Dan Drezner: “There are many reasons to doubt that Trump will be able to effectively play the madman in his second term, however. The most obvious is that Trump’s first-term efforts at coercive bargaining went largely for naught. His administration’s track record on economic coercion was less than stellar. Trump’s greatest foreign-policy success—the Abraham Accords—was due to proffering inducements rather than crazily threatening sticks.”
“Trump’s madman schtick worked better with U.S. allies than adversaries. The former group of countries, rattled by his threats to withdraw from long-standing alliances and trade treaties, at least made some public displays of fealty. Trump, however, was too busy trying to ingratiate himself with the autocratic rulers of China and Russia to act crazy in front of them.”
