Donald Trump’s European Shuttle Diplomacy, and the Challenge of Diplomatic Etiquette and Denuclearisation
Diplomacy is not simply about the art of negotiation or about a field of study. It is more about how to use it as an art and science to improve human and interstate relationships without the use of force. In other words, diplomacy is an instrument of détente. Its application cannot be predicated on trial or miscalculation. It is, more often than not, always built on precise strategic calculations and, therefore, has no room for error-making. Failure of diplomacy can only serve as a catalyst for further misunderstanding and belligerency.
Most unfortunately, however, the United States, the only surviving superpower, is constantly engaging in failing diplomacy. President Donald Trump wants to make America great again, but without any preparedness to go by protocolar rules and diplomatic etiquette. By so doing, he is not only increasingly laying an unprecedented foundation for global insecurity, US global power and influence is also increasingly being challenged by other rising powers in international relations. Many factors explain the decline at the domestic and international levels.
At the domestic level, for instance, Beck Dorey-Stein, a former White House stenographer, who joined the White House staff in 2012, revealed that she resigned her appointment in early 2017 as a stenographer, because President Donald Trump is telling the people of America tissues of lies.As revealed, she ‘felt like President Trump was lying to the American people and not even trying...to tell the truth. He wasn’t even going the extra mile to have the stenographers in the room’ where official meetings take place.
More important, Dorey-Stein has it that she could not be proud of where she worked anymore, because Donald Trump ‘does not like microphones near his face, which is difficult because, as a stenographer, we often had to do that.’ Besides, ‘his White House and his press office often didn’t include us in meetings... Even if there is a stenographer present, he doesn’t often say “check the transcript,” because the transcript will reveal the truth.’
And perhaps more interesting is the question Dorey-Stein raised: “Mr. Trump likes to call anyone who disagrees with him “fake news”... But if he is really the victim of so much inaccurate reporting, why is he so much averse to having the facts recorded and transcribed?’ (vide Huffpost, Wednesday, July 18, 2018). With this domestic view of Donald Trump, the international perception of him, no matter how good, cannot but be negatively influenced.
This element of untruth-telling is also internationally reflected at the summit meeting of President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader in Singapore on June 12, 2018. Before the summit, Donald Trump said denuclearisation should and would start ‘without delay.’After the summit, which he described as quite successful, he declared that the process of denuclearisation will begin ‘very quickly’ or instantly. In fact, on June 13, 2018, Mr. Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, made it clear that the bulk of North Korea’s denuclearisation should be completed by the end of Donald Trump’s term in 2020.
But, most unfortunately however, on Tuesday, 17th July, 2018 Donald Trump began to sing a different tune entirely, by saying that there was no hurry to denuclearise North Korea.As he put it, ‘discussions are ongoing and they’re going very, very, well. We have no time limit. We have no speed limit.’ In fact, during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, 16th July, 2018, Donald Trump declared that ‘President Putin is going to be involved in the sense that he is with us.’ When really can Donald Trump be seen as telling the truth or considered as having a mastery of the issues he raises for discussion?
Many more questions can be raised at this juncture: is the problem that of untruth-telling or that of myopic statements? Could it not be that Donald Trump did not factor in the likely impediments to denuclearisation to be created by countries like Russia, in such a way that, by the time Donald Trump recognises his gaffe or the impediments, he now has to change position? Whatever is the case, world’s perception of his official behaviour has not been all that complimentary (vide “Trump now says no “Time Limit” to Denuclearise North Korea, Agence France Presse, July 18, 2018).
And true enough, the US power appears to be on a gradual decline in light of the non-compromising attitude of the Russian Federation and North Korea’s conditionality for complete denuclearisation.As shown by the various diplomatic shuttles of Mr. Donald Trump in the past two weeks, US declining power was not only revealed, two other issues were also raised and do attract particular attention: breach of diplomatic etiquette and the myth of denuclearisation, and by further implication, the uncertainty of global security.
President Trump has paid visit to Brussels for the purposes of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) summit. He has also visited the United Kingdom and Helsinki in Finland in the quest for promotion of better bilateral ties. In the process of doing so, he has infuriated, more than he has attracted, people. He only succeeded in making enemies for his government and good people of America, mainly because of his little or no regard for protocol and etiquette.
Protocol and etiquette is a very critical issue in international relations. It is the guide to the conduct and management of interstate relations. Its non-observation can mar the making of warm relationships, as well as create unnecessary hostile irritants not often bargained for, but which have the potential to seriously damage existing good relationships, and therefore foster unfriendliness.
Protocol is about the regulation of the conduct and management of government activities and relations while etiquette deals with how the individuals charged with the responsibilities are required to handle the governmental and inter-governmental affairs. Protocol and etiquette is not only restricted to government’s mania of doing things or to official behaviour, but also extends to inter-personal interactions.
