Barack Obama was a disastrous president.  On this vague statement alone, we can agree with Donald Trump.  But even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and Obama did find a few during his 8 year presidency.

For libertarians, there is not much to praise about Obama or any of his policies.  In terms of anything significant, I can only name a few good things that came out of Obama, and there are criticisms I have within these few things.  Unfortunately, with those few things, Trump has largely opposed the policies of those few good things.

One thing Obama did that was a step in the right direction was to loosen sanctions on Cuba and somewhat open up travel.  Of course, it would have been nice if he had completely repealed all sanctions and travel restrictions, but he adopted a policy that was better than any other president of the last 5 decades.  Trump scaled back this Obama policy.

For some reason, even though Trump thinks it can be economically beneficial to impose tariffs and reduce trade with foreign nations, he somehow thinks it is a punishment to impose sanctions, which means a reduction in trade.  This alone shows Trump’s inconsistency on the issue of free trade.

A second thing Obama did (or maybe didn’t do) was to mostly allow states to adopt their own laws and policies with regards to marijuana.  Maybe Obama just threw in the towel, knowing that he couldn’t (politically speaking) send in the troops to knock down doors over marijuana.  His administration’s policies were not as hands-off as we have been led to believe, especially when it comes to making it difficult for marijuana dispensaries to open a bank account.  But Obama certainly could have been a lot worse on the issue of marijuana and states’ rights.

Meanwhile, Trump’s disgusting attorney general, Jeff Sessions, wants to go out of his way to bust down doors and ramp up the drug war, even in places where marijuana has been deemed mostly legal.  Sessions is a drug warrior who has no sympathies for the U.S. Constitution when it stands in his way.  For any good attributes Sessions may have had (which are few to a libertarian), he has mostly focused on all of his worst attributes.

The third, and final, good thing that Obama did was to negotiate with Iran and to be become a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  The main points of this agreement is that Iran would not pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions being lifted.  Trump recently said that the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement.

Trump has said since his campaign that it was a bad deal.  Some others have said that it wasn’t a perfect deal, but that the U.S. should not withdraw.  I don’t really understand what these statements mean.  They are short on specifics.  What exactly was bad about the agreement?

My only criticism of Obama here is that I don’t really think such an agreement was even necessary.  The only reason Iran would want to pursue nuclear weapons would be as a deterrent from being blown up and occupied (Iraqi style).  The U.S. and Israeli governments continually threaten Iran, while misleading people to believe that it is Iran doing the threatening.

The whole world should be able to see what is taking place.  Iraq was overthrown.  The war in Afghanistan is still going on almost 17 years later.  Libya was overthrown.  The U.S. helped with the coup in Ukraine.  And for years, the U.S. government has been trying to overthrow Assad in Syria.  Then consider all of the small wars and covert actions in other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.  Meanwhile, there is continually tough talk about Iran, North Korea, and others.

Iran has not tried to invade or overthrow any other countries.

I don’t believe the North Koreans have nuclear weapons.  If they do, there is no means to deliver them very far outside of its own borders.  Kim Jong-un was purposely flinging bottle rockets into the sky as a deterrent, and it may have worked for now.  If he hadn’t claimed capabilities of long-range missiles, maybe the U.S. wouldn’t be considering any negotiations right now.  The country may have already been taken over if not for those displays.

The whole world can see what happened to Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi.  They did not show off nuclear weapons, and they were deposed.  If you are being threatened by the U.S. government, it only makes sense at this point for any country to acquire nuclear weapons, or to at least claim to have them.

Therefore, the JCPOA was unnecessary.  Obama should have just lifted the sanctions.  There was no need to enter any agreement over nuclear weapons and enriched uranium.  Politically, I’m sure Obama felt the need for such an agreement or else he would have taken a worse beating from the right on his so-called weakness.

I don’t know what will ultimately happen with Iran.  Maybe Trump just wants to make a better “deal”, but it is hard to call it a deal when it is being done at the point of a gun.  Or in this case, it is at the point of a lot of guns and missiles.

Ron Paul recently said that Trump is sometimes the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt.  Roosevelt said that we should speak softly and carry a big stick.  Sometimes Trump is the other way around.  This is certainly true in regards to the first part.  He does anything but speak softly.  Of course, this is preferable to speaking boldly and always acting that way.  When he ordered missile strikes on Syria, things certainly could have been a lot worse.

Regarding Obama, aside from the things mentioned above, his presidency was mostly a disaster.  The only good thing that can be said about him is that he could have been worse.  I’m not sure if that is any kind of praise.  He was mostly horrible on foreign policy.  He had his hands in Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, and Libya.  He continued the wars that were already happening in other places.  He can only be praised on the grounds that he could have invaded even more countries than what he did.

For the few decent things Obama did, he basically did them on his own authority.  They are not like Obamacare, which had to be pushed through Congress.  Therefore, even his somewhat good accomplishments were easily repealed.

Trump, for his part, has done a few good things.  He has helped reduce federal regulations a bit, but he has a long way to go.  Trump has helped expose the deep state, whether he has intended to or not.

Like Obama, most of the good things one can say about Trump is that he could have been more disastrous that he has been so far.  He hasn’t started any major new wars yet, but he continues the interventionist foreign policy.  Meanwhile, the few decent things that were done by Obama have largely been undone under Trump.