Trump has wreaked havoc with shocking speed: Susan Rice

Former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice says President Donald Trump’s foreign policy moves during his first four months in office have been nothing than “a whole lot of winning" for America’s arch-rivals, Russia and China.

Rice, who was former President Barack Obama's adviser, wrote about Trump in a New York Times op-ed on Friday, denouncing the president for what she described as his isolationist foreign policy.

“With shocking speed, he has wreaked havoc: hobbling our core alliances, jettisoning American values and abdicating United States leadership of the world,” she wrote.

“That’s a whole lot of winning — for Russia and China,” Rice added.

Rice noted Trump's foreign policy moves, including his latest decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement as well as his withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) only 3 days after he took the oath of office.

She said withdrawing from TPP, opened the door for China to assert its own views on trade in the region. She said that Trump  left “key allies empty-handed, fearful of the strategic benefit that will inevitably accrue to China.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, reached in October 2015 after five years of negotiations, was a massive regional trade deal backed by Australia and other regional neighbors, and was headed by the US.

Rice also knocked Trump for his latest decision on pulling out the US from the Paris climate agreement, which according to her has put the country “at odds with virtually the entire world.”

“Europe and China stand together on the Paris accord, while the United States is isolated.”

Obama, whose administration helped negotiate the Paris accord, has harshly criticized Trump's decision with his Secretary of State John Kerry describing the move "self-destructive" to the US interests. 

Rice further criticized Trump’s “reckless refusal to reaffirm our commitment to the defense of our allies under Article 5” during his trip to Europe last week. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’ Article 5 stipulates that other NATO allies must come to the aid of an ally under attack if it is invoked.

Trump said the only time that Article 5 has been invoked was after the September 11, 2001 attacks, when the alliance answered Washington’s call for joining a war in Afghanistan, which lasted for almost 16 years.

Rice said by such decisions; the US has “voluntarily” given up its global leadership post because it has isolated itself from the international arena.”

Trump’s move is a “coup de grâce for America’s postwar global leadership for the foreseeable future,” she said. “We will see the cost when next we need the world to rally to our side."

Rice also warned "It won’t be long before a fresh crisis arises."

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