This is theTrump’s Unpredictability on Trade and North Korea Opens on a Door for China now times,,,,

TOKYO — Under normal circumstances, just one of the announcements that came out of the White House on Thursday would have unnerved American allies in Asia.

But in a single day, President Trump managed to unsettle the region on not just one front but two. Hours after he signed orders to impose stiff and sweeping tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, including from key allies like Japan and South Korea, he accepted an invitation to personally meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for negotiations over the North’s nuclear program.

For allies who have long looked to the United States to provide security and stability, it was a dizzying jolt of drama that injected fresh uncertainty into strategic calculations in the region, where China is seeking to supplant the United States as the major power.![merlin_135142143_8a23021a-4e55-4f18-b22e-fa623e1ded30-master768.jpg]
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By all accounts, Mr. Trump made improvisational decisions about both the tariffs and the talks, either against the advice or without the knowledge of key administration officials and advisers.

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“The abrupt decision on steel tariffs and now the summit with Kim Jong-un will inevitably raise questions in Tokyo and other allied capitals about how decisions are made by this administration that affect their interests,” said Michael J. Green, a former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and who met with Japanese officials in Tokyo on Friday.

The news that Mr. Trump wanted to meet with Mr. Kim did provide relief, at least in the short term, from months of growing fears that military conflict would break out on the Korean Peninsula.

“On the one hand, we’re buying time and Trump is not going to bomb in the spring,” said Gordon Flake, chief executive of the Perth US-Asia Center at the University of Western Australia. “That’s good.”
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