It was predicted, but can he deliver?

In an attempt to poke both the US and Japan in the eye, during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the US, North Korea test fired an intermediate range missile into the Sea of Japan. The missile used solid fuel and was deliberately fired high so that it dropped short of neighboring countries. Japan and the US issued ritual condemnation of the missile launch but both know that there is little they can do to stop North Korea continuing with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Eventually it will develop an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the east coast of the US, across the Pacific Ocean. Pakistan has reacted angrily after the US refused a visa to the deputy chairman of its senate for links with terrorists. Hafiz Saeed may have been labeled a terrorist by the United Nations but he is roaming around freely within Pakistan. Both North Korea and Pakistan are failed states but are able to survive for one reason only, and that is support by China. Sanctions imposed by the West are meaningless because North Korea shares a long border with China, with open trade between the two countries. China not only supports Pakistan but also protects its terrorists at the United Nations Security Council. Having hinted that he would bargain on the 'One China Policy', Donald Trump backed down in a phone call to the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. We have to wait to see if he imposes 45% tariff on import of all Chinese goods, as he promised during his campaign. There is ferocious opposition to Trump within the US. Business leaders have denounced his order to suspend all visits to the US by citizens of 7 countries for 3 months, in order to reduce chances of terrorist attacks. The rise of Donald Trump was predicted in a 1998 book by a philosopher named Richard Rorty, who died in 2007. "Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers -- themselves desperately afraid of being downsized -- are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else," he wrote. "At that point something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for -- someone willing to assure them that once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots." By electing Trump the US has rejected neoliberal policies of free market, globalization and open borders. The cacophony against him is being orchestrated by people who benefited from shifting jobs to China and importing cheap goods into the US. They do not want taxes on Chinese goods, let Americans suffer. Is Trump strong enough to take them on? We shall see.