TRUMP’S “AMERICA FIRST!” MEANS “AMERICA LAST”
If you thought Donald Trump wasn’t dangerous … If you thought we had nothing to worry about and we could all ride this out because he was just some clown who ended up in the Oval Office through a fluke in the electoral college and could do nothing worse than tweet out insults and nonsense ten times a day … Think again. Rich or poor, American or not, this man is dangerous to us all.
That’s because as president, Donald Trump’s obviously also in charge of our foreign policy. And he has been a disaster. Under the banner of “America First!” he has recklessly proceeded to rescind scores of treaties, scuttle longtime alliances with our closest allies, reject diplomacy in favor of military threats, and alienate almost every other nation on the planet, friend or foe.
For Donald Trump—who believes every negotiation is about winners and losers and who only has one diplomatic setting: bullshit and bluster—“America First” apparently means “America Stands Alone,” which we now do on many important fronts. On climate change, as we’ve seen, every other nation on the planet has agreed to come up with a plan to meet the goals of the Paris accord. Only the United States now stands alone in rejecting the agreement. Trump told us he alone could fix our problems. Now we are alone and stuck with him.1
See also: nuclear proliferation. The UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the EU originally joined the United States in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for lifting economic sanctions against the country. Among the eight signatories, only the United States today stands alone—a move that could have horrific consequences.2
72. HE SHREDDED THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Indeed, by unilaterally shredding the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, Donald Trump made one of the most dangerous moves not just in his administration but in the history of the American presidency—triggering the resumption of a nuclear arms race and exposing the planet to the very real risk of nuclear war.
But let’s first be clear why Trump did this. No matter what he claims, from his point of view, there was only one reason behind pulling the United States out of the Iran deal. Not because it was a bad deal. Not because he had a better deal up his sleeve. But solely because it was made by Barack Obama.
Donald Trump pulled the plug on the Iran nuclear deal for the same reason he tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, withdrew the United States from the Paris accord on climate change, revoked every new antipollution regulation of the EPA, and, allegedly, paid prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel bed once slept in by his predecessor: Because he’s obsessed with undoing anything connected with former President Barack Obama, good or bad. If Obama had been against the Iran nuclear deal, Trump would be for it.
While driven by pique and patently idiotic, Trump’s action came as no surprise. As candidate, he promised to cancel the deal. As president, he did nothing but condemn it as “insane” and something that “should have never, ever been made.” What was somewhat surprising is that, even after eighteen months in the White House to think about it, he could come up with no better case for withdrawal than a string of lies.3
Lie number one: It’s a lousy deal. Not true. As former UN ambassador Susan Rice wrote in The New York Times, according to terms of the deal, “Iran relinquished 97 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile, dismantled two-thirds of its centrifuges and its entire plutonium facility, abided by the most intrusive international inspection and monitoring regime in history, and forswore ever producing a nuclear weapon.” What more do you want? That’s why, in a poll of more than 1,500 international relations scholars and experts, a whopping 94 percent thought Trump had made a big mistake reneging on the agreement.4
Lie number two: Iran was not in compliance. Not true. The International Atomic Energy Agency; the State Department; the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats; and the CIA all certified that Iran was living up to the terms of the agreement. The then CIA director, Mike Pompeo, told Congress, “I have seen no evidence that they are not in compliance today.” Trump’s secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, has said of the deal that “the verification, what is in there, is actually pretty robust.”5
Lie number three: Trump will come up with a better deal. This is a classic Trumpism. Every time he breaks a deal, he promises a new one but never delivers. He made the same promise when trying to repeal Obamacare, pulling out of the Paris accord, scrubbing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, going after NAFTA, and ending DACA. Each time, the promise of a better deal. Each time, nothing. Same with Iran. There is no plan B.
Lie number four, which actually came at the beginning of a cabinet meeting the day after Trump’s announcement—that other countries are “all very happy with his decision.” How could he say that after, in one week, the president of France, the chancellor of Germany, and the foreign secretary of the UK all came to Washington and pleaded with him not to pull out of the deal? And, once he did so anyway, issued a joint statement condemning his decision?6
Lie number five: His action made the world a safer place. No, no, no. Just the opposite. The world is today a much more dangerous place. Because a rogue nation, which had agreed to abandon any efforts to build a nuclear weapon for at least seven years, and maybe fifteen, was given a green light by Donald Trump to resume production of nuclear weapons, which will only further destabilize the entire Middle East.
Admittedly, it was not a perfect deal—what compromise between nations with completely different agendas is? There were other important issues, like Iran’s support of radical organizations like Hezbollah, which were not included. But as I sat in the East Room, I heard French president Emmanuel Macron eloquently explain to Trump that the answer was to fix and improve the original agreement—which all other signatories were willing to do—not scuttle the whole thing. Trump wasn’t listening.7
To complicate things further, Trump’s decision to shred the Iran nuclear deal came on the threshold of his summit with North Korean president Kim Jong-un and a potential deal with North Korea. Ironically, conservatives have always warned against making any such deal because, they argued, you can’t trust North Koreans to live up to the terms of any agreement.
