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On Foreign Policy, President Trump Reverts to Candidate Trump
On Foreign Policy, President Trump Reverts to Candidate Trump
WASHINGTON — President Trump has been commander in chief for 14 months, but to an uncanny degree, he still sounds like the armchair statesman who ran for the White House in 2016.
“I want to get out,” Mr. Trump said of the United States’ military engagement in Syria, at a news conference on Tuesday with leaders of the Baltic States. “I want to bring our troops back home.”
Mr. Trump’s words were at odds with the strategy his administration is pursuing in Syria. But they were almost verbatim what he said in pre-election tweets, as well as in debates two years ago against Republican challengers and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Far from learning on the job or modifying his views to fit the imperatives of America’s global role — as did so many of his predecessors — Mr. Trump is falling back on the familiar mix of belligerence and isolationism that fueled his “America First” campaign.
The NATO alliance, he said, was “delinquent.” Russia is a partner with whom, he insisted, “I think I could have a very good relationship.” The United States should have “kept the oil” after the Iraq war. Rather than pursuing military adventures abroad, he said, “I want to get back. I want to rebuild our nation.”
Mr. Trump’s reversion to his campaign themes comes as he has reshuffled his national security team, ousting aides with more conventional views of American power, like Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, in favor of more hawkish figures, like Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton.
How these new players will mesh with Mr. Trump’s throwback persona may determine whether the president is signaling a midcourse correction in foreign policy or merely retreating to phrases and positions that give him comfort.
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.