For all of his partisanship and incompetence, I will give Pete Hegseth credit for one thing; instead of trashing America’s friends in Asia, he is genuinely trying to bolster our alliances. In the meantime, however, his boss is imposing automobile tariffs that will seriously damage the Japanese and South Korean economies. Will this end well?
No. At some point, the Japanese and South Koreans may decide, like the Europeans, that being vassals to a relatively benign and predictable lord is better than serving a despotic and unreliable one.