Trump and other G7 leaders urge online firms to halt spread of “hateful ideology”
President’s world view evolves through meeting with leaders
TAORMINA, Italy — By the time President Donald Trump sat down with the leaders of the world’s other industrialized powers at a former monastery Friday, he already had met and spent time with each individually. The mood around the circular table was one of a “family dinner,” the White House said, with discussion ranging from terrorism and trade to Russia and climate change.
Trump had staked out many resolute positions on the issues during the course of his campaign, many of them at odds with those of longtime allies.
But as the president has listened to his counterparts, his views were “evolving,” advisers conceded.
“He came here to learn and get smarter,” Gary Cohn, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters Friday, at the end of the first of two days of meetings of the Group of Seven leaders.
Trump’s personalized style, which seems to value one-on-one relationships over policy or politics, has endured its most extensive test during his inaugural eight-day international trip, which comes to a close Saturday.
Though his first months in office have provided plenty of evidence for the power of personality in the president’s world view, the Trump touch was on full display over the past week from Riyadh to Rome, Brussels and Sicily, flavoring what Trump said to whom.
To a degree not seen in earlier presidents, Trump seems to define his progress by whether he likes foreign leaders he meets — and they him.
But in this debut trip, and in earlier encounters, personal contact only goes so far, and does not necessarily win substantial or long-term achievement.
Trump has repeatedly reversed himself on strongly stated positions after meeting personally with a foreign principal that was the target of his ire.
He has dinner in April with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate — and China is no longer a currency manipulator, as Trump had said during the campaign.
He has a face-to-face session with NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg last month, and the alliance “is no longer obsolete,” Trump said, backtracking on an oft-stated campaign trope.
Trump criticized Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over refugee policy in one of the first telephone calls of his presidency. But when the two met in New York this month, they were buddies, and Australia no longer is the subject of Trump wrath.
The refugee deal between the Obama administration and Australia, Trump said, was “still ridiculous,” but whatever —“We have a very good relationship, and I’m very proud of the relationship.”
Trump seems to think his assessment of world leaders is the more important thing, even of those who have an unsavory history or record. Making a fresh start, by his reckoning, will ultimately achieve more than if he followed a conventional path that might factor the other nation’s human rights abuses into the equation.
Witness his professed bonds with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and Xi.
“Well, the president’s quite a communicator,” his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said when asked to assess the Trump style. “Which shouldn’t surprise you.”
Trump has touted his flexibility as an asset, acknowledging that his views can quickly adapt to changing circumstances. Yet that’s what some foreign policy analysts are concerned about.
“What we’ve seen is a desire to please, and to end meetings on a positive note,” said Richard Nephew, who served in the State Department during George W. Bush’s administration and on the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama.
“Myworry is that translates into making promises that seem like a good idea at the time, which are both expedient (and) also lead to everybody smiling when you walk out of a room, but in the end are either difficult to reconcile or directly contrary to what our interests might be.”
Presidential historian Timothy Naftali described Trump as a chief executive who operates according to emotional temperament rather than “experiential judgment.”
“He is more publicly temperamental than his predecessors,” Naftali said, and less likely to give rational explanations to his policies. “This is a president who is unwilling to fully explain his reasoning.”
But aides say Trump’s approach was successful for him in business and is already translating to the presidency.
They argue that improved personal relationships between Trump and foreign counterparts — primarily those in the Middle East, for now — have shown great promise for the U.S.
World leaders quickly are adapting to Trump’s style. Many, through their embassies in Washington or with special envoys, are keen to make contact directly with Trump, or at least those close to him — like daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner — even when that means sidestepping the usual conduits at the State Department.