CALM DOWN ON FOREIGN POLICY TEAM
Give credit to the president and his representatives for doing well abroad so far
President Trump’s foreign policy is going surprisingly well abroad, whatever might be happening on any given day at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The president deserves no sympathy for his tirades, tweets and White House turbulence. His mercurial temperament has not abated since his inauguration. Whatever the reason, though, he has chosen a national security team that appears excellent — and that has already calmed many nerves around the world.
The recent appointment of Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as national security adviser will reinforce this trend. None of the world’s crises is about to be resolved any time soon. But let’s give credit where it’s due relative to what are reasonable expectations for the first month of any new administration, especially one run by a populist non-politician known for three decades of extreme rhetoric. Let’s do a quick tour of the world:
PRAGMATISM, COOPERATION
On East Asia policy, Secretary of Defense James Mattis took the administration’s first overseas trip to visit Tokyo and Seoul. He made the case for strong alliances, endorsed the stabilizing Obama policy to defend Japan’s Senkaku islands from any military moves by China, voiced calming words about how to address China’s behavior in the South China Sea, and talked pragmatically about how to cooperate in addressing North Korean threats.
Trump himself informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that the U.S. will remain committed to the “one China” policy. Despite his desire to shake things up on the world stage, Trump was dissuaded from his earlier statement about staying agnostic on this policy. That was hugely reassuring news, but the Washington talking heads circuit treated it like just a momentary news blip, before getting back to the latest innuendo over Michael Flynn or a new Trump tweet.
Turning to the Middle East, Trump has also sought to reassure U.S. allies, including Israel and key Arab states that had strained relations with President Obama, especially over the Iran nuclear deal. In his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Saudi King Salman, Trump dampened expectations that the United States would walk away from the agreement by instead emphasizing the need for much more stringent verification of Tehran’s compliance.
Moreover, like all his predecessors, Trump is being drawn into the Arab-Israeli peace-making vortex. After the president briefly challenged the need for a twostate solution, Nikki Haley, our ambassador to the United Nations, clarified that America still supports such a policy.
COMMITMENT TO NATO
Moving to Europe, Mattis spent last week there; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Pence also visited. Although they attempted to keep a bit of the fear in the minds of allies as they pushed for greater alliance and military burden-sharing, they clearly reiterated the U.S. commitment to NATO.
That is not an issue to play around with, given the possibility that Russia could otherwise feel emboldened to challenge the sovereignty of former Soviet or Warsaw Pact states such as Latvia, Estonia and Poland.
Mattis told NATO’s military chiefs that there’d be no military cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in the near future. Haley clarified that the U.S. does not recognize the Russian seizure of Crimea and will join with European allies in sustaining sanc- tions against Russia until its aggression against Ukraine ends. Trump still rightly hopes to get along better with President Vladimir Putin, but there will be no unconditional lifting of sanctions on Russia anytime soon.
The brouhahas with the news media that Trump complains about are largely of his own making. But many pundits do seem more concerned about faux pas and political incorrectness rather than actual national security policies. While the administration remains full of the former, the latter are looking much better than could have been expected a few short months ago.
Even so, Trump needs to keep in mind that he now stands astride the biggest stage in the world. His every word and action will — and should — be intensively scrutinized and debated.
As long as his rhetoric and his White House’s internal dysfunctions stoke the situation, the news tempest will continue, fair or not. Maybe everyone needs to take a deep breath.