Withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement, Trump-Trudeau conflict at the G7 summit, and imposing tariffs
Trump fulfilled another campaign promise and dissolved one of the landmark foreign policy achievements of the Obama administration on May 8, 2018, when he announced that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. plus Germany) nuclear deal with Iran. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said, while promising to reimpose “the highest level of economic sanctions” on Iran. The other signatories of the agreement remained committed to it.
Trump’s decision in the matter was reflective of his growing willingness to impose policies that isolated the United States from its traditional allies. He had come into office promising to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA if Canada and Mexico did not renegotiate the agreement; in August 2017, representatives from the three countries began formal discussions on revamping the historic deal. In May 2018 Trump announced his intention to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico, and the EU, claiming that the tariffs were necessary to protect U.S. industries as a matter of national security. At a summit in Quebec in June, Trump was at odds with the other Group of Seven (G7) leaders over a variety of issues but especially trade. Although the U.S. president initially supported the communiqué that the leaders issued at the end of the meetings, Trump took umbrage at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement at a post-summit news conference that, if necessary, Canada would institute counter-tariffs and would not be “pushed around” by the United States. Relations had become strained between the two countries with the “world’s longest undefended border.”
Tariffs on steel and aluminum were also to be imposed on China, but that action proved to be only the opening salvo in a trade war that the Trump administration unleashed on the Asian economic giant. Trump had long argued that China was taking advantage of the United States in trade. Determined to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China and arguing that Chinese infringement of the intellectual property of American businesses and undercutting of American producers was a threat to U.S. national security, Trump, by July, had instituted tariffs on some $34 billion worth of Chinese goods, prompting China to respond in kind.
The Trump-Kim 2018 summit, “zero tolerance,” and separation of immigrant families
Less than a year after exchanging threats of nuclear war with Kim Jong-Un, the mercurial Trump responded in May 2018 to warming relations between North and South Korea by preparing plans for a summit meeting with the North Korean leader. The meeting, which was to be held in June, was cancelled by Trump after a North Korean official characterized threatening statements by Vice President Pence as “ignorant and stupid.” When Kim’s government adopted a conciliatory tone, Trump reversed his decision, and the two men held a historic meeting—the first face-to-face encounter between the sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea—in Singapore on June 12. With the world watching, Trump surprised both South Korea and the Pentagon by promising to end joint U.S.–South Korea military exercises, while Kim pledged to work “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” a promise that soon appeared to be contradicted by North Korean actions.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration had become the object of widespread outrage over its implementation in early April of a policy that called for the children of migrants entering the U.S. illegally to be separated at the U.S. border from their parents, all of whom were detained under the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. As awareness grew of the resulting situation—which saw even very young children removed from their parents and relocated—criticism of the policy spread across the political spectrum. Initially, the administration defended the policy and claimed that the law prevented it from taking another approach until Congress acted. Republicans attempted to address the problem, pushing through broader immigration legislation, but it failed to be enacted. By mid-June the hue and cry had grown so loud and the potential political damage loomed so large that Trump was compelled to issue an executive order terminating the separations. In the wake of the order, the Department of Homeland Security announced that 2,342 children had been separated at the border from 2,206 adults between May 5 and June 9.
The Supreme Court decision upholding the travel ban, its ruling on Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, No. 16-1466, and the retirement of Anthony Kennedy
Trump’s determination to secure the country’s borders received a shot in the arm later in June from the Supreme Court, which ruled 5–4 to uphold a third version of the travel ban that restricted entry into the United States for citizens of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Venezuela. The Court ruled that the ban was within the constitutional scope of presidential authority and that Trump’s inflammatory remarks during the election campaign regarding the threat posed by Muslims to the American people did not undermine that authority.
The Court also dealt a blow to organized labour with its 5–4 decision in June on Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, No. 16-1466, which overturned the precedent established in a 1977 decision and found that public-sector employees who chose not to join unions could not be required to pay fees to support collective bargaining.
The Supreme Court was on the mind of many Americans at the end of June when Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had so often acted as the swing vote between the Court’s conservative and liberal factions, announced his intention to retire. Naming his replacement offered Trump the opportunity to tip the Court’s ideological balance toward conservatism for a generation. The president had come into office promising to name to the bench judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and so it seemed certain that Senate Democrats would to try to determine the nominee’s stance on that politically pivotal case. When conservative District of Columbia Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh was named the nominee, however, some of the attention shifted to writing by Kavanaugh in which he had expressed doubts regarding whether a sitting president should be criminally investigated or prosecuted.
The indictment of Paul Manafort, the guilty pleas of Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, and indictments of Russian intelligence officers
That issue took on heightened importance because the congressional and Mueller investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election remained in the headlines and continued to provide a subtext for virtually everything that unfolded in Washington. By October 2017 the Mueller investigation had led to its first criminal charges, as Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman from June to August 2016, was indicted for conspiracy, money laundering, tax fraud, failure to file reports of foreign financial assets, serving as an unregistered foreign agent, and making false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Manafort had been forced to resign his post with the Trump campaign after an investigation by the Ukrainian government revealed that he had received some $13 million under the table for his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Phone calls between Manafort and Russian intelligence agents had been intercepted.