Trump’s reliance on pressure tactics is showing diminishing returns

President Trump’s brinkmanship with Mexico over immigration has opened a new and risky front in his global campaign to pressure other nations to capitulate to his demands, a strategy that has paid few dividends over 2 ¹/₂ years and left his major foreign policy initiatives in doubt.

From his “fire and fury” rhetoric against a nuclear-armed North Korea to an escalating trade war with China to new ultimatums aimed at Mexico, Trump has wielded threats, insults and punishments against foreign counterparts, with diminishing returns.

Though he lured Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table through a “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions, Trump’s historic summits with the young dictator ended in failure after talks collapsed in February.

View the complete June 1 article by David Nakamura on The Washington Post website here.