Thanks to Donald Trump, it’s now just the opposite. After what happened with the Paris accord and the Iran nuclear deal, it’s no longer the North Koreans who can’t be trusted to stick to a deal. It’s the United States. Now more than ever, our word means nothing.8
73. NORTH KOREA
If you find it hard to figure out Donald Trump’s relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, don’t feel bad. Nobody can figure it out. Kim Jong-un is at once the world leader most insulted by Trump—“short and fat,” “maniac,” “madman,” “bad dude,” “sick puppy,” “Little Rocket Man”—and the one most praised (after his man-crush on Vladimir Putin, of course)—“very honorable” and a “pretty smart cookie”—all in less than one year.9
In that same short time span, Trump went from threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea by unleashing “fire and fury like the world has never seen before” to, after various on-again, off-again shenanigans, sitting down with Kim on June 12, 2018, in a summit that will always be deemed historic, no matter what comes of it.10
Even many of Trump’s harshest critics give him some credit for sitting down with North Korea and negotiating on abandoning their nuclear weapons program, something pursued but never achieved by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama. Reluctantly, some admit it could be Trump’s “Nixon in China” moment. But other, cooler heads say, “Not so fast,” and point to China and Kim’s increased nuclear capability as the main factors involved.11
The beginning of the Trump administration coincided with North Korea’s most militarily active year yet. In 2017, Kim Jong-un personally oversaw the launch of twenty-three missiles, including two intercontinental missiles that experts determined capable of reaching mainland United States as far as Los Angeles, Denver, or Chicago. After conducting their sixth nuclear test, North Korea also said they were close to developing the technology to fit a nuclear warhead on their long-range missiles.12
Then, suddenly in 2018, the mood shifted. Instead of launching more missiles, Kim Jong-un launched a public relations campaign. In rapid order, he agreed to let North Korean athletes join forces with South Korean athletes in the Winter Olympics. He traveled to Beijing to meet with President Xi, his first meeting with a foreign leader. He announced the suspension of all missile tests and promised to shut down one main testing site. In a historic summit, he met in the DMZ with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. He met again with President Xi. He released three Americans from prison. And he agreed to put “denuclearization,” whatever he means by that, on the table at the summit with President Trump in Singapore. At which point, even Kim’s friend Dennis Rodman’s head must have been spinning, not just Donald Trump’s.13
Continuing his bluster, Trump promised to get up and walk away from the table if things don’t go well. He even sent a letter to Kim officially canceling the summit because of “tremendous anger and open hostility,” before he changed his mind and rescheduled the meeting. It probably helped that Kim sent his reply to Trump in a cartoonishly large envelope—because, for Trump, big means good and important.14
And then, the big moment in Singapore. In an historic summit on June 12, Trump and Kim came together, shook hands, smiled for the cameras, had lunch, took a stroll, inspected the presidential limousine, watched a video, patted each other on the back, shook hands again, and left.15
And just like that—Shazam!—everything changed! “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea,” Trump boasted on Twitter the next day. In fact, North Korea was now our new best friend—“we now have a very good relationship with North Korea,” he declared. And Trump and Kim were definitely BFFs. “He’s got a very good personality, he’s funny, and he’s very, very, smart,” Trump gushed to Sean Hannity. “He’s a great negotiator, and he’s a very strategic kind of guy.” Naturally, Trump also admired Kim’s authoritarian bent. “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”16
But of course, this was all Trump’s usual bluster. In fact, the summit brought no agreement on concrete steps or a timetable moving forward. Instead, it concluded with the blandest of statements: “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” Where’s the beef?17
Even if the Singapore summit turns out to be a true turning point in US–North Korea relations, it will only be the beginning of a long road of continued negotiations on demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula, if not outright denuclearization. And the prospect that North Korea will agree, as did South Africa and Libya, to totally destroy its nuclear arsenal remains very remote. As Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, told me: “Donald Trump is permanently booked at the Grand Delusion Hotel.” It’ll take more than one handshake to get rid of the most serious nuclear threat facing the planet.
Indeed, instead of popping the champagne, many experts like Cirincione hold up a caution sign. No matter how open and reasonable Kim Jong-un may have suddenly appeared, they warn, he could just be repeating a familiar pattern of behavior perfected by his father, Kim Jong-il. Jung H. Pak of the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies likens it to cycles: “North Korea comes to dialogue, then retracts, using the U.S.’s ‘hostile policy’ as an excuse to conduct missile or nuclear tests, then re-enters dialogue to dampen sanctions implementation or reduce tension.” And before the month of the summit was even out, U.S. intelligence agencies reported ominous signs of North Korea enriching more uranium and improving infrastructure at their nuclear sites.18
Bottom line: While we all hope for the best, there’s no reason to trust North Korea to live up to the terms of the Singapore meeting. But then again, based on the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris accord and the Iran nuclear deal, there’s no reason to trust Donald Trump, either.
74. HE’S CONTINUED AND EXPANDED AMERICA’S WARS
When it comes to ending wars, as we all know from long, sad experience, presidential promises can’t always be trusted. Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to end the “bad” war in Iraq and to work toward shutting down the “good” war in Afghanistan. Except, when he left office eight years later, we were not only still fighting the “good” war and the “bad” war, we were also fighting a new war in Syria.
With Donald Trump, it’s more of the same. “Ron Paul is right that we are wasting trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he tweeted in 2011. “Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home!” he wrote the next year. In 2016, he (rightly) blamed George W. Bush for the “big fat mistake” of the Iraq War, which “destabilized the Middle East,” during a GOP presidential debate.19
And yet the Iraq War, now under the banner of Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS, lingers on. He has sent more American troops to Afghanistan. There are more American support troops in Syria, and we are also secretly militarily engaged in several countries in northern Africa—with most of that activity taking place under the radar and barely, if ever, reported.20
In other words, like Barack Obama, Donald Trump hasn’t ended any of America’s wars, he’s just started new ones.
Most Americans would be surprised to learn, for example, that civilian deaths in the Middle East have soared under Donald Trump. The media’s been so consumed with Trump tweets, Stormy Daniels, Roseanne Barr, or whatever the newest daily outrage is, they never talk about civilian casualties anymore. Yet according to the watchdog group Airwars, 2017, Trump’s first year in office, was the deadliest year ever for civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, with as many as six thousand people killed in strikes by the U.S.-led coalition.21
In March 2018, for example, as media columnist Margaret Sullivan pointed out in The Washington Post, the press went wild over former Trump campaign official Sam Nunberg’s meltdown on CNN—where he admitted, “Trump may well have done something during the election with the Russians.” That’s news, sure. But they spent virtually no time reporting on 150 civilians, including scores of children, killed when U.S. forces repeatedly bombed a school in Syria, or dozens of other civilians killed in bombings of mosques and markets.22
Without a doubt, the uptick in civilian casualties was a direct result of Trump’s campaign promise to “bomb the shit out of ’em”—a directive he gave the Pentagon once in the White House. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. officer during the coalition buildup in Syria, admitted that the Trump administration “freed us up a bit to prosecute the war in a more aggressive manner.”23
Indeed, in direct contravention of the Geneva convention, Trump has been cheering on more collateral damage. “We’re fighting a very politically correct war,” he complained during the election campaign. The “thing with the terrorists—you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families!” Here’s one bloody promise he kept. On his first day in office, when he was told by the CIA that they had waited on a drone strike until the target was away from his family, Trump angrily harrumphed, “Why did you wait?”24
While much of it takes place in the shadows, here’s what we know, as of this writing, of military operations in the Middle East.
