[Mr. Trump’s confrontational and improvisational approach to foreign affairs has lifted his mood, fortunes and poll numbers in recent days. There are signs it has also made an impact on the Chinese, prodding them to finally use their leverage with their errant neighbor, North Korea.]
By Glenn Thrush and Mark
Landler
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President Trump hosting a
dinner with President Xi Jinping of China at Mar-a-Lago
in Palm Beach, Fla., on
April 6. That night, Mr. Trump broke the news to Mr.
Xi of a missile strike he
ordered against a Syrian airfield.
Credit Doug Mills/The New
York Times
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WASHINGTON
— President Trump turned in
his chair at Mar-a-Lago to get a better look at China’s president, Xi Jinping —
intent on detecting his first reaction to the news he had just dropped:
American missiles were slamming into an airfield in northern Syria.
It took a few moments, but Mr. Xi’s eyes
widened in surprise, and he asked his translator to repeat what was said,
according to three people who spoke with Mr. Trump after that night two weeks
ago. This was exactly the response he was hoping to elicit — surprise,
uncertainty and a sense that the rational, predictable statecraft of President
Barack Obama had given way to Mr. Trump’s more assertive vision of American
power.
Mr. Trump’s confrontational and
improvisational approach to foreign affairs has lifted his mood, fortunes and
poll numbers in recent days. There are signs it has also made an impact on the
Chinese, prodding them to finally use their leverage with their errant
neighbor, North Korea.
But Mr. Trump’s mix of chest thumping and
real action — the missile attack and the use of a huge bomb against Islamic
militants in Afghanistan — entails serious risks overseas. It could also
backfire at home, where a majority of Americans, and many of the populist
conservatives who backed him in 2016, oppose long-term military commitments.
The biggest risk, critics say, is that Mr.
Trump will talk himself into a war. Only slightly less dangerously, he could
weaken the nation’s standing by backing off from a threat to use force.
“In Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, they are
recalibrating their strategies — you can’t deny it — because they don’t have
any idea of how Trump will respond,” said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the
highest-ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.
“That might be great in the short term,” he
added, “but it’s not really a long-term strategy for asserting leadership in a
world desperate for American leadership.” Mr. Warner, who criticized Mr. Obama
for his failure to act more strongly in Syria, said: “China, Russia and Iran
have real, long-term strategies. Why don’t we have one, too?”
Mr. Trump did not time the strike against
Syria to impress Mr. Xi, according to White House officials. But he clearly
recognized that disclosing the news during their dinner in Palm Beach, Fla.,
had a dramatic flair that would establish his toughness and unpredictability,
while also pressuring Beijing to tame North Korea, its misbehaving client
state.
The president’s defenders say those qualities
will help restore America’s place in the world. “He’s far more in keeping with
70 years of postwar American leadership than Obama was,” said Senator Tom
Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and staunch Trump ally.
But Mr. Trump’s show of strength in the
Middle East was undercut in his response to North Korea by one of his
administration’s all-too-common errors. After Mr. Trump warned that “we’re
sending an armada” to the waters off the Korean Peninsula, the Carl Vinson, the
aircraft carrier that leads the strike group, was photographed sailing through
Indonesia, thousands of miles away.
“Your words have to match your actions,” said
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and former Army Ranger who is the
ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “If it’s just bluffing, well,
that’s dangerous. If it’s because the president was not informed and a mistake
because he had bad information, that’s problematic, too.”
In South Korea, feelings were raw, with
newspaper headlines branding the episode “Trump’s lie over the Carl Vinson” and
politicians warning that they might never again be able to trust the
president’s word.
Mr. Trump has pivoted to foreign affairs
after a succession of humbling domestic policy defeats — discovering, as his
predecessors did, that presidents can operate with more latitude in matters of
war and peace than on tax policy or health care legislation.
In a series of taunts, Twitter messages and
hawkish pronouncements by surrogates like Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump
has overturned Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum to “speak softly and carry a big
stick.” But his bombastic statements have often been paired with policy
reversals, on matters like NATO, which he once wanted to mothball and now
supports, or Russia, which he once saw as a potential ally and now views with
suspicion.
Though Mr. Trump’s words can be harsh and
intemperate, his actions have proved less so. As a result, diplomats say,
leaders are not yet able to draw firm conclusions about his foreign policy.
“There is the impression that President Trump
is moving away from his campaign statements and pivoting back to the Republican
mainstream on major foreign and security issues,” said Peter Wittig, the German
ambassador to the United States. “But people in Europe aren’t connecting the
dots and saying, ‘This is the new Trump doctrine.’”
Foreign-policy theorists sometimes compare
Mr. Trump’s erratic approach to that of President Richard M. Nixon, who pursued
what he called the “madman theory” of statecraft. By behaving vaguely unhinged
— obsessed with Communism, his finger poised unsteadily on the nuclear button —
Nixon hoped to force North Vietnam into negotiations to end the Vietnam War.
“It was aimed at both our allies and
adversaries, and it appears to have worked, to some degree,” said Eric S.
Edelman, a former under secretary of defense for policy during George W. Bush’s
administration who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University.
But Mr. Edelman drew some critical
distinctions between the two presidents. Nixon’s “madman” act generally masked
a calculated strategy, which is not yet evident in Mr. Trump’s approach.
Nixon’s national-security team was better coordinated than Mr. Trump’s, at
least so far. And even in Nixon’s case, the madman strategy worked better later
in his presidency, when he and his aides were more seasoned.
Mr. Trump won praise for his missile strike
on Syria, even from those who have criticized his approach to other crises.
Though the president moved swiftly — and by all accounts, emotionally — after a
deadly chemical weapons attack by Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, the
attack was measured, well planned and followed by an aggressive White House
effort to establish Russia’s complicity with the Assad government.
“That missile strike certainly had to get
Putin’s attention, and it did show we were determined to enforce international
norms on chemical weapons,” said Antony J. Blinken, who was deputy secretary of
state and deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration.
“Equally important was the effort to tie Russia to the use of chemical
weapons.”
Mr. Blinken has more reservations about how
Mr. Trump has approached North Korea. While in the White House, Mr. Blinken
helped coordinate a two-pronged pressure campaign against the North Korean
government. The first part involved leaning on China to use its vast leverage
over Pyongyang. The second involved persuading other countries that do business
with North Korea to refuse entry to its guest workers; expel its diplomats, who
are engaged in illicit activities; and deny landing rights to its state
airline.
Mr. Trump has opted for a noisier, more
direct approach, threatening North Korea with military action if it does not
curb its provocations. But behind the hard-line rhetoric, the president is
actually pursuing a strategy not unlike that of his predecessor: tightening the
economic vise on Pyongyang in the hopes of forcing it to make concessions.
The trouble with Mr. Trump’s approach, Mr.
Blinken said, is the gap between his words and his actions. “You risk others
miscalculating on the basis of bravado,” he said. “We always thought it was
better to talk softly but clearly, and to carry a big stick.”
