The Washington Post editorial board met with Donald Trump on Monday for what would turn out to be a very timely interview, particularly in light of the Brussels attacks. Some of the interview dealt with foreign policy, and it shows to anyone with a modicum of awareness of our dangerous world how disastrous a Trump presidency would be.

He was asked about China’s incursion into the South China Sea:

HIATT: So what do you think China’s aims are in the South China Sea?

TRUMP: Well I know China very well, because I deal with China all the time. I’ve done very well. China’s unbelievably ambitious. China is, uh… I mean, when I deal with China, you know, I have the Bank of America building, I’ve done some great deals with China. I do deals with them all the time on, you know, selling apartments, and, you know, people say ‘oh that’s not the same thing.’ The level of… uh, the largest bank in the world, 400 million customers, is a tenant of mine in New York, in Manhattan. The biggest bank in China. The biggest bank in the world.

China has got unbelievable ambitions. China feels very invincible. We have rebuilt China. They have drained so much money out of our country that they’ve rebuilt China. Without us, you wouldn’t see the airports and the roadways and the bridges; I mean, the George Washington Bridge is like, that’s like a trinket compared to the bridges that they’ve built in China. We don’t build anymore, and it, you know, we had our day. But China, if you look at what’s going on in China, you know, they go down to seven percent or eight percent and it’s like a national catastrophe. Our GDP is right now zero. Essentially zero.

I am reminded of this quote from 1964’s Dr. Strangelove: 

I’ll tell you what China has been doing in the South China Sea, and it has nothing to do with the Bank of America. China has been building islands on reefs, where they already have constructed port facilities, military buildings, and an air strip, with other airstrips in the works. It’s such a threat that the Pentagon has just authorized the military to deploy conventional weapons in the Phillippines for the first time in decades. But Trump is clueless about this incursion by China that has been ongoing for some months.