SYRIA
Having a hard time understanding what’s happening in Syria? No wonder. There are actually not one but three wars ongoing in Syria—beginning in 2011, the civil war between rebel forces and the Assad government, assisted by its longtime ally Russia; Israel’s war against Iran-backed forces; and the U.S. war, with the assistance of Kurd fighters, against ISIS. Though ISIS has lost most of its territory, two thousand American ground troops remain in Syria to prevent their return. In April 2017 and April 2018, the Trump administration launched cruise missile attacks in Syria to punish President Assad for his use of chemical weapons. Meanwhile, the civil war drags on with no end in sight, and President Obama’s goal of removing Bashar al-Assad from power has been long forgotten.25
AFGHANISTAN
It started out in October 2001 as Operation Enduring Freedom. It endures today as Operation Never Ending. The war in Afghanistan is already the longest of all American wars overseas, and it shows no promise of slowing down. Like Obama, Trump promised to end it. But like Obama, all Trump has done is send in more troops.26
Most people don’t remember, but the original purpose of the war, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, was to overthrow the Taliban in order to find and destroy al-Qaeda. It took only a few weeks to oust the Taliban and drive the remaining al-Qaeda forces into Pakistan. Since then, the war in Afghanistan has still gone on, but without any clear mission. Meanwhile, the Taliban has enjoyed a resurgence. NBC reports there are now sixty thousand Taliban fighters active in 70 percent of the country.27
The war has taken its toll in lives and dollars. Through May 2018, 2,411 American troops had been killed in Afghanistan. According to the Costs of Wars project at Brown University, the war has cost $2 trillion so far—plus an additional $45 billion for 2018—which does not include interest on war debt that Americans taxpayers will have to pay, nor the cost of VA medical treatment for veterans.28
An even more tragic cost: In early 2015, three international watchdog organizations—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—estimated the number of civilians killed since the beginning of the conflict at between 106,000 and 170,000. Those numbers have only grown since.29
In August 2017, with no announced plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan and claiming that “decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk of the Oval Office,” Donald Trump increased the number of American troops from 8,400 to 14,000. According to the air force, his first year in office saw more than three times as many bombs dropped in the country as 2016, and early 2018 saw no signs of slowing down. Our longest war drags ever on.30
IRAQ
Oh, yes, even though it was officially declared over on December 18, 2011, that war continues, too. Or at least its second phase—or even third, if you count the first Gulf War back in 1991.31
George W. Bush’s Iraq War began in 2003 under the pretext, later proved false, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a direct threat to the United States. Taking Baghdad and toppling Hussein proved relatively easy. Helping a weak government and ragtag army take back control of the country proved far more difficult. In October 2007, the number of American troops peaked at 170,000. As conditions on the ground improved, they were gradually withdrawn until combat operations in Iraq were declared over.32
But in 2014, it was discovered that ISIS forces, taking advantage of the absence of U.S. and Iraqi troops, had seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria. This began the second phase of this Iraq War, to push them back. In December 2017, Iraq announced that all Iraqi territory had been fully liberated from ISIS control and yet, for now, U.S. troops remain in the region.33
Obviously, the war in Iraq has also taken a serious toll. According to Brown University’s Costs of War project again, the initial phase of the war cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion—which, again, could balloon to $3–$6 trillion when interest rates and veterans costs are included. That number is even more significant when we remember that Lawrence Lindsey, head of President Bush’s National Economic Council, was forced to resign in 2003 when he told Congress the total cost of the war in Iraq might reach $200 billion. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld predicted it would cost “something under $50 billion.”34
Overall, Costs of War estimated that between 176,000 and 189,000 were killed in the Iraq War, including 134,000 civilians. In phase one, 4,424 American troops were killed and 31,052 wounded in action. Phase two casualties include 73 Americans killed and 1,295 wounded.35
As of early 2018, there were still 5,200 American forces in Iraq, mainly in support and training missions. And that war, too, drags on.36
NORTHERN AFRICA
Sadly, it won’t surprise you to learn the United States still has troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. But you may be surprised to learn that, under Donald Trump, American troops are also on the ground in Niger, Chad, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Uganda, and South Sudan. This is Trump’s “Shadow War” in Africa.37
All these operations are questionably and quietly being conducted under the sweeping Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in the aftermath of September 11, but they all have two things in common: none of them have ever been specifically authorized by Congress; and they’re almost totally ignored by the media, even though thirty-six American soldiers have been killed in Africa since 2001.38
Americans wouldn’t even have known of these troops until four Special Forces members—including Sergeant La David Johnson, whose widow felt insulted by Donald Trump—were killed on patrol there in October 2017. At which point most people were asking, “Where is Niger, and what are American troops doing there?”39
The administration’s answer is that American troops are there in a support capacity only, to help African nations deal with a variety of Islamic jihadists who have fled to northern Africa from Iraq, Syria, Libya, and other hot spots. They argue, in words that should haunt anybody who lived through Vietnam or any other recent American war, that it’s cheaper for us to train local forces how to shut down terrorist operations than to send in American troops to do it later.40
Which sounds good in theory, except for the fact that just by being in the combat zone means that American troops are in harm’s way, and, as happened in Niger, any reconnaissance mission can suddenly become a fight for survival.
