There are many things one could say about the lead up to and aftermath of the G-7 summit. Let me go with just two.
First, Henry Kissinger once said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” Donald Trump seems to take this to an extreme. With him, it is not that we have no permanent friends or enemies. It is that we have no friends or enemies. It is as if everybody is our enemy, in one way or another. We’ve been fools, and everybody has taken advantage of us.
President Trump’s response to this is to treat everybody the same. For President Trump, as with businessman Trump, every deal is a one-off. It’s not a matter of helping friends because they will help us some other time. It’s not a matter of allies supporting common principles. We don’t have friends – or if we do, we don’t treat them as I would treat friends. It’s about getting the most out of whomever we are negotiating with. And we do it anyway we can. The only thing that is important is the deal in front of us. We don’t worry about the next deal because if we have the power, we can win that deal, too.
And so I wonder what people who voted for President Trump think of his call for Russia to be re-admitted to the G-7 (in spite of Crimea/invading Ukraine/providing the missile that shot down a Malaysian airliner/etc.) and his pulling back the United States’s signature on the communique at the end of the G-7 summer, apparently because Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said something he didn’t like. It could be that they don’t care or that they think it’s good somebody is finally standing up for the United States and not letting us get pushed around, whether by enemies or “so-called allies”.
When President Trump was elected, Robert Gates2 said that government was different than business. I agree with former Secretary Gates. It seems that President Trump disagrees. We will see, in due course, who is more right and who is more wrong.
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1 Please do not think that my criticism of President Trump’s foreign policy moves means that I agree with his predecessor. His foreign policy was awful, too.
2 Former many things. See, for example, chapter 1 of Robert M. Gates, A Passion for Leadership (2016).
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