By WALTER RUSSELL MEAD |The Wall Street
Journal
Is President Trump losing control of the foreign-policy
agenda?
Last week the administration suffered a stinging
political defeat as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a bill that criticizes
his plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
This comes on the heels of Congress’s refusal to accede
to Mr. Trump’s demands for further funds to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border and
the Senate’s December vote to end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s
operations in Yemen.
It is now clear the president’s foreign-policy and
national-security approach faces increasing and often bipartisan congressional
opposition.
Yet the White House shows no sign of backtracking.
Far from meeting his critics halfway, Mr. Trump and his
foreign-policy team announced progress in Afghanistan negotiations that
opponents call a surrender, doubled down on plans to withdraw troops from
Syria, announced its impending withdrawal from an arms-control agreement many
consider foundational to the post-Cold War security order in Europe, and
attacked the judgment of his senior intelligence officials.
The administration also advanced an aggressive
hemispheric strategy aimed not only at Venezuela, but also at Cuba and
Nicaragua—the other two regimes in what national security adviser John Bolton
calls the “troika of tyranny.”
There is no sign Mr. Trump can or will be persuaded to
reconsider his approach.
He does not believe existing arms treaties serve American
interests; his withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty was
motivated by the same considerations that drove his withdrawal from the Iran
nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, he
wants to reduce American commitments in the Middle East and sees close links
with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt as the best way
for the U.S. to retrench militarily while containing Iran.
He holds international institutions and the bureaucrats
who run them in low regard.
He believes forums like the United Nations are stacked
against the U.S. and American interests are better served by working directly
with powerful leaders on a bilateral basis than by engaging in what he sees as
the empty rituals of conventional multilateralism.
He thinks Europe is free-riding on American security
commitments and exploiting the U.S. on trade, and that he can continue to
reject the trans-Atlantic status quo until his complaints are addressed.
He sees the European Union as a weak actor on the
international stage.
He believes foolish American trade negotiators allowed
China to become a great power through its abuses of the World Trade
Organization, and he thinks a tough stand on trade with Beijing is good
politics and policy.
He believes the threat of tariffs gives him an important
advantage and that U.S. trading partners need the U.S. more than it needs them.
He believes the U.S. faces a massive challenge from failing
states and drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere and wants to move
hemispheric policy from an afterthought to center stage.
Diplomats impress him not at all;
he sees the intelligence community as hostile; and after two years in the White
House, he has lost much of his early respect for the Pentagon brass.
…
[W]hat seems clear is that the president remains largely
in control.
Mr. Trump’s critics will be hard put to wrest control of
American foreign policy back from his grasp. He is driving a consequential
shift even in the face of congressional rebukes.
This partly reflects constitutional realities. Presidents
have wide latitude in conducting foreign policy. There is also the pressure of
events; Congress is slow and the world moves quickly.
But Mr. Trump has another advantage: His congressional
critics, while numerous, are deeply divided. Most of the Republicans who voted
against Mr. Trump’s Afghanistan and Syria policies last week are hawks who want
the U.S. to pursue a more active role in the Middle East and Europe.
Mr. Trump’s Democratic critics see things differently.
Many oppose his approach to Latin America and Saudi Arabia while supporting
troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan.
Significantly, none of the Democratic senators seeking
the 2020 presidential nomination wanted to go on the record opposing an early
withdrawal. The policy of endless war in Afghanistan and extended U.S.
engagement in Syria does not appeal to people running for national office.
That points to a deeper truth.
Mr. Trump has plenty of problems with the polls, but
in neither party does the electoral base show much nostalgia for the mainstream
foreign policies of the post-Cold War era.
On the Democratic side, there is little appetite for the
robust engagement of the Madeleine Albright years.
Among Republicans, neither neoconservative democracy
hawks nor hard-line free traders seem able to mount much of a challenge to the
president.
Whatever comes after Mr. Trump, it won’t be a
simple return to the Republican or Democratic version of the post-Cold War
consensus.
