Another Donald Trump Foreign Policy Outrage?

It’s hard to keep up with the latest outrages in Washington.  For a while, earlier this week, it was Donald Trump’s call to Vladimir Putin to “congratulate” him on his reelection – even though President Trump’s national security advisers specifically told him not to congratulate President Putin.  And that President Trump had not, during the call, condemned the recent attempted murder of a former Russian spy in England – even though his advisers had suggested he do that.  The Washington Post went crazy, as did John McCain.  I was thinking of doing the same myself, but then I thought: why.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, probably got it closer to right when he said, about the congratulatory call, “I wouldn’t read too much into it.”  Leaders of other countries haven’t done what President Trump did, in terms of congratulating President Putin.  But then some of them haven’t been following up their words, or lack of words (in this case), with real actions on other matters.  They aren’t spending on defense what they have agreed, in NATO, to spend.  Germany, for example, is spending way less than NATO’s 2% target and is committed to another Russian pipeline to potentially increase its dependence on Russian gas – and increase the amount of money Vladimir Putin gets from energy sales.  Obviously, President Trump shouldn’t have done what he did, but what is Vladimir Putin going to pay more attention to: words of congratulation or actual military spending?

The Obama administration tried a big “reset” of our relations with the Russians during its first term in office – which hasn’t seem to work out all that well.  Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State, said the Obama administration was not going to let human rights concerns interfere with our relations with China.

So, is more outrage really necessary – or helpful?  President Trump is who he is.  He is going to do what he is going to do.  While I would have preferred that he had not congratulated Vladimir Putin and that he had brought up the attack on the ex-Russian spy in England, would it make any difference in his policy if he had done what I preferred? 

I am not surprised how President Trump is approaching foreign policy.  It is what I expected, and it’s why I didn’t support him in 2016.  Does it make any sense to get all upset every time he does something that we all expected him to do?  That sounds like a recipe for driving myself crazy.  And I’m not sure what the purpose is – and whether it will make any difference.