When Trump talks, the world listens. The question is, should it?
The world expects the president to be America’s foreign policy authority, and that what he says goes. Right? Not so fast.
In a pattern that’s familiar with this White House, what appear to be articulations of foreign policy by President Donald Trump may not always be what they seem. That’s the obvious conclusion to be drawn from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s testimony last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Trump has repeatedly expressed doubt about Moscow’s election meddling, has failed to order any defense against future election hacking, has suggested Crimea should be a part of Russia, has impugned NATO and has ingratiated himself with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Pompeo, however, combatively insisted to the senators that Trump is “well aware” of the challenges that Russia poses, including its interference in U.S. elections. He said strenuously that the United States is opposed to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and that it considers NATO an “indispensable pillar of American national security.”
A top Russian official said that at their meeting in Helsinki, Trump and Putin discussed a possible referendum to determine eastern Ukraine’s future. A spokesman for the National Security Council later rejected such a referendum as having “no legitimacy.”
Even actions that seem to be clear and direct may not be. This administration in recent months agreed to stiffer sanctions against Russia, even if it was only after Congress forced it to do so. It also expelled 60 Russian diplomats and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle. Trump denounced alleged Russian attacks on British soil but has delayed imposing sanctions, drawing fire from the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Defense Department also announced this month that it was providing Ukraine with $200 million for security coop- eration. But at the Senate hearing, Pompeo deflected a question on whether Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia would remain in place.
It’s somewhat encouraging that Pompeo, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, other senior officials and some members of Congress are working to reassure allies and set the country back on a more stable foreign policy path. On Wednesday, Trump himself retreated a bit from the trade war that he initiated with the European Union when he agreed with JeanClaude Juncker, president of the European Commission, to work toward lower tariffs and other trade barriers.
Yet no matter what Pompeo — or any other official — insists, Trump has a well-established record of undermining their pronouncements, and even his own, with a tweet. He could easily blow up the trade truce, for example.
The administration’s dysfunction makes matters worse. According to Politico, Pompeo and Mattis have complained that John Bolton, the national security adviser, has oversimplified decision-making on foreign policy, cutting them out.
Deftly bobbing and weaving while answering questions, Pompeo insisted that the senators shouldn’t de-link Trump’s statements and actions from administration policy statements and actions. “They’re one and the same,” he said.
But when Trump’s words repeatedly repudiate what is supposed to be official policy, it sows confusion and undermines trust in officials like Pompeo who try to defend the president.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump made clear that, above all, he consults himself on foreign policy. As Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, remarked after Trump spoke sympathetically of neo-nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Va.: “The president speaks for himself.”
Pompeo finally conceded to the senators that “the president calls the ball” and that “his statements are, in fact, policy.”
Andthatiswhysomanypeople cringe when Trump steps up to a microphone or reaches for his smartphone.