At this point, June 2018, there are 1,500 American troops throughout North Africa, three times the number on the ground in Syria—and unless Congress steps in, that number’s only going to grow. “The war is morphing,” Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters after a briefing on Africa by defense secretary James Mattis. “You’re going to see more actions in Africa, not less; you’re going to see more aggression by the United States toward our enemies, not less; you’re going to have decisions being made not in the White House but out in the field.”41
TRUMP’S WARS
On one front, the Trump administration started out on a positive foot. Allegedly speaking for the president, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson defended chopping the foreign operations budget by 31 percent because, he said, “There will be fewer military conflicts that the U.S. will be directly engaged in.”42
Obviously, he had not talked to his boss. In fact, we’ve seen just the opposite. As Micah Zenko wrote in Foreign Policy, “In reality, the Donald Trump administration has demonstrated no interest in reducing America’s military commitments and interventions, nor committed itself in any meaningful way to preventing conflicts or resolving them.”43
The reality is, as Zenko and Jennifer Wilson also pointed out in an August 2017 column entitled “Donald Trump Is Dropping Bombs at Unprecedented Levels,” Trump had already learned to love the bomb. As soon as he was in office, he immediately approved a disastrous, ill-thought-out Special Forces mission in southern Yemen that Obama had rejected, resulting in the death of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens and multiple civilian casualties. Then, in April 2017, he dropped a MOAB—a.k.a. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or “Mother of All Bombs,” America’s largest nonnuclear bomb—on Taliban targets in Afghanistan. It’s big—it must be good and important, right?44
“Within eight months of assuming office,” Zenko and Wilson wrote, “Trump—with the announcement of six ‘precision airstrikes’ in Libya—had bombed every country that former President Barack Obama had in eight years. One month after that, the United States surpassed the 26,172 bombs that had been dropped in 2016. Through the end of December 2017, Trump had authorized more airstrikes in Somalia in one year (33), than George W. Bush and Obama had since the United States first began intervening there in early 2007.”45
At least we ducked one new war. As first reported by the Associated Press, in August 2017, Trump surprised his foreign policy team by suddenly suggesting an American invasion of Venezuela. A stunned Defense Secretary James Mattis, backed up by then-DHS Secretary H. R. McMaster and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, talked him out of it. Catastrophe averted. For now.46
So much for the populist maverick. Donald Trump clearly loves war, and he now has the United States engaged in more wars than ever.
75. HE’S ALIENATED OUR NEAREST NEIGHBORS
“Since we’re neighbors, let’s be friends.” Good slogan. It works for Safeway. And for a long time, it worked for the United States and our neighbors Canada and Mexico, who are also the top two largest foreign markets for U.S. goods. Until Donald Trump. He treats them both, and especially Mexico, like dirt. He’s gone out of his way to alienate both nations, on immigration and trade. And having lost faith in the United States, they both have begun to reach out for new partners they can count on.47
MEXICO
Of course, things got off to a disastrous start between Trump and Mexico on June 16, 2015, when he infamously announced he was running for president by denouncing Mexican immigrants—“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”—and promising to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it.48
Things only went downhill from there. In May 2018, Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico, tweeted that there was no way, no how, they were going to pay for the wall. And according to the Pew Research Center, 94 percent of Mexicans opposed the border wall, and confidence in the American president fell among the Mexican people to a historic low of 5 (!) percent.49
As president, too, Trump has been pissing off Mexico from the start. Just days after his inauguration, a group of top Mexican officials came to the White House to meet with Jared Kushner, who, as one of his many foreign policy assignments, had been tasked to smooth over relations with Mexico. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to plan a summit between President Trump and President Nieto, but as they were meeting, Trump chose that moment to sign two executive orders—one calling for “immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border”; the other expanding the categories of undocumented immigrants who would be prioritized for deportation.50
That evening, a furious Nieto went on national television to declare again, “Mexico will not pay for any wall.” The next morning, Trump tweeted that if Mexico would not agree to pay for the wall, they might as well cancel the summit. Which Nieto did. The two leaders finally met face-to-face at a G20 meeting.51
Since then, relations with Mexico have not improved. Turning back the clock on decades of partnership with Mexico on many issues, Trump treats Mexico like an American colony, not a sovereign nation. He’s threatened to unilaterally scuttle NAFTA, continues to blame Mexico for doing nothing to stem illegal immigration, calls all immigrants criminals, threatens to impose tariffs or a border tax on Mexican imports, and still insists he’ll find some way to make Mexico pay for the wall. In fact, by May 2018, a note of Trump’s past as a serial sexual assaulter had crept into the diplomatic discussion. “They’re going to pay for the wall,” he boasted at a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, “and they’re going to enjoy it.” Charming.52
Despite his differences with Donald Trump, the sitting president of Mexico has tried to be polite. Not so the former president. In a video jokingly announcing he might run for president of the United States in 2020, former president Vicente Fox probably spoke for the majority of Mexicans when he said, “Donald, you suck so much at this job. If they ever do a Mt. Rushmore for shitty presidents, it will just be your bloated, orange head—four times.”53
Meanwhile, relations with our neighbor to the north went south, too.
CANADA
I saw them together myself at the White House. If there were ever any two national leaders who connected, it was Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau. Both young, charismatic, articulate, progressive, driven by a global perspective.
