DePetris’ Trump foreign policy accomplishments more dubious than prideful

DePetris’ Trump foreign policy accomplishments more dubious than prideful

In his Chicago Tribune foreign policy commentary ‘The foreign policy moves Donald Trump got right this year’, Daniel DePetris largely ignores reality.

He praises Trump for brokering the November 10 ceasefire agreement in Gaza without mentioning that for nearly 10 months Trump provided Israel with billions in weapons to complete the obliteration of Gaza’s 139 square miles. With over 100,000 dead and the remaining 2,200,000 Palestinians facing death from forced starvation and withdrawal of medicine, the world rightly calls Israeli US policy a genocide. So yes, DePetris is correct to call Trump’s slowing down Israel’s ferocious genocide thru ceasefire “preferable” to its continuance. But pretending Trump is simply a neutral peace broker of the US enabled Israeli genocide is deplorable.

DePetris is also correct to praise Trump for seeking to broker an end to the Russo Ukraine war. But in claiming the biggest obstacle with Trump’s diplomacy is Trump’s “wild inconsistency”, DePetris misses a far greater obstacle: Russia and Ukraine’s diametrically opposed and irreconcilable goals to end the war. That makes Trump’s sincere efforts at peace daunting, if not impossible. At this stage, it is nowhere near an accomplishment.

DePetris whiffs on his third claimed Trump foreign policy accomplishment, the overthrow of the Syrian Bashar Assad regime, replaced by former al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmad al-Sharaa.

DePetris, like Trump, rehabilitates a US enemy dedicated to killing Americans in Iraq in his previous life. Why? Because al-Sharaa deposed the hated Assad whom the US sought to oust since the 2011 Syrian civil war to remove one of Israel’s regional enemies. This had nothing to do with uplifting the Syrian people. Indeed, the billions in weapons America poured into the Syrian civil war was responsible for much of the hundreds of thousands of deaths DePetris attributes solely to Assad. With the secular Assad gone, Syria’s Christians, Alawites, Druze and others not part of al Sharaa’s extremist religious base are suffering horribly. Over 2,600 were slaughted under al-Sharaa's rule in 2025. Their fate was never a concern of Trump and his champion DePetris who view the destabilization of Syria as a US win for expanded Israeli Middle East hegemony.

Chicago Tribune’s readers deserve more than a sanitized view of Trump's machinations in Gaza, Ukraine and Syria. They deserve the truth.

Walt Zlotow… West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

My hope for 2026 is that America gives peace a chance

 My hope for 2026 is that America gives peace a chance

 

America should end senseless bombings in Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria and unidentified others that do nothing to protect the Homeland.

 

America should end its self-destructive campaign to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela to capture its vast oil reserves exceeding 300 billion barrels. 

 

America should cut off all military aid to Israel till Israel fully honors the ceasefire, withdraws it forces from over half of Gaza, fully complies with delivery of humanitarian aid, and agrees to work toward recognition of a Palestinian state.  

 

America should reduce the threat of war with China by honoring the One China Policy, ending provocative military exercises in China’s neighborhood, and engaging in sensible diplomacy to reduce escalating tensions.

 

Most importantly, America should reduce the threat of nuclear war with Russia while bringing peace to Ukraine by brokering end of the war in Ukraine. .

 

Walt Zlotow   West Suburban Peace Coalition,   Glen Ellyn IL

 

Poor, beleaguered Venezuela, with new pals China and Russia, may be demolishing two century old US Monroe Doctrine

 

Poor, beleaguered Venezuela, with new pals China and Russia, may be demolishing two century old US Monroe Doctrine

 

Over the past several months the US has committed mass murder of unknown souls on small boats off Venezuela, seized a Venezuelan oil tanker, and massed a huge force of 10,000 troops, aircraft and world’s largest aircraft carrier nearby Venezuela. All this designed to dislodge hated Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to allow America takeover of Venezuelan oil resources.

 

And they are vast, among the world’s largest at over 300 billion barrels. They also pose a major threat to US world energy and political dominance. Venezuela supplies over 80% of China’s energy needs, all of which is paid for in Yuan, not US dollars. China has made major investments in the Venezuelan economy to further their energy interdependence.

 

Russia too has become a significant military, economic and political partner of Venezuela to counter 2 decades of US intimidation, now turned violent, to oust the socialist governments of first Hugo Chavez and now successor Maduro.

 

Neither China nor Russia will sit back as Trump seeks his illegal, immoral and criminal takeover of Venezuela and its vast resources. Both are pouring in military and intelligence resources to keep US boat bombings and tanker seizers from devolving into outright invasion.

 

President Trump keeps ratcheting up the military pressure but so far avoided outright invasion. What is Trump waiting for when his intimidation force squanders over $8 million per day and Maduro has clearly signaled he’s going nowhere but to the Venezuelan war room? Due to Chinese and Russian help, Venezuela will be no pushover. While the US brings vast military firepower to any intervention, US cannon fodder may end up arriving at Arlington by the planeload. Even the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier might be joining those small fishing boats down to Davy Jones Locker. With just 15% of Americans supporting invasion, domestic opposition to Trump’s folly will be ferocious.

 

The rest of Latin America, indeed the world, watches as the US has boxed itself in to an untenable corner. Engage in all out war and it’s likely to end disastrously even in victory. Turning around the Trump armada will signal to Latin America that the Monroe Doctrine is dead, allowing more countries to pivot away from US military and economic intimidation to countries like China, Russia and others who treat them as descent political, economic partners. .

 

Time for the US to retire the Monroe Doctrine, end senseless economic sanctions that simply turn the world against America, and become an honest, reliable partner in world affairs. Alas, Trump and his neoconservative war council appear oblivious how they are accelerating America’s world dominance decline.