July 27, 2020

A couple of days ago I wrote, Bill Evanina, a top US counterintelligence official issued a statement warning that China, Russia and Iran are attempting to interfere with the upcoming 2020 presidential election.  “Specifically, Evanina called out Russia, China and Iran for seeking to interfere in the American democratic process, an effort that includes targeting ‘the private communications of US political campaigns, candidates and other political targets.’”

There should be no surprise from anyone that Russia is included in this list.  They clearly prefer Trump win the election and by all intelligence reports will continue to do what they did in 2016 to ensure that happens.  Putin (and his oligarch friends) have been pretty much left to their own devices during this administration, in spite of Trump’s claims that he has been tougher on Russia than any other president (demonstrably false).  This has been punctuated by the recent reports of Russia paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill US soldiers and the US response was – zero!  If Trump is reelected, Putin will become even more emboldened.  Why wouldn’t he want Trump in the White House.  (Any bets that after Trump leaves office – whenever that might be – that there will be a ‘Trump Tower’ in Moscow?)

One might wonder why, in spite of the trade war and escalating tensions between the US and China, that China would prefer to have Trump in the White House.  In a word – strategy.  China has a long-term global strategy – the Trump administration has none.  China has witnessed the increasing withdrawal of the US from the world stage and they view that as in their best long-term strategic interests. 

As the US withdraws from the world stage, China is continuing to flex its economic, political and military muscles around the world.  China is well aware that the US has alienated many, if not most, of our allies and that too is in China’s long-term strategic interest.  China knows that if the US were able to build strong, international alliances and collectively confront China, it would be much more difficult to pursue their global ambitions.   With Trump trying to ‘go it alone’ and follow his Make America Great nationalist policy, China knows the US is in a much weaker position.  It’s no small wonder that China would like to see another four years of Trump.

A surprising member of the list is Iran.  The Trump administration has been very vocal in its belligerence towards Iran.  Why would Iran want another four years of Trump.   If you recall, Trump, against the advice of all our allies, pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.   Even though the remaining members of that deal are trying to salvage as much as they can, Iran has pretty much taken the attitude that they will re-institute their program of nuclear enrichment.   Another four years will pretty much give them a green light to continue down this path.  Another example where Trump will accomplish exactly the opposite of what he says he wants. 

The other reason that Iran is not really afraid of Trump – so far, he is all talk and no action.  Sure, he has imposed some economic sanctions, but Iran has lived through these before.  However, in one of my previous blogs, I discussed how Iran has shot down a Global Hawk drone and the US did not retaliate at all.  The military developed a plan and was within two hours of executing that plan when Trump pulled the plug.  Typical Trump – lots of big words, not a lot of concrete action.

So, here we are, less than 100 days away from the election, Trump is trailing badly in the polls, the coronavirus is ravaging the country, the economy is struggling and many, many experts are calling for parts of the country to shut down once again – and we have three international players who are all accused by our own intelligence agencies of trying to interfere with the 2020 election, all likely in favor of Trump.  What could go wrong?

Trump was already impeached over the misguided attempt to have the President of the Ukraine initiate an investigation into his political rival.  And it has similarly been reported that Trump has asked President Xi of China to accelerate buying agriculture products from the US to help boost his reelection chances.  This is a man who has demonstrated that he will accept ‘help’ from wherever to help him get reelected.

And if this picture wasn’t ugly enough, our very own president continues to sow distrust about the legitimacy of our own electoral process and continues to deploy Federal troops against American citizens.  As I have said before, ‘buckle up’ – this is going to be a rocky ride.