How times have changed. If there were ever two leaders who have nothing in common, it’s Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump. One is a leader in efforts to combat climate change; the other’s a climate change denier. One committed $241.5 million to reproductive health and contraception programs; the other cut $600 million from family planning programs in the developing world. One believes in exercising global leadership; the other preaches “America First!” One takes the day off from work every year to celebrate his wedding anniversary. The other has cheated on his wife with multiple porn stars.54
As in Mexico, once Trump took office, approval ratings for America among Canadians sank to an all-time low. Their favorable view of the United States dipped from 65 to 43 percent. Confidence in the American president plummeted from 83 to 22 percent.55
Rather than do battle with the Trump administration, meanwhile, the Canadian government decided to chart a more independent course—as reflected in a June 2017 statement issued by foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland: “The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course. For Canada that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order.”56
Relations between the United States and Canada also quickly soured over trade issues. Again, Trump unilaterally trashed NAFTA but has still not come up with what he insisted would be a better deal. Meanwhile, he slapped punitive U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber—which Canada appealed to the World Trade Organization. He also announced tariffs on Canadian steel, only to suspend them pending the outcome of NAFTA negotiations, and then slap them back on again. And Trump still insists the United States has a trade deficit with Canada, even though the opposite is true. When all products are included, the U.S. actually has a small trade surplus with Canada.57
In only eighteen months, what was once a close, positive working relationship between Canada and the United States has turned distant and negative. Trump accuses Canada of unfair trade practices. “People don’t realize Canada has been very rough on the United States,” he said in announcing his tariffs on steel. “They’ve outsmarted our politicians for many years.”58 But Canada isn’t just rolling over. “We are going to defend our industries and our workers,” Justin Trudeau declared on June 7, 2018, in a joint appearance with France’s Emmanuel Macron, and “show the U.S. president that his unacceptable actions are hurting his own citizens. American jobs are on the line because of his actions.” When Trudeau reiterated this stance after the G7 summit, Trump threw a hissy fit on Twitter. “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left … Very dishonest & weak.” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic advisor, added that Trudeau had “stabbed us in the back.”59
And that’s why Canada is looking to enter new trade partnerships with other Asian, Pacific, and European nations, and Mexico is now buying ten times more corn from Brazil than before. After all, when your next-door neighbor is an asshole like Donald Trump, you’re probably going to turn your attention elsewhere.60
76. HE’S ALIENATED OUR CLOSEST EUROPEAN ALLIES
Mexico and Canada do have this consolation: They’re not the only close and longtime allies with whom Trump has damaged relations. Even as a candidate, he began to alienate France, Germany, and the UK, our longest and strongest allies, to the point where he’s not welcome anywhere.
It was no surprise, then, that aside from extremists like France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, most European opinion-makers reacted with horror even at the remote possibility that someone like Donald Trump might be elected president of the United States. J. K. Rowling tweeted that he’s worse than Voldemort, the Big Bad of her Harry Potter books. David Cameron called his proposed Muslim ban “divisive.” Germany’s Der Spiegel called him the most dangerous man on the planet. It featured his election victory on the cover with the words Das Ende Der Welt—“The End of the World.”61
Once he was elected, European leaders acted with dismay. Germany’s Angela Merkel said she would cooperate with Trump, but only if he agreed to respect common values: “democracy, freedom, respect for the law and for human dignity, regardless of ancestry, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political leanings.” Which may be the first time a foreign leader had to inform an American president about what our Constitution stands for. Trump repaid her by famously refusing to shake her hand at the press avail during her first visit to the Trump White House.62
Others were not even that hopeful. Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the U.S., warned, “The world is crumbling in front of our eyes.”63
Still others saw a potential silver lining—that disgust at Trump would force members of the EU, no longer able to depend on the United States, to band together more strongly. Former U.S. ambassador to Germany John Kornblum put it bluntly: “The American umbrella over Europe is gone forever. Trump’s election marks the end of the postwar order.”64
For European leaders expecting Trump to be difficult to work with, he did not disappoint. As already covered, he broke with 197 nations by pulling the United States out of the Paris accord on climate change. He also ignored the personal pleas of Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Boris Johnson to mend, not end, the Iran nuclear deal—and even threatened sanctions against the UK, France, and Germany if any of their firms continued to do business with Iran. Then, on May 31, 2018, he enacted steel and aluminum sanctions against the EU, Canada, and Mexico, quickly prompting calls for retaliation.65
A few months earlier, in November 2017, Trump accomplished what no other British politician has been able to do in the age of Brexit: He actually united Brits across the political spectrum—in outrage! Trump had retweeted anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British hate group as part of a direct rebuke of Prime Minister Theresa May, whom he accused of being soft on terrorism. As The New York Times reported: “One member of Parliament called him a ‘fascist.’ Another described him as ‘stupid.’ A third wondered aloud whether President Trump was ‘racist, incompetent or unthinking—or all three.’” The resulting flap stirred up such universal condemnation that Trump canceled a planned first visit to the UK scheduled for early 2018. So much for the special relationship.66
Instead, it was also early in 2018 that Trump attacked Britain’s system of universal health care. Referring to efforts by some congressional Democrats to expand Obamacare into “Medicare for All,” Trump tweeted: “The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working.”67
To most Brits, them were fightin’ words. Britain’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, fired back: “I may disagree with claims made on that march but not ONE of them wants to live in a system where 28 million people have no cover.” Theresa May added that she was “proud” of Britain’s health care system.68
For a while, it seemed that, even after reneging on the Paris accord, Trump might still be able to make friends with French president Emmanuel Macron. In April 2018, Macron visited Trump at the White House, and the two exchanged a series of awkward backslaps, hugs, and handshakes that one would need Jane Goodall to fully decipher. (“I like him a lot” and “he is perfect,” Trump cooed then of his new man-crush.)69
But only about a month later, the passions had cooled and all the primate signaling was for naught—especially after Trump announced his proposed tariffs on European aluminum and steel. When Macron told Trump on a phone call that the tariffs were “not only illegal” but “a mistake on many points,” Trump flipped out. “Just bad. It was terrible,” said one White House official to CNN of the call. “Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind … but Trump can’t handle being criticized like that.” Later that week, with Trudeau by his side, Macron called the tariffs “unilateral and illegal … A trade war doesn’t spare anyone” and will “first of all hurt U.S. workers,” he warned.70
The G7 summit the following week turned out to be an outright disaster, with Trump showing up late to a working meeting on gender equality, urging everyone else to let Russia back in after they were booted from the group for illegally annexing Crimea, railing on about tariffs and fairness, and further alienating Macron, Merkel, May, Trudeau, and the rest of America’s closest friends.71
So none of our closest allies in Europe can abide Trump. And, once again, by June 2017, the Pew Research Center noted a plunge in approval ratings for the American president. Compared to Barack Obama’s 90 percent approval rating in Western Europe, Donald Trump scored only 22 percent in the UK, 14 percent in France, and 11 percent in Germany.72
Of course, to Donald Trump, a man who lives by ratings at home, his low approval numbers in Western Europe meant nothing at all. After breaking with the UK, Germany, and France on every issue from trade to climate change to the Iran nuclear deal, it’s clear that he doesn’t care about maintaining good relations with our allies. He doesn’t seem to see the importance of maintaining any of our traditional alliances at all. As we’ll see in a moment, he wants to make a whole new set of friends, more like him.
