Washington may not be fully back in business anytime soon

SINCE Donald Trump's election last November, Washington's crystal ball gazers, as well as tea-leaf readers elsewhere, have sought to figure out whether he would stay committed to the foreign policy pledges he made during his campaign that ran contrary to traditional American diplomacy: reassessing US-led military alliances across the Pacific and the Atlantic; questioning whether Washington should continue to adhere to the One China policy; and relocating the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The fate of many of Mr Trump's policy ideas will probably be determined through the checks and balances provided by the constitutional system, and that have already acted as obstacles when it came to his pledge to impose a travel ban on citizens of several Muslim countries. It is also doubtful that Congress will agree to fully fund his "beautiful wall" with Mexico or that state governments will cooperate with his plan to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. The reality is that America's political and legal system ends up biting every president. The close checks have led to an early casualty from the Trump team - national security adviser Michael Flynn has just resigned for lying about the contents of his conversation with Russia's ambassador.

At the same time, there are also indications that Mr Trump's global agenda may not crash the international security system or devastate the global economy as observers have feared. While some of his Cabinet appointments have met with pushback, even from some Republicans, there are among them a couple of steady, experienced hands. And Defence Secretary James Mattis, a retired marine general, has already been to Japan and South Korea where he reiterated US commitment to its security ties in the region, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, has played an important role in convincing Mr Trump to keep in place the status quo in the Sino-American relationship. That became clear during the recent telephone conversation the US president made with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping when he endorsed the One China policy.