Donald Trump's Foreign Policy: Method in his Madness?

Donald Trump: Rewriting American Foreign Policy 

Is there a method in his unconventional ways?

When Donald Trump was elected into the White House in November 2016, there was a cloud of uncertainty over the direction American foreign policy would take under his leadership. After all, the United States was getting deeply involved in the Syrian conflict and had seen its ties with Russia reach a dangerously new low, perhaps the lowest since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, President Trump’s foreign policy remains the most hotly debated aspect of his presidency, with many claiming that his unconventional methods have succeeded so far.

One of the key aspects of Trump’s foreign policy seems to be a certain degree of flexibility over the United States’ stance on geopolitical issues. The first indicator of this was the decision to launch airstrikes against the Syrian government in April 2017. The United States launched 59 tomahawk missiles aimed at government-controlled Shayrat Airbase as a response to the alleged use of chemical gas (Sarin gas) by Bashar al-Assad on civilians. This came despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric in the run up to the 2016 Presidential elections, wherein he attacked American interventionism and advocated an isolationist approach for the United States. Trump stated shortly thereafter, "It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.” Nonetheless, since then the United States seems to have come to terms with the fact that removing Assad from power would not be as easy a task as was initially planned. Bashar al-Assad has effectively regained control of Syria, thanks to the air cover provided by the Russian Aerospace Forces, and the Syrian Civil War is in its final stages.

The first diplomatic move the US President made upon his arrival at the White House was the tearing apart of the Iran Nuclear Deal. The nuclear deal was in many ways representative of former President Barack Obama’s legacy. Trump justified the move by claiming that the deal was ‘an absolute farce’, and that there was no way to check if Iran was living up to its end of the deal.[1] Strangely enough, his critics have cited the very same claims regarding his denuclearisation deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Backers of President Trump cite the Trump-Kim meet as the biggest success of his Presidency, and rightfully so. Donald Trump did what no American President had done before him. Not only did he bring North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to the negotiation table, he did this through a bullish approach which very few predicted would succeed. The Trump-Kim meet in Singapore was the centre of the world’s attention and was touted to go down as a historically significant event. Nonetheless, there were suspicions that the meeting would have little to no impact on North Korea’s commitment to denuclearisation. This belief was reaffirmed with the surfacing of intelligence reports claiming that North Korea had in fact “increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites.”[2]The Trump administration has since then repeatedly shot down queries regarding how it plans to verify that North Korea is living up to its end of the deal. Nonetheless, President Trump presented the meeting as a diplomatic victory for the United States.

The brief praises in the aftermath of the Trump-Kim meeting ended when the focus returned to the United States’ increasingly straining ties with its own traditional allies in the European Union.  Trump has gone after NATO members for their lack of commitment vis-à-vis contributions to the NATO defence budget is concerned. The narrative was atypical of Trump, with him claiming that the United States was paying far more than its NATO partners, again implying that the United States was in some way being “ripped-off”. “We protect Europe (which is good) at great financial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on Trade. Change is Coming!” Trump said on Twitter in June in posts that specifically called out Germany. “The U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost -- and laugh!)” He has used the same narrative to justify his trade wars against Canada and the EU, claiming the current status quo regarding tariffs was not mutually beneficial and that the United States was on the losing end of the bargain.

Most recently, he called out Germany as being a captive of Russia, referring to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project spearheaded by Russia. The Trump administration is currently preparing sanctions targeted at the joint EU-Russia project, with the aim to “reduce the dependency” of U.S. allies and partners on Russian energy and to deter the Kremlin from “using its energy resources as a geopolitical weapon.” On one hand, he is directly accusing an important ally of being at the mercy of the Russians, and on the other, preparing sanctions to apparently help the same American allies reduce their dependency on Russia.

Rest aside, Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a July 16 news conference in Helsinki has been by far the most controversial event in his Presidency so far. The US President appeared to back claims by Putin over the reports of his own security agencies with regard to Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 US Presidential elections. He event went on to invite the Russian President to Washington, a move that was met with widespread criticism back home. In the aftermath of the incident, Trump followed usual protocol by calling the Helsinki meet a ‘great success’, while White House officials were scramming helter-skelter to address a barrage of angry questions from the press. The US President has flip flopped on his stance over Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 President Elections, consistently backtracking on whether the Russians were indeed involved in the run up to the elections.

