Trump's short-sightedness cuts reach of US soft power

DONALD Trump warned on Sunday that the "world is watching Iran" after days of anti-government protests sparked by the country's economic woes. Almost a year into office, the US president's hawkishness toward Teheran has been a key feature of his foreign policy with his landmark decision in October to unilaterally undermine the 2015 nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany and France.

The Iranian nuclear decision, where Mr Trump is out of kilter with almost all key allies from Beijing to London, is only one example of the administration shooting itself in the foot on the foreign policy front. In his first year, other key US decisions - from withdrawing from the Paris global climate treaty, to pulling out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership - have undermined goodwill with allies and damaged US soft power when the president may badly need these in 2018 given the range of international challenges he faces, including the North Korean nuclear stand-off.

Remarkably, even his National Security Adviser, H R McMaster, admitted last week that the US president's approach to foreign policy "has moved a lot of us out of our comfort zone, me included". In his candid remarks, just two weeks after he helped launch Mr Trump's new National Security Strategy, he also admitted that the latter had altered the international community's view of the United States with his "disruptive" stances.