The Lost Art of Preventing National (and Global) Self-Harm –

Diplomacy as Strategic Empathy--Drawing by Genevieve Shapiro

Many observers have commented on the cockamamie economics and twisted historical defense of the trade war triggered by President Trump’s indiscriminate tariff assault on April 2¹, as though April Fools’ day had come a day late. (Lesotho, don’t you dare loot, pillage, rape, and plunder us again!)²

I’d like to say a few words about the bass-ackwards diplomacy.

One thing diplomats do is try and see the world through the eyes of the other side. To understand what their interests are. To appreciate what their preferred option with respect to the issue in question might be—to find common ground in that way.

Strategic Empathy = How the Other Side Sees It

In national security strategy, understanding the perspective of others is a key component of coming to terms with the strategic context. It even has a name: strategic empathy. Before embarking on any course of policy action, it is critical to know—or have some clue about—how other countries might respond and why. If they see the issue the same way, they may be enlisted as partners. If they oppose, they may passively block, actively resist, or angrily fight back.

At a minimum, it makes sense to communicate and, as appropriate or necessary, to coordinate in advance. It seems silly to have to say this. As a practical matter, it’s easier to pull with than to push against.

Knowing where the other side stands helps shape your approach and inform how you implement it, for obvious reasons. It might even cause you to reconsider. When “the other side” effectively refers to “the whole world” or “everyone else” and not just to one isolated sector or one single country, this imperative becomes somewhat more pressing. If the obvious costs and risks of action outweigh the hypothetical benefits, it makes sense to step back. Take time out. Think again.

Flying Blind

To lack an appreciation for how the other side sees it is to fly blind. In policy wonk terms, you are likely to produce unintended consequences. More colloquially, you will hit a wall and smash your face.

To willfully ignore the views and interests of others is a more serious matter. It invites disaster, like playing with fire. Countries are just like people in that way; if you don’t care about them, they won’t care about you. If you flaunt your indifference, worse still. Even the most powerful countries understand this, as the United States (for the most part) used to.

Short of going to war, the exercise of power consists more in using the leverage of influence and persuasion than the stick of coercion. Even the most powerful country in the world cannot impose its will on an unwilling partner and get the result it hoped for or expected. Bad blood rarely helps produce good outcomes, unless simmering resentment and a plan for open retaliation or secret revenge count as that. (We may think diplomacy is useless, unnecessary, or dead, but history suggests otherwise. I’ll bet it’s just biding its time.)

In a world in which the interests of countries are not perfectly aligned, you can expect degrees of support or opposition to any proposed policy action. To maximize the chance of achieving your desired outcome, you calibrate your approach to account for the other side’s views, interests, and likely reaction.

Failure to understand the limitations of your leverage erodes that leverage. Throwing away your leverage by ignoring the interests of allies, partners, and friends (current and/or former) is stupid. Self-defeating. Delusional. Folly.

Worse.

There may not be a proper term for it. Even hubris falls short. We now need to invent one.

First, Do No Harm

Diplomatically speaking, Trump’s unprovoked trade war amounts to flagrant and gratuitous self-harm—a kind of slow-motion suicide. It violates the Hippocratic oath of any profession: first, do no harm.

It is a gross violation of the trust placed in the president to represent the interests of the American people, including and perhaps especially his own voters. Not to mention the interests of the millions of other people in the world impacted by our (foolhardy) policy actions and who, needless to say, have no say in our elections. (See here). Like so many other things he has done, is doing, and will surely still do, if it is not treachery or treason, it easily meets the standard of stupidity, which is a political high crime and misdemeanor—or ought to be.

For the sake of argument, let’s take a moment to assume there is a political method to the economic madness and that (as some critics claim) the president plans to use these tariffs as tools to extract loyalty or to extort political support from businesses and others. We can even go further (as some have) and posit a devious plan to deliberately destroy the economy and then sell off the parts at bargain basement prices to his family and friends, like Putin did in Russia to the same political end: to accumulate unchecked power.

Either way, nefarious or stupid, insidious or dumb, cynical or block-headed, the move merits impeachment. Congress, back over to you.

1. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/03/president-trumps-mindless-tariffs-will-cause-economic-havoc?giftId=058f8eb5-a13e-4a5f-a377-ba129c9d7142&utm_campaign=gifted_article

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/business/economy/lesotho-trump-tariffs-trade.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U4.eJC8.Gw2ZiK13AQiW&smid=url-share