Letters: By abusing neighbors and dismissing allies, Trump squanders U.S. leadership role

Re: "A frivolous and oblivious president," George Will, Aug. 31. President Donald Trump's wildly conjured-up thoughts and ill-advised actions are becoming destructive distractions to maintaining our hard-won position on the world stage. For example, he is openly diminishing our relationship militarily with our longtime ally in the Pacific, South Korea, in favor of conducting what seems to be a personal relationship with communist North Korea (which is donating multiple thousands of soldiers to Putin's war against another ally of ours, Ukraine). And closer to home, he is scandalously abusing Canada, a fellow charter member of NATO and the most stable neighbor we could ask for along our entire northern border; his assertion that the Canadian nation should become our 51st state, and his renaming of our mutually contiguous Lake Ontario to 'Lake America,' are two grands faux pas. Instead of our reputation as a premier bulwark for freedom and responsible leadership, we seem to be slipping (or sliding) onto the crowded, unruly, muddy racetrack of world opinion. Not only are we losing respect, but we are also losing physical superiority, into which several other entities will be only too happy to insert themselves with their own plans for dominance. Are we following a false piper into a forest of self-perdition? JOHN BERRY Baton Rouge Want to see your opinion published in The Advocate | Times-Picayune? Submit a letter to the editor.