Trump’s Mixed Messages Fail to Reassure Asian Allies<br />Still, Mr. Campbell said, "If this trip were a high-wire act, President Trump managed to get to the other side."<br />And yet there were subtler signs of tension, which spoke to the conflicting messages Mr. Trump brought to Asia and suggested a level of disarray in the White House’s policy toward the region.<br />Trump said that This has been a very fruitful trip for us and, also, in all fairness, for a lot of other nations,<br />After declaring in Beijing that he did not blame the Chinese for chronic imbalances with the United States, he delivered a withering denunciation<br />in Vietnam of regional trade pacts, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which Mr. Trump has withdrawn the United States.<br />Evan said that Despite all the craziness of Trump, the U.S. remains in the game in Asia,<br />Before his meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia, for example, Mr. Trump had a brief contretemps with Mr. Turnbull over trade imbalances after he asserted<br />that the United States ran deficits with "almost everybody." "Except us," Mr. Turnbull interjected.<br />Whether recruiting partners to confront North Korea even as he castigated them for trade abuses, or embracing China at the same time<br />that he lined up a like-minded coalition to contain it, Mr. Trump was often a bewildering figure to countries that had already viewed the new president with anxiety.
