Rivals, ‘rogues’ hit back at Trump’s foreign policy defense

President Trump’s first State of the Union quickly drew fire from countries like China and Iran, with Beijing characterizing the speech as Cold War-era rhetoric while Tehran said the president’s remarks exposed the White House’s ignorance of the Arab world.

Reserved as a relatively brief coda near the end of a 90-minute address, Mr. Trump highlighted the progress against Islamic State, attacked U.S. aid recipients who opposed his move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and criticized the records of regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.

He offered sharp critiques but no new policy shifts on such questions as the Iran nuclear deal and North Korea’s weapons programs. In his only explicit mention of China and Russia, Mr. Trump appeared to lump them with rogue regimes and terror groups that explicitly oppose the U.S. and its allies.

“Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values,” Mr. Trump told Congress.

On North Korea, Mr. Trump movingly recounted the regime’s human rights abuses, but vowed only to continue to wage “a campaign of maximum pressure” to prevent the North from acquiring nuclear weapons that could threaten the American homeland.

The relatively modest amount of time Mr. Trump devoted to international affairs nevertheless sparked a strong pushback from some of his targets.

In Beijing, Chinese officials said Mr. Trump’s “rival” comments smacked of an “outdated Cold War mentality” that will set U.S.-Sino relations on a negative course. “We hope the United States will meet China halfway, respect each other, focus on cooperation, and control [our] differences,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Wednesday.

Citing Mr. Trump’s security and trade policies, the state-owned Xinhua news service said in a commentary, “Trump’s boastful address was delivered amid international anxiety. … The international community’s unwillingness to help ’Make America Great Again’ will undermine Washington’s accomplishments, if any.”

Mr. Trump’s words played far better in Japan, which has stuck closely to the U.S. in the North Korean crisis and in the regional tug-of-war with China. Chief Cabinet Secretary for Japan Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday night’s speech delivered “a powerful message” to North Korea to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Trump’s criticism of the Iranian nuclear deal and his open support of recent violent anti-government demonstrations there brought a quick and sharp response from Tehran.

Mr. Trump’s remarks “again confirm his ignorance of Iran and the region,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter. “Everyone knows where he stands; and it’s certainly not with Iranians.”

Some commentators nicked Mr. Trump and his Republican supporters in the House chamber Tuesday night on style points. A commentary on the Kremlin-funded RT news website compared the enthusiastic and frequent applause for the president to the old Soviet Union under Stalin.

“The spectacle of watching the Republicans punctuate Trump’s speech with standing ovations and applause brought to mind a scene from a Soviet-era Politburo meeting, where the attendees seem locked in a feverish contest to see who can applaud the longest,” U.S. writer Robert Bridge wrote on the RT site.

And Marie Cecile Naves, an analyst for the Paris-based Institute of International Relations and Strategy, said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde that the theme of the night seemed to be Mr. Trump’s determination, on issues ranging from the Iran nuclear deal to the future of the Guantanamo prison site, to go in the opposite direction from his predecessor.

“A year after taking office, Trump remains obsessed with the idea of standing out from Obama,” she said. “This is a point that must always be kept in mind.”

The Guantanamo decision, she said, “is less an effective measure against terrorism than a personal attack on Barack Obama.”