Not everything is Trump's fault

The New York Times Editorial Board is mysteriously blaming President Trump for a breakdown in the trade relationship between Japan and South Korea, despite the fact that he has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The rupture has little to do with national security, important materials, mismanagement or any of the other proffered rationales. It’s all about age-old animosities, and they’ve been allowed to putrefy in large measure by President Trump’s irresponsible attitude toward trade and alliances.

This is a fight in which everyone stands to lose except China and North Korea, and the Trump administration should be heavily leaning on its closest Asian allies to come to their senses...

All this is obviously damaging the economies and security of both countries, and to American interests in the region, which depend in large measure on healthy relationships with Japan and South Korea. Washington should have long ago stepped in to try to break up the fight, but the Trump administration has shown little interest.

And despite ending their column with, "But Japan and South Korea should not need American help to see the folly of allowing the bad blood between them to damage their economies and security, and to aid their real foes," the Editorial Board treats both countries as if they are entirely without agency and only able to act within whatever paradigm is set by the United States. It's fine to be ideologically opposed to someone in politics, but it's incumbent upon a major news organization to then be even more responsible in their critiques of that person.

Infantilizing the Japanese and South Korean regimes as if they're unable to make any decisions outside of the admittedly poor example of Donald Trump is both insulting and pathetic. The reason Trump is able to credibly get away with attacking the "fake news media" is because the "Newspaper of Record," among others, so often editorializes or reports in ways that make it clear they're only interested in making Trump look bad whatever the actual story may be.