Trump defied his own intelligence agencies by supporting Putin’s claims of non-interference in American affairs Credits-WSJ

Trump’s unconventional methods were on full display during his recent visit to the United Kingdom, where many felt that he disrespected the Queen by not bowing his head as is customary practice. He further added fuel to the fire when he reportedly offered his best lawyers to Theresa May, urging her to sue the European Union. Trump’s UK visit further complicated an already difficult Brexit deal for Prime Minister Theresa May, with several high-ranking ministers resigning over the terms of the Brexit deal as agreed with the European Union. As mentioned before, President Trump has already distanced several allies, including Canada, with his proactive protectionism and the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada and the European Union. This has resulted in a bitter global trade war that doesn't seem to have any conclusive result in sight. The ongoing trade disputes have become more a matter of who backs down first, and knowing Trump, its unlikely that the United States will intentionally back down from its aggressive trade policy.

With regard to Russia, the Kremlin has more or less achieved its goals in Syria by strengthening Assad’s control over the war-torn country. The United States has let Ukraine hanging out to dry four years after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the ongoing frozen conflict in the Donbass.  There has been a substantial decrease in the mention of the conflict in American media and press, and the White House has been equally silent over the issue. From a neutral standpoint, the ongoing friction between the United States and its allies only fits too well into Putin’s attempts to weaken the NATO from within. There are concerns in the White House over the warming relations between Turkey and the Kremlin. Erdogan has demonstrated in Syria that Turkey will refuse to align its goals with those of its NATO allies. It has been increasingly aggressive after having launched Operation Olive Branch to tackle Kurdish militias operating in northern Syria and aims to establish a corridor from the Turko-Syrian border all the way to Syria’s northern border with Iraq. The ground operation has only succeeded thanks to Russia’s passive consent, given that Russia still controls the airspace of the entirety of the Afrin region- the main area for Turkish military operations. Turkey’s Incirlik base that houses US missiles remains one the most strategic bases for NATO and the United States, given its proximity to the Mediterranean and to Russia’s southern border, including Crimea. It is hard to see how the warming of relations between Turkey and Russia is not an area that Donald Trump has neglected, and rather erroneously at that.[3]

Understanding Donald Trump

To understand Trump’s foreign policy, its crucial to look at the background of the US President. Donald Trump has more or less always got what he wanted. This bullish approach can be traced back to the first major construction project undertaken by the Trump organisation in New York, wherein he sued the city of New York to get a 40-year tax abatement during a time when the city was going through one of its worst fiscal crises. Fast-forward a few years, and two of his largest casinos in Atlantic City were edging towards bankruptcy with the Trump empire on the brink of collapse. As a way out, Donald Trump publicly listed his organisation for the very first time. He then took his PR game to full swing and banked on the ‘Trump brand’ to attract investors, despite being millions of dollars in debt. And it worked, with the real estate mogul selling shares of ‘DJT’ for a whopping $1.2 Billion, of which he used a third to pay off the debts of his Atlantic City casinos. Suddenly, Trump was debt free and back in the game. This is just one example of how Donald Trump has used delicately crafted PR to project an image of stability and the notion that he knows what he’s doing. He’s projecting the same image as the President of the United States, as a man who ‘gets things done’. One month after his meeting with Kim, no one really expects North Korea to take their end of the bargain seriously.

It's safe to say that Donald Trump is re-writing the diplomacy hand book, unless he’s thrown it away altogether. His Presidency has overseen a paradigm shift in US foreign policy, and since the United States is the global hegemon- at least for the foreseeable future- it has had global implications on countries far from its borders. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Trump’s methods is his love for publicity and the usage of PR to demonstrate the success of his diplomatic moves. This makes it rather difficult to analyse events and ascertain the actual developments behind the scenes, as is the case with the Trump-Kim denuclearisation deal.

For better or for worse, Trump’s presidency will have foreign policy implications that his successors might find rather difficult to work around.

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[1] Back to the Future: Trump’s Emerging Iran “Strategy”, Danel Brumberg

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/north-korea-nuclear/564287/

[3] Frontline Turkey: The Conflict at the Heart of the Middle East, Ezgi Basaran