Kim Jong-un inspecting troops ahead of the North Korea 70th Anniversary Parade in Pyongyang in 2018. At least one expert warns that U.S. adversaries could take advantage of the uncertainty stemming from President Trump’s coronavirus infection.

API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

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API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Kim Jong-un inspecting troops ahead of the North Korea 70th Anniversary Parade in Pyongyang in 2018. At least one expert warns that U.S. adversaries could take advantage of the uncertainty stemming from President Trump’s coronavirus infection.

API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

President Trump’s battle with the coronavirus could take him out of action for several weeks, raising concerns that U.S. adversaries, such as Iran or China, may become emboldened by the perception of an American leadership vacuum.

At virtually any given time there are countries testing U.S. resolve. In Iraq, convoys carrying U.S. supplies come under almost daily attack by Iranian forces. For North Korea, saber-rattling and missile tests are common. Meanwhile, China ignores Washington’s demands to cease the mass detention and torture of minority Uighers Muslims in the northwest of the country.

The fear is that while the administration is preoccupied with the president’s illness, a pandemic, a rough-and-tumble presidential campaign, and a flattened economy, that adversaries may seize the moment to further their own agendas.

“We should not discount the possibility that China will step up pressure on Taiwan or Russia [and will] seek to take advantage in Eastern Europe,” tweeted Nicholas Burns, a former senior State Department official and foreign-policy advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. Burns said it’s important “the U.S. signal to both that we are watching and remain fully capable.”

It’s been a challenging four years for any foreign leader trying to keep up with what could best be described as an erratic U.S. foreign policy. Trump has often blindsided his aides and advisors, tweeting out new policies seemingly without their foreknowledge. Phone calls between Trump and other world leaders could swiftly change the calculus of foreign policy.

Jon Alterman, who holds the Brzezinski chair in Global Security and Geostrategy and is a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, doesn’t believe bad actors are going to exploit the situation. He says that paradoxically, Trump’s illness makes U.S. foreign policy more consistent.

“The key driver of unpredictability in U.S. foreign policy is the president,” he says. “And when you take the president out of the equation, in many ways it’s more predictable how the U.S. will behave. It’s easier to anticipate what the red lines are.”

Alterman says it matters that this is happening towards the end of a presidential term when administration officials know their jobs, their colleagues and the processes.

“It feels to me like the U.S. government — in many ways, large parts of the U.S. government — would rather be able to do their job without the president’s eruption’s on Twitter,” he says.