77. HE’S ENDANGERED NATO
With all the talk about President Trump canceling America’s participation in the Paris accord and the Iran nuclear deal, we tend to forget the first international organization he undermined: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.
Created in 1949 at the beginning of the Cold War by the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations to defend against aggression by the former Soviet Union, NATO, solid as a rock, was considered our primary national security alliance—until Donald Trump came along.
He didn’t wait till he got to the White House. As a candidate, he called NATO “obsolete,” complained it was costing us too much money, and said he’d consider pulling out of it. As president, he’s backed off somewhat—the United States is still a member!—but he’s still critical, still pushing other nations to pay more so we can pay less, and still gives the impression he’s not solidly committed to NATO’s Article 5, which declares that an attack on one member is an attack on all.73
In May 2017, Trump tellingly deleted a specific pledge to honor Article 5 from his speech to the first NATO summit he attended in Brussels, causing consternation among aides like James Mattis and H. R. McMaster. The next month, he finally climbed on board, committing the United States to Article 5 in a random aside, not exactly putting to rest the fears of our allies.74
Trump made (at least) two other faux pas at that first NATO summit of his. He claimed he was feeling more positive about NATO because, at his insistence, leaders had agreed to start fighting terrorism. (Actually, NATO has been engaged in fighting terrorism since the 1980s.) Then, arriving for the family photo, he rudely—and on camera—pushed Montenegro’s prime minister, Duško Marković, aside so he could stand in the front line alongside NATO head Jens Stoltenberg.75
But the news wasn’t all bad for NATO. In a move that both surprised and reassured European leaders, the Trump administration reversed course and actually increased funding for more U.S. troops and hardware in Eastern Europe and for more drills with NATO partners.76
Nevertheless, Trump’s negative comments about and threats of cutting back support or leaving NATO have badly shaken any confidence European leaders had in continued partnership with the United States on self-defense. Alexander Vershbow, former NATO deputy secretary general, has said, “The transatlantic relationship may be scarred for a long time to come.” After all, if Russian tanks start rolling west toward Europe, would you want Donald Trump next to you in the foxhole?77
According to Ivan Krastev, founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, after a year and a half of Trump’s waffling support of NATO, “many European leaders basically believe they cannot simply rely on the United States’ guarantees and that Europe should develop a military power of its own.”78
With Donald Trump, the outcome could well be: Out of the Paris accord and the Iran nuclear deal today. Out of NATO tomorrow.
78. HE HEARTS STRONGMEN
Both during the campaign and the early months of his presidency, there was a lot of confusion over Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. While other Republicans condemned him as “dangerous” and “evil,” Trump praised him. “He does have an 82 percent approval rating,” Trump told NBC.79
We’ll talk more about Trump and Putin’s special relationship in the next chapter. But in one sense, no one should have been surprised by the duo’s budding bromance. Putin—and, recently, Kim Jong-un—are just two of many notorious dictators Trump has showered with lavish praise. As Domenico Montanaro of NPR pointed out in a worthy rundown, some of the others include:
RODRIGO DUTERTE, PHILIPPINES
Duterte is accused of having more than seven thousand Filipinos killed in his extra-legal war on drugs, which he has justified by arguing, “Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there is three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Nor did he exclude journalists: “Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.”80
Trump praised Duterte for his war on drugs and invited him to the White House.81
ABDEL FATTAH AL-SISI, EGYPT
After the promise of the Arab Spring, Sisi came to power in a coup that saw eight hundred protestors killed in a single day. Once in power, he rounded up scores of opposition leaders, shut down independent media, forbade freedom of religion, criminalized sex outside of marriage, and tracked down and prosecuted gays.82
In response to which Donald Trump said, “I will tell you, President al-Sisi has been somebody that’s been very close to me from the first time I met him … He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt.”83
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN, TURKEY
Erdoğan is one of the most brutal dictators on the planet. He accused anti-government protestors of being “arm-in-arm” with terrorists. More than 50,000 people have been detained since an attempted coup in 2016, one he blames on Fethullah Gülen, a septuagenarian Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania. Turkey has the most jailed journalists of any country in the world, and some 120,000 public servants, deemed not supportive of the Erdoğan regime, have been fired. He pushed through a referendum giving himself dictatorial powers. “You cannot put women and men on an equal footing,” Erdoğan preaches. “It is against nature.” He even had the temerity, while on a visit to Washington in May 2017, to sic his bodyguards on peaceful protestors near the Turkish embassy, right here in the United States.84
Donald Trump has never criticized Erdoğan. Au contraire. He called to congratulate him on his referendum victory and thanked him for supporting the United States in its bombing of Syria.85
XI JINPING, CHINA
It’s like an ongoing Tiananmen Square in China, except undercover. Among other abuses, Xi is accused of extrajudicial detention, where detainees are tortured and mistreated; leading the world in executions; and enforced disappearance of critics. Until surpassed by Turkey, China was known as “the world’s worst jailer of journalists.” It ranks 176 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index. Access to the internet is very limited and censored. Only members of five “licensed” religions are allowed freedom to worship.86
Trump has entertained President Xi at Mar-a-Lago, played golf with him, and called him a good friend. “He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death,” Trump told Reuters on April 28, 2017. “He doesn’t want to see it. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well.”87
When Xi secured a change in party rules allowing him to rule indefinitely, Trump was thrilled. “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” he told a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”88
And, speaking of Tiananmen Square, when that peaceful protest was put down in bloody fashion in 1989, Trump declared China’s response “shows you the power of strength.” In 2016, he even called the massacre a “riot.”89
AND MORE FROM THE PAGES OF HISTORY
As long as they’re ruthless enough, Trump doesn’t care whether dictators are dead or alive. He’ll praise them regardless.
