election of President Donald Trump had likely only furthered to raise tensions with countries like China and Russia. As Trump takes office as the 45th President of the United States he is faced with ‘keeping the peace’ with a country who may have had some underhanded involve- ment in the American 2016 elec- tion, and a country who Trump has openly called out for ‘taking jobs.’
While President Trump may say that he wishes to work with all countries peacefully, he has a bad habit of either starting or adding to national and interna- tional spats.
An argument can be made that the American cold war with Russia never really ended in the first place. Think about it. Has America ever really not
been in some kind of tug-o-war with Russia since the fall of the Kremlin? I don’t think so.
Russia and The United States will always be at odds, not nec- essarily for political reasons, but for economic reasons. Trade, for example, plays a large role in this shadow conflict.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the Unit- ed States has consistently im- ported more goods than it has exported goods to Russia since 1993. 2016 had a negative bal- ance of 7839.3 million dollars for the United States. In other words, the United States is buy- ing more than it is selling, and the margin isn’t close.
Trump has claimed that he wants to ‘bring back jobs,’ so there may be an increased amount of exports to Russia in the coming years, and this may change the current dynamic that the United States has with Rus- sia.
President Trump has gone so
far as to say that he may ‘tempo- rarily’ end trade sanctions placed on Russia by former administra- tions. If this happens it could be a case of ‘dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.’
In one of his first tweets as President Trump proclaimed, “We will follow two simple rules: BUY AMERICAN & HIRE AMERICAN!”
I think that the country we should be worried about getting in an all-out ‘cold war’ with is China.
President Trump has been at odds with China recently, and has continually pinned blame on them for such things as hacking and taking jobs. President Trump also violated the ‘one China’ rule soon after his presidential win by talking with the president of Tai- wan. After receiving criticism, President Trump took to Twitter to let lose a storm of accusations and belittlement. This is the sort of rhetoric that could lead to ten- sion-filled cold wars.
On Monday, January 23, President Trump signed an ex- ecutive order that intends to re- move the United States from the recent Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
The big concern is of course a potential World War III. Will it happen? I think that it’s unlikely. We as a nation are living through one of the strangest times in hu- man history. Anything seems likely to happen.
However, I also think that most of this is typical political tension that we as a nation have been seeing since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
So, are we in a cold war with China and Russia? Yeah, prob- ably. Will that result in World War III? I really don’t think so. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the higher ups in the United States, China and Russia really want to kill each other, they just want to flex and ‘make noise.’
As Aerosmith put it we’re, “Livin’ on the edge!”