Understanding Presidential Diplomacy 101, according to the book of Donald
Key moments from Donald Trump’s first 16 months as President reveal his foreign policy playbook.
Key foreign-policy moments, many previously undisclosed, from Donald Trump’s 16 months as US President.
METHOD 1
“I alone can fix it”
Donald Trump made this declaration at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Twenty-two months later, on May 8, he sat alone at a small desk in the White House basement as he dramatically signed a stack of documents withdrawing the US from the seven-nation deal aimed at constraining Iran’s nuclear program.
It was a display of showmanship the President devised, employing stagecraft learned on reality TV, administration officials said. After two years opposing the deal, he wanted the world to see him putting pen to paper.
That solitary act showed his penchant for unilateral action and contrasted with the public celebration of diplomats from seven countries and the EU when the pact was approved in Vienna three years earlier. It also illustrated Trump’s vision of the US as a stand-alone superpower prepared to break with the past, confront threats and bend would-be partners to its will.
In January, Trump had sat in the Oval Office with foreign-policy aides, telling them he would not sign another extension of the Iran deal, said people familiar with the discussions. He had approved one such extension six months earlier.
An hour-long back-and-forth discussion erupted as his team argued they were close to a breakthrough in negotiations with European allies, these people said. “Ah, f..k it,” Trump finally said, according to one of the people. “I’ll give you one more extension.”
He relented, even though he didn’t see much value in continuing talks with European counterparts or giving the US congress a chance to toughen the deal, these people said.
European leaders rushed to Washington in April to try to save the accord but concluded the President had made up his mind.
“OK,” Trump said in a May meeting with aides, according to a source. “I’m shredding it.”
METHOD 2
Soften up the opposition and keep it off balance
Early in the administration, even top advisers were concerned the President was being too confrontational with North Korea. The speech prepared for Trump to deliver to the UN in September sought to isolate Kim Jong-un. Trump departed from the draft and turned it personal, calling Kim Jong-un “rocket man” on a “suicide mission.”
Trump’s team got on board with the new rhetoric. But as then-CIA director Mike Pompeo prepared for his first trip to North Korea over the Easter weekend, the President switched tactics and surprised top advisers by urging restraint, the officials said. National security adviser John Bolton and Vice-President Mike Pence were instructed to tone down their comments. “Mike, you got it?” Trump told Pence, according to one of these officials. “No f..king crazy talk from anybody in the administration.”
He told Pompeo the administration wasn’t going to change its policy but needed to give North Korea room to negotiate, these people said. The moment portrayed Trump as acutely aware of the impact of his words, whether insulting Mexico ahead of North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations or accusing China of manipulating its currency and “raping” the US economy.
It also showed his eagerness to jump from one tactic to the next so rapidly his team sometimes has to play catch-up.
METHOD 3
Set deadlines — real or imagined — to create pressure
No one loves negotiating against deadlines more than Trump, who uses them as weapons. “He never gives an order without a deadline,” an administration official said.
At times, deadlines are a result of Trump’s hurriedness. He is so eager to make decisions that staff create arbitrary dates for implementation, officials said. He also likes to create deadlines with consequences to prevent others from running out the clock.
Both were true for Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs. When the tariffs were announced in March, Trump granted one-month waivers to some trading partners. When the waiver was up, they would face 25 per cent tariffs on steel, 10 per cent on aluminium.
The White House believed the deadlines helped push through one deal with South Korea, officials said. Trump’s critics question the strategy, noting he has yet to negotiate a major new trade deal. It also shows his deadlines aren’t bluffs, said Lawrence Kudlow, director of the President’s economic council. “The point is, when the President says something, believe it,” he said.
METHOD 4
Don’t calm the waters — roil them
Last year, Trump faced a deadline that collided with a campaign promise, his vow to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as stipulated in a 1995 law. The law allowed presidents to sign a waiver and postpone the move six months at a time, something every previous president did routinely. In June last year, Trump deferred to his national security team, sources said, signing a waiver as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, mapped out a Middle East peace plan.
Six months later, Trump was intent on keeping his campaign promise, even though most of his advisers, including Kushner, continued to raise concerns.
Trump asked Kushner to assess what impact the embassy move would have. Kushner “told the President it would add uncertainty to the peace process and create short-term disruption”, a source said, but “thought it would be net beneficial over the long term”.
Others in the room, including then secretary of state Rex Tillerson, urged the President to delay the move, said people familiar with the talks. Trump cut off discussion.
“I hear you guys,” he told them, according to one of the people, “but I want to do it anyway.”
Tillerson told the President: “You’re making a huge mistake.”
Military commanders generally try to avoid multiple-front wars, while Trump’s approach risks simultaneous crises, a result more of the President’s eagerness to act than a deliberate strategy, officials said. He looks sceptically at advice from policy experts, previous administration officials and global allies — the “geniuses”, as Trump contemptuously privately calls them — which means the US is often churning foreign policy waters instead of calming them.
METHOD 5
Make it personal
Trump sees his personality as key to foreign agreements. It is a method born of a career in real estate, administration officials said, where personal chemistry can hold outsize importance.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April last year, the US President shattered the careful choreography, surprising the Chinese by immediately seeking a one-on-one meeting with Xi.
“Got a minute?” Trump asked Xi, sources said. As the two strolled the grounds, the Chinese delegation expressed frustration the President had breached protocol. “They were legitimately losing their minds,” said one source.
Trump’s reliance on personal diplomacy also makes for an anxious White House staff, some of whom have said they worry his praise can leave foreign leaders thinking US policy has changed.
During Trump’s trip to Asia last year, he was elated by the welcome Xi prepared. Trump was the first foreign leader in centuries — according to China’s telling — to view an opera in the Forbidden City. He talked repeatedly about the performance at dinner in Beijing. “We don’t have that kind of talent on Broadway,” he told aides, according to a person familiar with the episode. “I don’t know how we could ever compete with that.”
The talk was private but left some aides cringing, said people familiar with the episode. Those comments might be construed to suggest the White House was easing away from a view of China as strategic competitor and would do little for national pride back home.
To damp Trump’s enthusiasm, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, would remind him of China’s aggressive behaviour just before his private meetings, citing concerns ranging from intellectual-property theft to the huge trade deficit, said a person familiar with the conversations.
“There were a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle conversations,” said the person, “trying to remind the President about some of the larger dynamics.”
On Saturday, as he prepared to depart for Singapore, Trump said he would know “within the first minute” whether the summit with the North Korean leader would be a success.
METHOD 6
Use “maximum pressure” and be prepared to walk away
Trump embraced a “maximum pressure campaign” on North Korea. Other foreign leaders haven’t been spared either.
A signature Trump tactic is to respond to every attack with a stronger counterstrike. When Beijing threatened to match his tariffs on $US50 billion ($65bn) in Chinese goods, he threatened to put tariffs on $US100bn.
When North Korea increased missile tests, he vowed to respond with “fire and fury”. His maximum-pressure campaign on the nation involved imposing economic sanctions, pressing Beijing to reduce its business with Pyongyang and asking his national security team to develop military options for striking North Korea.
The moves increased fears of war but were followed by plans for today’s summit. The North is yet to say whether it is prepared to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.
Convinced he has Pyongyang’s attention, Trump has decided not to add new sanctions and has sought to retire his own terminology — for now. “I don’t even want to use the term ‘maximum pressure’ any more,” he said on June 1. “We’re getting along.”
With Dion Nissenbaum
The Wall Street Journal
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