In 2016, he opined that Libya would be better off “if Muammar Gaddafi were in charge right now.”
He has also defended tweeting out a quote by fascist leader Benito Mussolini: “It’s better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” After all, argued Trump, “Mussolini was Mussolini … It’s a very good quote. It’s a very interesting quote … What difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?” You just wouldn’t believe this is the same guy who, according to his first wife, Ivana Trump, allegedly kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.90
And, believe it or not, Trump once even praised Saddam Hussein—on the campaign trail—for killing terrorists. “He did that so good,” Trump said in July 2016. “They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over.”91
When you look at all the thugs Trump has praised and befriended, especially compared to how he has treated democratically elected allies, it’s clear that he loves strongmen because he wants to be like them. As American president, his role model is not Abraham Lincoln, FDR, or Ronald Reagan. His role model and favorite dictator, whom we’ll get to in the next chapter, is Vladimir Putin.
79. JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL
When we said earlier that Donald Trump began his foray into foreign politics by alienating all our longtime allies, I misspoke. I should have said, “By alienating all our longtime allies but one: Israel.”
It didn’t seem like it should be that way at first. During the GOP presidential primary in 2016, Trump stood out for not giving a wholehearted endorsement of Israel, instead describing himself as “sort of a neutral guy” between Israelis and Palestinians. He even refused to repudiate the endorsement of former KKK leader David Duke. Nonetheless, he was surprisingly popular in Israel. In early 2016, even before Republicans had chosen a candidate, Trump came in second (26 percent) to Hillary Clinton (38 percent) among all contenders, and, when asked which candidate would best represent Israel’s interests, he came in first, 25 percent to 24 percent.92
As it turns out, the Israeli public was right. Today, Trump is so 100 percent Israel that it’s hard to know whether it’s he or Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu who’s in charge. Or, more likely, Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas casino mogul, major Trump financial backer, and owner of Israel Hayom, Israel’s most widely read and archly pro-Netanyahu newspaper.93
In fact, Trump began doing Bibi’s bidding even before he got elected. According to news reports based on findings from the Mueller investigation, Trump aide Michael Flynn, apparently under orders from Jared Kushner, lobbied Russia and other countries to delay or block a UN vote against Israel’s continued and illegal settlement expansion into the occupied territories. This despite the fact that President Obama’s administration—still in charge of our foreign policy at the time—had said they would abstain from the vote and announced America’s opposition to the settlements.94
A year later, at a public event in December 2017, Jared Kushner was personally thanked by billionaire Haim Saban for “taking steps to try and get the United Nations Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention by the U.S.” As Mehdi Hasan of The Intercept summed up this incident, “The Trump transition team reached out to the Russian government in order to undermine the U.S. government because the Israeli government asked them to.”95
Whoever’s calling the shots, it ends up the same: Whatever Bibi wants, Bibi gets, whether it’s ignoring the continuing illegal building of settlements on the West Bank, scuttling the Iran nuclear deal, supporting without complaint Israel’s killing of unarmed protestors at the Gaza border, or, long Bibi’s wet dream, relocating the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.96
There’s a reason that moving the embassy is a promise made by every recent president, Republican and Democrat, while running for office, and broken once they got to the White House. Because cooler heads pointed out that, for several very good reasons—since both Israelis and Palestinians consider Jerusalem their capital; and since Jerusalem contains sites considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims, not to mention Catholics; and since deciding the future of Jerusalem outside the context of Israeli–Palestinian negotiations would make the goal of a two-state solution even more difficult to achieve—this was a matter that should be left for Israel and the Palestinian National Authority to resolve as part of the peace process.97
For President Trump, caution be damned. On December 6, 2017, defying the advice of everyone from Rex Tillerson to James Mattis and Mike Pompeo to Pope Francis, President Trump declared that the United States now officially recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would soon relocate its embassy there from Tel Aviv.98
To the relief of most foreign policy experts, the only saving grace was he did not say Jerusalem was the capital of a “united Israel”—thereby leaving the door open to negotiations that could result, down the road, in Jerusalem being established as the capital of both Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (which de facto is what it is today), with shared jurisdiction over holy sites. But that is cold comfort to the dozens of Palestinian protestors murdered, and thousands injured, by the Israel Defense Forces on the day Jared and Ivanka helped open the new embassy in May 2018.99
In short, Trump’s rash action forever changed the role of the United States in the Middle East. We can no longer pretend to be the “honest broker” in peace negotiations (which we have not been for a long time). We are now clearly on Bibi’s team. But again, in the World of Trump, whatever Bibi wants, Bibi gets. Meanwhile, according to four State Department officials, having helped convince Trump to make the move, Sheldon Adelson also offered to pay for building the new American embassy in Jerusalem.100
In the long run, perhaps even more significant than Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade Donald Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem was his success in convincing Trump to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu had long opposed the deal. He was furious and felt betrayed when Obama made it, and he pushed Trump from the beginning to end it. Just a week before Trump made his announcement, Netanyahu held a news conference at which he displayed notebooks seized by Israeli intelligence, which Bibi said proved that Iran “has” an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Then, to further reach his audience of one and manipulate our ignorant dupe of a president, Bibi went on Fox & Friends to further plead his case.101
It turned out to be nothing but a phony photo op. Reporters soon discovered that the documents proved that Iran “had” a nuclear weapons program, which we all knew anyway, and not that they “have” one today. But of course, Donald Trump didn’t care. He’d already made up his mind. Whatever Bibi wants, Bibi gets.102
80. SAUDI ARABIA
As strange as it may seem, by pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump did something no other president had been able to do: He at least momentarily brought together Israel and Saudi Arabia—because both countries perceive Iran as their principal threat.
