Press. voanews.com
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump has a mixed record on his
pledges to reverse much of his predecessor's foreign policy legacy. Trump has
withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, pulled out of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade pact and vocally supported improving relations with Russia.
The president, for now, is sticking with the Obama administration's Iran
nuclear deal, and he appears to be maintaining the limited U.S. military
involvement in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. When he speaks in public, however,
there is no confusing Trump with his predecessor.
In a speech to cheering Poles in Warsaw this month, Trump distanced
himself from Barack Obama's multilateral diplomacy. He strongly defended
Western values, which he said are increasingly threatened by terrorism from
those who do not share them, and by complacency from those who do.
"Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization
in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?" he asked.
Trump also used the Warsaw speech to answer critics who have accused him
of being soft on Russia at a time intelligence agencies are saying the Kremlin
meddled in U.S. elections on his behalf. He warned Moscow against aggressive
behavior.
"We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in the
Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and
Iran, and instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight
against common enemies in defense of civilization itself," Trump said.
Unpredictable partner
Many policy analysts, however, say Trump has proven to be an
unpredictable partner, weakening the trust of longtime allies and effectively
jeopardizing America's traditional role as a global leader.
"There are deep-seated questions about American values and about
where this administration is going," said Charles Kupchan, senior fellow
at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations who served in the Clinton
and Obama administrations.
"If it heads in a very nationalist and a very populist direction,
four years from now we could see a very serious erosion in the trust, the
confidence — the stickiness, if you will — of the relationships in the
institutions that have kept the international order in a stable fashion,"
Kupchan said.
Perhaps Trump's two biggest breaks from Obama have been in withdrawing
from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which already faced on uncertain fate in
Congress, and withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, which sparked
outrage at home and abroad.
At a summit for leaders of the Group of 20 leading industrialized
nations in Germany this month, Trump's pullout from the Paris accord earned him
a stern rebuke from all 19 other participants.
"In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent, all
against the United States of America," said German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, the summit host.
Clearly stung by the unanimity of the opposition, Trump suggested he
might change his mind. "Something could happen with respect to the Paris
accord," he said at a news conference last week with French President
Emmanuel Macron. "We'll see what happens."
Advantage to China
Kupchan said the biggest beneficiary of Trump's go-it alone,
"America First" approach might be China, the chief U.S. rival on the
world stage. "The president pulled down the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which was a U.S.-led effort to create a trading zone, and he backed out of the
Paris climate agreement," Kupchan said. "Both of those moves have
sort of handed on a silver platter global leadership to China."
Another area where Trump has deviated from Obama has been the Middle
East. His first overseas trip was to Saudi Arabia, where leaders of more than
50 Muslim countries applauded his grand plan to organize a coalition to fight
Islamist radicals. That idea has since run aground on the rocks of an
internecine squabble among regional adversaries, setting off a fresh wave of
instability in the Gulf. And unlike Obama, Trump ordered a military strike on
Syrian government forces deemed responsible for a chemical weapons attack on
civilians.
On other issues, however, Trump's policies have been surprisingly close
to his predecessor's, even in cases where he ridiculed Obama's actions.
After repeatedly pledging to tear up the nuclear agreement Obama signed
with Iran, saying he thought it was a bad deal, he agreed this week to certify
Iran's compliance for another three months, at least temporarily keeping the accord
in place.
Experts point to a number of factors that have contributed to tempering
Trump's impulsive instincts toward more Obama-like positions. Regarding Iran,
it was his foreign policy team of cooler heads; on his travel ban, it has been
the courts restraining and limiting his executive order; and on his plan to
compel North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, it was simply coming to
the realization that, like Obama, he has no good options.
'Constraints' encountered
Reva Goujon, vice president for Global Analysis at the Texas-based
Stratfor research group, said Trump is learning that on many international
issues, there's little room to maneuver.
"In many respects, the Trump foreign policy record has been largely
predictable, and that's because there are constraints embedded in the
international system and on the United States that he is responding to,"
Goujon told VOA.
Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush
administration and now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington
think tank, told VOA the presidency has its own way of moderating a candidate's
campaign rhetoric.
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump has a mixed record on his
pledges to reverse much of his predecessor's foreign policy legacy. Trump has
withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, pulled out of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade pact and vocally supported improving relations with Russia.
