Five reasons why Donald Trump should not be considered as a useless president

Trump, it seems, is unlikely to make the list of great presidents. A colourful past with sexual misconduct allegations, shady business deals, and narcissism that is pathological, we can safely say he is more Nixon than Obama when it comes to personalities.

However, credit where credit is due, his America First foreign policy has left a safer world than what he inherited.

He didn't start a war, in fact, wound down the existing ones and barring a few missteps, he may be judged more kindly by history than we may assume right now, though only on his foreign policy stances and here are things that he got about right.

Hidden behind the name-calling like "little rocket man" and claims of "my button is bigger than yours", Trump was historic in engaging directly with North Korea and it has to be acknowledged that North Korea has been a lesser nuisance since for all. If anything, it has opened a passageway for it to join the comity of nations, as and when that becomes feasible. 

Donald Trump identifies China as the United States’ main competitor and has accused the Chinese Communist Party of taking advantage over trade.

According to Trump policymakers, The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pursuing dominance in all domains and sectors... (and) plans to monopolise every industry that matters to the modern world.

China exports more goods to the U.S. than to any other country in the world, and those exports had dropped by more than 12% due to the US and China trade war.

In the United States, it has led to higher prices for consumers and financial difficulties for farmers. In China, the trade war contributed to a slowdown in the rate of economic and industrial output growth, which had already been on a decline. Many American companies have shifted supply chains to elsewhere in Asia.

The US and China signed a phase one trade deal in January 2020, with China committing to buying US$200 billion of goods and services over the following two years.

In their latest decision, the Donald Trump administration has revised the visa rules to restrict the members of the Communist Party of China of President Xi Jinping from travelling to the US.

President Trump, on many occasions, had criticised the European partners of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for not spending enough to support the alliance.

The allies agreed in 2014 to spend 2% of their GDP on defence by 2024.

In July this year, Trump decided to withdraw nearly 12,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany.

“So we’re paying 4 to 4.3% when Germany’s paying 1 to 1.2%, at max 1.2%, of a much smaller GDP. That’s not fair,” Trump had said in December 2019.

US troops are stationed in member states all across Europe. This is to counter any military threat to any of the alliance members. The treaty binds each member to share the risk, responsibilities and benefits of collective defence.

ISIS shocked the world in 2014 when it took over a large swath of territory across Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate.

The terrorist group's territorial holdings were the basis for its so-called caliphate, and provided it with a major base of operations to conduct attacks across the world. After a five-year effort led by the US, ISIS’ caliphate was finally defeated in March 2019.

‘Great nations do not fight endless wars’, US President Donald Trump declared in his 2019 State of the Union speech. He had a point: military entanglements in the Middle East have contributed to the relative decline of American power and facilitated China’s rapid, muscular rise.

“I inherited a total mess in Syria and Afghanistan, the ‘Endless Wars’ of unlimited spending and death. During my campaign I said, very strongly, that these wars must finally end,” the president had tweeted on February 1, 2019.

The troop cuts reflect Trump’s long-standing desire to stop shouldering the cost of long-running military engagements against Islamic insurgencies in failed and fragile countries in Africa and the Middle East, a grinding mission that has spread since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Under the Trump administration's Abraham Accords Israel, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreed to sign the deal to normalize relations with Israel.

Abraham Accord is the first Arab-Israeli peace deal in 26 years.

Officially titled the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement: Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization between the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel marked the first normalization of relations between an Arab country and Israel since with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

"We are here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East," Trump said, moments before the accord was signed at the South Lawns of the White House.