At the Brussel’s summit of the NATO, US policy stand made the summit very fractious, in the same way the Canada G-7 summit prompted France’s President Emmanuel Macron to re-coin the G-7 as G6+1, meaning six countries united against one. Again, in the US President’s visit to the United Kingdom and Finland, Donald Trump’s mania of conducting and managing his US foreign policy pronouncement in both countries was poor and incompatible with the required strategy and logic of making America great again.
In fact, the mania raised the unnecessary abuse of protocol and diplomatic etiquette in international relations. The way Donald Trump is, indeed, conducting US diplomacy is not only increasing the velocity of self-destruction, and precipitating the decline of American power, contrarily to making American great again, but also serving as a catalytic agent of nuclearisation-induced global insecurity.
The Ties and Challenge of Diplomatic Etiquette
The relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is generally described as ‘special.’ And true, it is a Special Relationship since its first use in 1946 by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a speech in many senses. First, Britain was formerly the colonial master until the 1861-1865American war of independence. The ties are therefore necessarily inspirational. Secondly, Special Relationship as a concept, implies diversity in scope. It covers political, military, diplomatic, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, etc, cooperation. Thirdly, what makes the diversified areas of cooperation particularly special is the fact that the level of cooperation in its various areas, especially in terms of intelligence gathering and sharing, trade, military operations planning, nuclear weapons technology development, is considered ‘unparallel.’
What should be noted about the relationship is the extent to which it can remain special in the foreseeable future. Different factors are currently militating against the status of special relationship. It should be recalled that, under the administration of President Barack Obama, US relationship with Britain was not considered as one of first priority. In the eyes of President Obama, Germany was his ‘international closest partner.’
Besides, Obama had it that, in the event Britain leaves the European Union, there was no way Britain would not be at the ‘back of the queue’ in any trade deal with the United States. Additionally, majority of the British people see Donald Trump as either ‘a bad’ or ‘a terrible’ president. Thus, the status of Special Relationship is being tainted at the level of the people. It is in this context that the quest by the British Government under Mrs. Theresa May to seek and nurture ‘a New Special Relationship’ with the newly elected Donald Trump should be seen and understood.
And without doubt too, the extent of public protests against Donald Trump’s visit to Britain last week does not suggest that such a new special relationship can be in sight under Donald Trump administration, even though the visiting US president prefers to deceive himself and the Americans that his ties with Theresa May is ‘the highest level of special.’ If the name, Theresa May, refers to her in her private individual capacity, the relationship can be admitted to be the highest level of ‘special’ relationship. If, on the contrary, it means symbol or representative of British government, the relationship cannot but be quite far from being the ‘highest of special’. A cursory look at the status quo of the relationship lends credence to this observation.
First, the British domestic environment of Trump’s visit to the UK was hostile for various reasons: Donald Trump breached international standard protocol according to which no country should intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries, especially over affairs which such other countries have exclusive competence. Article 2 (7) of the United Nations Charter is very clear on this.
Donald Trump is on record to have supported Boris Johnson, an opposition leader, saying in a newspaper interview that he would have been a better Prime Minister. This is in spite of the fact that the same Donald Trump would, after the interview, begin to sing a new song of praise in honour of Prime Minister Theresa May.
Besides, the British did not like Donald Trump’s disregard for the British monarch, Queen Elisabeth, in terms of the diplomatic tradition of greeting the monarch. The tradition is that all male visiting guests greet the monarch by bowing their heads, while female guests curtsy, that is, slightly bending of knees, especially by women. Curtsy is also referred to as curtsy or courtesy in this case. What Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, did was simply to shake hands.
There is also another breach of diplomatic etiquette when inspecting a guard of honour of the Cold Stream Guards. Donald Trump was walking in front of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. Even though it has been argued that the act of bowing and curtsying is not mandatory, not doing so is widely seen as an expression of bad manners and rudeness. The tradition is practised by nearly everyone meeting with the Queen. Disregard for this tradition is often frowned at. The British do not take kindly non-curtsying and bowing.
If the attitude of Donald Trump is revisited in the context of his policy of making America great again, or his foreign policy of America First, it can be rightly argued that his attitude is very consistent with declared US policy interest. Besides, there is the international policy of sovereign equality. Why should any leader of a sovereign country bow down for another sovereign? If the greeting is for the royal family, why must the modality of greeting be imposed on a visiting leader? While admitting that when you are in Rome, you behave like the Romans, whoever wants to visit and meet the British monarch, there is nothing wrong in complying with the monarchical protocol. Such compliance is therefore at the level of the visiting individual. It does not imply the status of the country of the visiting guest.
(See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com) Without doubt, Russo-American official relationship under Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is predicated on a competitive philosophy, conducted on the basis of untruths, managed along difficult paths, and built on pursuit of divergent foreign policy objectives to the detriment of multilateral diplomacy and global peace and security. For instance, the US Congress legislated in July 2017 that the United States can ‘never recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Government of the Russian Federation.’ The annexation is already a fait accompli, but its non-recognition does not prevent the existence of Crimea as part of Russia, who is most unlikely to revisit the annexation