One of the very few ideological positions that defines Donald Trump is his constant attacks on Muslims. In his mind, they’re all terrorists. As a candidate, he told Anderson Cooper, “I think Islam hates us.” He berated Clinton and Obama because they would not utter the words radical Islamic terrorism. His Muslim ban was one of his first actions as president.103
Which is why his support for the corrupt monarchy of Saudi Arabia, home country of fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 attackers, is all the more surprising and all the more dangerous. Evidently, Trump loves money more than he hates Muslims. And recall that Erik Prince brokered a meeting between Saudi and UAE reps and Donald Jr. during the campaign, where the Saudis allegedly pledged their troth and offered their resources to Trump. That likely helped as well.
In any case, where other allies reacted with alarm or hesitation at Trump’s election, Saudi Arabia rushed to embrace him, winning the loyalty of both Trump and his Middle East envoy, Jared Kushner. In return, Trump chose Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first trip overseas. And he has since totally embraced the agenda of King Salman, or more particularly the direction of young crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, including his purge of political rivals, his fierce feud with Qatar, and his ongoing war of destruction in Yemen.104
Count the Saudi king and his son among the other authoritarian human rights violators that Trump loves to tongue-bathe. When MBS rounded up and detained dozens of prominent wealthy Saudis, including several royal princes, issued travel bans, and seized their assets, Trump praised him for recognizing “the need to build a moderate, peaceful, and tolerant region,” which is “essential to ensuring a hopeful future for the Saudi people.”105
When King Salman convinced Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other Arab countries to join in a boycott against Qatar because of reports that Sheikh Tamim, leader of Qatar, had expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS—which turned out to be “fake news” attributed to foreign hackers—Trump quickly sided with Saudi Arabia and threw Qatar under the bus.106
For Trump, it was another impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip move and alienation of another ally. Qatar has been one of America’s most steadfast friends in the Arab world. It is home to the United States Central Command and an airbase where eleven thousand U.S. military are based. Just months earlier, Trump had enlisted Qatar as part of a pan-Arab nation coalition to develop a new peace plan for the region.
And yet, just one hour after Rex Tillerson had defended Qatar and publicly urged Saudi Arabia and others to “de-escalate the situation and put forth a good faith effort to resolve the grievances they have with each other,” Trump bloviated, “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. I’ve decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals, and military people, the time has come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding. And its extremist ideology in terms of funding.” The very stable diplomatic genius strikes again.107
Most seriously, Trump has been Saudi Arabia’s biggest supporter in its brutal war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Using more than $40 million in American weapons supplied by both the Obama and Trump administrations, plus extensive intelligence and logistical assistance, Saudi armed forces have bombed the hell out of Yemen, attempting to restore deposed former president Abdo Rabo Mansour Hadi to power.108
Over the last three years, according to Vox, the Saudi military have conducted more than 145,000 bombing missions over Yemen. So far, the conflict has claimed more than 13,500 lives. And UN officials estimate more than 20 million people, including more than 11 million children, need basic humanitarian assistance, and at least 14.8 million lack basic medical care.109
Apparently confronted with photos of the Yemen war’s carnage in December 2017, Trump surprised everyone by suddenly admonishing Saudi Arabia and calling for humanitarian aid to get through to civilians on the ground. But this epiphany didn’t last—only a few months later, it was back to business as usual. In April 2018, as that war waged on, Crown Prince Mohammed visited Donald Trump at the White House, where, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp reports, “the crown prince of an absolute monarchy—a country where dissent and homosexuality are punishable by death—was received less like a human rights abuser and more like a visionary civil rights hero.” Trump was full of nothing but praise for his new BFF: “We really have a great friendship, a great relationship.”110
81. HE’S GUTTED THE STATE DEPARTMENT
We previously discussed Trump’s inability to staff his government way back in chapter 2 (#28), as well as the disastrous impact of Rex Tillerson on our diplomatic infrastructure (#51), but here, it must be said, is where the rubber really hits the road.
Under Donald Trump, it’s been a string of foreign policy blunders in many different parts of the globe. But there’s one common thread that’s been exacerbating them all—the lack of a State Department. There is simply nobody home.
This is, after all, the president who explained to Forbes magazine in October 2017 why there were still so many key jobs left vacant in his administration: “I’m generally not going to make a lot of the appointments that would normally be—because you don’t need them.” And that’s been true, most of all, of the State Department.111
Okay, go to Foggy Bottom. The building’s still there. But it’s an empty shell—its core staff of career foreign policy experts decimated, most of its top officer positions sitting empty, and its budget cut by one-third—all at the direction of President Trump, with the gleeful support of then secretary of state Rex Tillerson and now Mike Pompeo.112
As of this writing, eighteen months into the administration, problems at the State Department have not gotten any better, only worse. As noted earlier, after Tillerson’s firing on March 13, 2018, eight of the top nine jobs at State were unfilled. Not only was there no secretary of state (until Pompeo’s confirmation), there was no assistant secretary for arms control, or international security and nonproliferation, or Near East affairs, nor South and Central Asian affairs.113
Two months later, there was still no American ambassador in 38 out of 188 key international organizations or countries, including Mexico, the European Union, Turkey, South Korea, South Africa, or Saudi Arabia—even though a lot’s going on in every one of those countries.114
Even more damaging in the long run is the fact that so many experienced, career State Department veterans—who’ve been there, representing the United States, under presidents Democratic and Republican—have either been shown the door or decided to walk out of it voluntarily rather than serve under Donald Trump. According to the American Foreign Service Association, 60 percent of our highest-ranked diplomats have departed in Trump’s first year alone. That has left veteran diplomats to conclude that the State Department is, in the words of writer Evan Osnos, in “its most diminished condition since the nineteen-fifties, when Joseph McCarthy called it a hotbed of ‘Communists and queers.’”115
At the same time, the State Department accepted the lowest number of new Foreign Service officers in years. Indeed, many in the diplomatic service lament that due to resignations, firings, and failure to fill so many positions, the United States is losing its next generation of foreign policy leaders. The diplomatic problems we’re having now will continue for decades.116
But don’t tell that to Donald Trump. In his view, that’s no problem at all. We “don’t need them.”