It’s almost a year since President Trump became the leader of the free world. A year after winning the election, his foreign policy has been marked by withdrawals from multinational agreements, like the climate change accords, and by an often churlish acceptance of Western tenets, such as the Nato pledge of collective defence.
Even before the publication of the sensational Fire and Fury, people brought up to respect the US as the defender of Western liberal democratic values saw Trump as foul-mouthed, incompetent, lecherous, reckless, thin-skinned and ignorant to boot. That Trump is aesthetically and morally reprehensible finds echoes in Berlin, Paris, Brussels and most West European capitals.
In general, a clear Trumpian diplomacy has been difficult to discern. In Europe, especially in Germany and other West European countries, his policies are viewed with suspicion. But his politics in Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are welcomed for defending them against the Kremlin.
He has rebuked Russia for meddling in the Ukraine and acknowledged Putin’s use of cyber weapons as an emerging threat. His policies have forced EU countries to take defence more seriously. The biggest result of the increased focus on defence is the bleak realisation that dangers are growing and that European countries have no chance of defending themselves without American help.
In Asia, there has been confusion about the president’s priorities. He is pushing Pakistan into China’s arms. He has had to strain every diplomatic sinew to assert US interests in the Pacific, to face off China and reassure allies that his “America First” motto does not signal a retreat from Eastern security.
But how does he imagine that bilateral trade deals can replace the Trans-Pacific Partnership which he has renounced? When and to what degree is America ready to use force against North Korea? Is China to become a strategic partner, or is it to be merely a commercial rival or a potential enemy?
The Trump administration is certainly nervous about the rise of China, symbolised by the confident demeanour of Xi Jinping, the recently re-elected president. One of Trump’s ambitions is for “a free and open Indo-Pacific community” through a closer enmeshing of Japanese, South Korean and American forces. Under this plan, Japan would anchor its strategy on the big maritime democracies of India, Australia and the US, a loose coalition committed to open sea routes.
Chiefly, it signals to Xi that America is not prepared to be pushed aside in the Far East. And it nudges Beijing towards doing more to rein in North Korea’s nuclear programme. Trump has tried to remind China that inaction over North Korea will backfire on Beijing, spurring an arms race in the region and prodding states into defensive military alliances. None of this will be to China’s long-term benefit. But the truth is that China has long concluded that its strategic interest is not served by anything that risks seriously destabilising Kim Jong-un.
It seems as though Trump has downgraded the importance of diplomacy in national security strategy
Is Trump hoping that by doing Xi the political favour of treating him as a fellow leader of a superpower, he will bend the Chinese leader to his will? If so, the tactic does not seem to be working. And moreover, Trump’s implicit threat to create a worse situation by entering into a conflict on the Korean peninsula is evidently not believed. At least, not yet, and certainly not in South Korea.
It is a grave reflection of Trump’s character and the concern felt in Washington about his ability to handle the subtle give and take of international diplomacy when his own Republican Party and his own Secretary of State question his judgement and fitness to be US Commander-in-Chief.
Things have come to a pretty pass when the US’s chief steward of foreign policy refuses to deny that he called the President a “f****** moron” and when, in turn, Trump himself publicly smacks down Tillerson on the issue of war or peace with North Korea.
The row over North Korea started when Tillerson admitted to reporters that there were back-channels of communication open to Kim Jong-un’s regime. This is of course how grown-up diplomacy is conducted when sensitive situations are at stake.
In the Middle East, Trump’s clumsy decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reversing 70 years of American policy, has united the majority of the world’s countries in condemning his action. The White House’s earlier avowal of a new push for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians has been smothered at birth.
The hope that resistance to Iran’s expansionist ambitions in the Middle East would unite Israel and Arab States has also now crashed in flames.
Trump has not yet appointed ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt or Qatar. And we know from his disparaging remarks what he thinks of Africa.
He has filled only 10 of the top 44 political positions in the State Department. Indeed, the president has yet to nominate an assistant secretary for East Asia or an ambassador to South Korea, despite the crisis triggered by Kim Jong-un’s nuclear tests.
An exodus of senior diplomats from the Department of State has fuelled concerns that America’s ability to handle foreign policy crises is severely diminished. The number of State Department staff holding the top ranks of career ambassador and career minister is on course to halve by the end of the year, to 19 from 39.
It was always going to be difficult to see Trump, with his real estate, casinos and loose tongue, as the champion of American traditionalism, or even values. But the “adults” or grown-ups in his administration realise they have a moral obligation to resolve America’s strategic predicament, rather than abandoning ship. The alternative is that the White House is allowed to bump along from crisis to crisis until its capital is exhausted.
It seems as though Trump has downgraded the importance of diplomacy in national security strategy. American diplomatic power is being weakened as complex global crises are growing. Diplomacy requires calm and thoughtful counsel. Tweeting Trump has so far been unable to find the appropriate words. It is probably beyond him.
Tillerson must try to find them for him. That’s his duty. Regrettably, he may not be Secretary of State for much longer.