The president, for now, is sticking with the Obama administration's Iran
nuclear deal, and he appears to be maintaining the limited U.S. military
involvement in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. When he speaks in public, however,
there is no confusing Trump with his predecessor.
In a speech to cheering Poles in Warsaw this month, Trump distanced
himself from Barack Obama's multilateral diplomacy. He strongly defended
Western values, which he said are increasingly threatened by terrorism from
those who do not share them, and by complacency from those who do.
"Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization
in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?" he asked.
Trump also used the Warsaw speech to answer critics who have accused him
of being soft on Russia at a time intelligence agencies are saying the Kremlin
meddled in U.S. elections on his behalf. He warned Moscow against aggressive
behavior.
"We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in the
Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and
Iran, and instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight
against common enemies in defense of civilization itself," Trump said.
Unpredictable partner
Many policy analysts, however, say Trump has proven to be an
unpredictable partner, weakening the trust of longtime allies and effectively
jeopardizing America's traditional role as a global leader.
"There are deep-seated questions about American values and about
where this administration is going," said Charles Kupchan, senior fellow
at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations who served in the Clinton
and Obama administrations.
"If it heads in a very nationalist and a very populist direction,
four years from now we could see a very serious erosion in the trust, the
confidence — the stickiness, if you will — of the relationships in the institutions
that have kept the international order in a stable fashion," Kupchan said.
Perhaps Trump's two biggest breaks from Obama have been in withdrawing
from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which already faced on uncertain fate in
Congress, and withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, which sparked
outrage at home and abroad.
At a summit for leaders of the Group of 20 leading industrialized
nations in Germany this month, Trump's pullout from the Paris accord earned him
a stern rebuke from all 19 other participants. "In the end, the
negotiations on climate reflect dissent, all against the United States of
America," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the summit host.
Clearly stung by the unanimity of the opposition, Trump suggested he
might change his mind. "Something could happen with respect to the Paris
accord," he said at a news conference last week with French President
Emmanuel Macron. "We'll
see what happens."
Advantage to China
Kupchan said the biggest beneficiary of Trump's go-it alone,
"America First" approach might be China, the chief U.S. rival on the
world stage."The president pulled down the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which was a U.S.-led effort to create a trading zone, and he backed out of the
Paris climate agreement," Kupchan said. "Both of those moves have
sort of handed on a silver platter global leadership to China."
Another area where Trump has deviated from Obama has been the Middle
East. His first overseas trip was to Saudi Arabia, where leaders of more than
50 Muslim countries applauded his grand plan to organize a coalition to fight
Islamist radicals. That idea has since run aground on the rocks of an
internecine squabble among regional adversaries, setting off a fresh wave of
instability in the Gulf. And unlike Obama, Trump ordered a military strike on
Syrian government forces deemed responsible for a chemical weapons attack on
civilians. On other issues, however, Trump's policies have been surprisingly
close to his predecessor's, even in cases where he ridiculed Obama's actions.
After repeatedly pledging to tear up the nuclear agreement Obama signed
with Iran, saying he thought it was a bad deal, he agreed this week to certify
Iran's compliance for another three months, at least temporarily keeping the
accord in place.
Experts point to a number of factors that have contributed to tempering
Trump's impulsive instincts toward more Obama-like positions. Regarding Iran,
it was his foreign policy team of cooler heads; on his travel ban, it has been
the courts restraining and limiting his executive order; and on his plan to
compel North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, it was simply coming to the
realization that, like Obama, he has no good options.
'Constraints' encountered
Reva Goujon, vice president for Global Analysis at the Texas-based
Stratfor research group, said Trump is learning that on many international
issues, there's little room to maneuver. Douglas Feith, former undersecretary
of defense in the George W. Bush administration and now a senior fellow at the
Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, told VOA the presidency has its own
way of moderating a candidate's campaign rhetoric.
"He made a number of statements in the campaign that were pretty
radical, saying the kinds of things that American political leaders generally
don't say or haven't said about, in particular, about our alliances, about
NATO, our alliance with South Korea and Japan, for example," Feith said.
"But as president I think he's gone a long way toward reassuring the
allies that we're going to have a much more conventional approach."