Last night we saw President Donald Trump deliver his State of the Union Address, the second of his presidency (his speech to a joint session of Congress in 2017 was not a State of the Union Address, in line with tradition as these are given after at least a year in office).

What were some of the key points raised?

• A second summit to be held with North Korea
• A re-assertion of his belief in the US-Mexico border wall
• A call for political unity and bipartisanship

The Shadows of Korea and Vietnam still haunt the United States

President Trump announced that he will hold further talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on 27th and 28th February. These talks come after 15 months without nuclear weapon testing from the nation. Trump’s foreign policy regarding North Korea has divided many, whilst some would argue that his initial approach was too aggressive, it has brought North Korea to the negotiating table. Trump tweeted the following in January 2018:

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018

The President and the North Korean leader met for the first time last summer in Singapore, which was regarded as a historic event, the first meeting of a US President and a North Korean leader since the Korean War (1950-53). Now that Trump will sit down yet again with Kim Jong-un, will progress be made on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament? Or were the President’s critics correct in their scepticism?

The choice of Vietnam as the meeting place for February’s summit is intriguing. Trump will meet with the leader of the nation his country fought in the name of containing communism, in another nation where the US fought a communist regime. The lessons of Cold War foreign policy are still sewn into the diplomatic landscape today.

Is the wall falling down?

Trump confirmed his intentions to continue with his plans to increase security along the US-Mexico border. This comes despite his historic standoff with Congress in this year’s government shutdown. The stalemate was caused by the now Democrat-controlled House of Representatives refusing to allocate Trump an extra $5.7 billion to fund his wall. Whilst the shutdown came to an end, there was only a temporary solution that will fund the federal government until 15th February, after which point it is unclear what will happen. This comes as the first major challenge that the Trump Administration has received from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats following the 2018 mid-term elections. Will Trump stand down on such a key election promise in order to restore stability in the US federal government? It’s unlikely. Trump will look at this situation with an eye on the impending 2020 Presidential Election where, if he stands, he will hope to once again secure his electoral base, the same base that advocated the wall. The hyper-partisan Congress won’t wish to be seen as the losers in this showdown of ideology, leaving the situation in an effective deadlock.

Political unity in a polarised nation?

In his address on Tuesday Trump also called for political unity. He stated that his agenda was, ”Not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. It is the agenda of the American people. ” Whilst Trump was not a traditional Republican Presidential Candidate, neither is he a man of bipartisanship. Trump was prepared to let almost a million federal government employees go without a salary in order to secure his border wall pledge, which he didn’t secure. However, Trump could potentially be described as a non-partisan politician. He managed to find a base strong enough to win an election in which his opponent failed to acknowledge the disenfranchisement that the political establishment had caused in the years prior to 2016. Whilst it may be a cynical perspective, Trump’s call for bipartisanship may be aimed more at the Democrats than at his own concessions.

The President also wishes for an end to, ‘Ridiculous partisan investigations,’ referring of course to the Mueller investigation which has loomed over his Presidency. Whilst it would be an overstatement to claim that the President is facing a crisis, he is certainly experiencing great difficulty, which is only set to worsen due to the current make-up of Congress.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, Sky News, CNN, CNBC, CBS News