‘Flexible’ president veers from positions
WASHINGTON — He was the candidate who would make “America First,” who would never “surrender” the United States to the “false song of globalism.” He called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “obsolete” and vowed to crack down on what he insisted was China’s manipulation of its currency to harm American companies.
Yet, just three months into his term, President Donald Trump has jettisoned a host of those stances while also ordering a cruisemissile strike against the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad and quarreling with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Republican who vowed to be different has adopted an international view not unlike past presidents.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jim Manley, a onetime adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. “I’m still waiting to see if he is going to pay a political price for this. Inside the beltway, this is being looked on with utter amazement. But I still question whether he will pay a political price for this.”
During a news conference this month with King Abdullah of Jordan, Trump called himself “a very flexible person. I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way. I don’t change; well, I do change and I am flexible, and I’m proud of that flexibility.”
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the major issues on which Trump has appeared to have changed his views:
In 2013, as President Barack Obama considered launching air strikes against Syria for its use of chemical weapons, Trump tweeted: “The president must get congressional approval before attacking Syria — big mistake if he does not!” He also tweeted: “Stay out of Syria.”
Fast forward to this month, after Assad used sarin gas to kill at least 86 civilians, including children. Without seeking congressional approval, Trump ordered two U.S. destroyers to launch 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian airfield. At his news conference with King Abdullah, Trump acknowledged “my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much” because of the chemical attacks.
Last September in a speech in New York, Trump said he would “instruct my treasury secretary to label China a currency manipulator, and to apply tariffs to any country that devalues its currency to gain an unfair advantage over the United States.” But, in an interview Wednesday with the Wall Street Journal, Trump reversed himself on China, saying “they’re not currency manipulators.”
In an interview in January with the Times of London and the German newspaper Bild, Trump said NATO “was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago,” adding “the countries weren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying.” By doing so, he echoed a claim he made last year during a CNN town hall when he called NATO “largely obsolete” and said it has to be “changed for the better” to fight terrorism.
At a news conference on Wednesday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said he and Stoltenberg “had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete; it’s no longer obsolete.”
In a speech last summer in North Carolina, the seemingly Russia-friendly Trump asked “wouldn’t it be nice if we got along with Russia? Wouldn’t it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of” Islamic State militants who hold large swaths of Syria and Iraq.
In addition, FBI Director James Comey told a House committee last month that the FBI “is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
Yet by launching cruise missiles against Syria, Trump attacked a key Russian ally, making clear there would not be an alliance between Russia and the United States against the Islamic State. And at his news conference with Stoltenberg, Trump said, “Right now, we’re not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia.”
During his campaign, Trump sharply challenged the postwar consensus among Democratic and Republican presidents that the United States needed to engaged internationally as a way to secure a lasting peace. In a speech in April of last year in Washington, Trump warned “we will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism.”
As president, however, Trump has surrounded himself with advisers firmly committed to American global leadership. Trump has maintained his view expressed during the campaign that the key to curbing North Korea’s ambitions to build nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching the U.S. is by enlisting the help of Pyongyang’s closest ally, China.
At his Wednesday news conference, Trump stuck to that line, saying Chinese President Xi Jinping “wants to help us with North Korea,” holding out the possibility of closer trade relations with China if the Chinese “help us with North Korea.”
But in what appears to be a departure from his campaign rhetoric, Trump made clear that if China will not assist in curbing North Korea’s nuclear program, then “we’re just going to go it alone. That’s all right, too. But going it alone means going it with lots of other nations,” a clear sign Trump sees an international coalition as the way to counter North Korea.
And despite declaring in his inaugural address that the United States has “spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay,” Trump ordered the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson into the western Pacific toward waters off North Korea, the type of gunboat diplomacy other American presidents have employed.