Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist August 2018 | Page 29

GLOBAL CENTRE STAGE
It’s safe to say that Donald Trump is re-writing the
diplomacy hand book, unless he’s thrown it away
altogether. His Presidency has overseen a paradigm
shift in US foreign policy.
global trade war that doesn’t seem to have any conclusive
result in sight. The ongoing trade disputes have become more
a matter of who backs down fi rst, and knowing Trump, it’s
unlikely that the United States will intentionally back down
from its aggressive trade policy.
With regard to Russia, the Kremlin has more or less
achieved its goals in Syria by strengthening Assad’s control
over the war-torn country. The United States has let Ukraine
hang out to dry four years after the Russian annexation of
Crimea and the ongoing frozen confl ict in the Donbass. There
has been a substantial decrease in the mention of the confl ict
in American media and press, and the White House has been
equally silent over the issue. From a neutral standpoint, the
ongoing friction between the United States and its allies
only fi ts too well into Putin’s attempts to weaken the NATO
from within. There are concerns in the White House over the
warming relations between Turkey and the Kremlin. Erdogan
has demonstrated in Syria that Turkey will refuse to align its
goals with those of its NATO allies. It has been increasingly
aggressive after having launched Operation Olive Branch to
tackle Kurdish militias operating in northern Syria and aims to
establish a corridor from the Turko-Syrian border all the way
to Syria’s northern border with Iraq. The ground operation
has only succeeded thanks to Russia’s passive consent, given
that Russia still controls the airspace of the entirety of the
Afrin region – the main area for Turkish military operations.
Turkey’s Incirlik base that houses US missiles remains one the
most strategic bases for NATO and the United States, given
its proximity to the Mediterranean and to Russia’s southern
border, inclu ding Crimea. It is hard to see how the warming
of relations between Turkey and Russia is not an area that
Donald Trump has neglected, and rather erroneously at that. 3
Understanding Donald Trump
To understand Trump’s foreign policy, it’s crucial to look
at the background of the American President. Donald Trump
has more or less always got what he wanted. This bullish
approach can be traced back to the fi rst major construction
project undertaken by the Trump organisation in New York,
wherein he sued the city of New York to get a 40-year tax
abatement during a time when the city was going through one
of its worst fi scal crises. Fast-forward a few years, and two
of his largest casinos in Atlantic City were edging towards
bankruptcy with the Trump empire on the brink of collapse.
As a way out, Donald Trump publicly listed his organisation
for the very fi rst time. He then took his PR game to full
swing and banked on the ‘Trump brand’ to attract investors,
despite being millions of dollars in debt. And it worked, with
the real estate mogul selling shares of ‘DJT’ for a whopping
$1.2 billion, of which he used a third to pay off the debts of
his Atlantic City casinos. Suddenly, Trump was debt free and
back in the game. This is just one example of how Donald
Trump has used delicately crafted PR to project an image of
stability and the notion that he knows what he’s doing. He’s
projecting the same image as the President of the United
States, as a man who ‘gets things done’. One month after his
meeting with Kim, no one really expects North Korea to take
their end of the bargain seriously.
It’s safe to say that Donald Trump is re-writing the
diplomacy hand book, unless he’s thrown it away altogether.
His Presidency has overseen a paradigm shift in US foreign
policy, and since the United States is the global hegemon – at
least for the foreseeable future – it has had global implications
on countries far from its borders. Perhaps the most dangerous
aspect of Trump’s methods is his love for publicity and the
usage of PR to demonstrate the success of his diplomatic
moves. This makes it rather diffi cult to analyse events and
ascertain the actual developments behind the scenes, as is the
case with the Trump-Kim denuclearisation deal.
For better or for worse, Trump’s presidency will have
foreign policy implications that his successors might fi nd
very diffi cult to work around.
References:
Back to the Future: Trump’s Emerging Iran “Strategy”,
Danel Brumberg
2
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/
north-korea-nuclear/564287/
3
Frontline Turkey: The Confl ict at the Heart of the Middle
East, Ezgi Basaran
1
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 6 • Issue 8 • August 2018, Noida • 29