Trump’s foreign policy goes mainstream

The commander in chief sheds staffers and campaign rhetoric — and wins plaudits from the foreign policy establishment.

By Annie Karni
04/10/17 05:16 AM EDT

In the weeks after his election, Donald Trump considered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for secretary of state, tapped Michael Flynn to be his national security adviser, and pondered appointing John Bolton to a senior foreign policy post.

But the advisers briefing Trump last week ahead of his first military strike represented a much more mainstream bunch. In launching airstrikes on Syria, Trump relied on intelligence from national security adviser H.R. McMaster; Defense Secretary James Mattis; Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Meanwhile, his far-right political guru, Steve Bannon, was removed from his unorthodox position on the National Security Council, diminishing his power in the administration. And on Sunday came the news that K.T. McFarland, the former Fox News analyst who was Flynn’s choice for deputy national security adviser, will leave her post and become ambassador to Singapore instead, a sign of McMaster’s consolidation of power.

The shift in the people Trump surrounds himself with is being cheered by Washington's foreign policy establishment.

“There are more mainstream elements in there than one might have thought there would be on Nov. 9,” said Thomas Wright, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who oversees the Project on International Order and Strategy. “It’s premature to say it’s totally normal, but it’s hyperbolic to say that it’s as bad as we could possibly imagine. The big game-changer was his appointment of the generals.”

Those appointments have resulted in a more conventional foreign policy approach — so far — than what was expected from the untested president. Trump campaigned on breaking foreign policy traditions and vowed during his inaugural address that “from this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it’s going to be America first.”

Stylistically, Trump has broken all the norms. Never before has the country seen a president whose worldview is so shaped by cable news shows, who has appointed his own family members to senior roles in the West Wing, and who accuses senior members of the previous administration of criminal activity. His personal style with foreign allies — like his enchantment with Vladimir Putin and awkward non-handshake moment with Angela Merkel — also represents a break from international traditions.

But the substance of Trump’s decisions in his first 79 days in office reveals a surprisingly conventional approach, with personal quirks layered on top, according to a half-dozen foreign policy experts.

In interviews, those experts pointed to the elevation of McMaster and the firing of Flynn as the turning point in the mainstreaming of the Trump administration's relationship with the rest of the world.

“He’s moving toward a more traditional foreign policy, and that’s a very encouraging thing,” said Anja Manuel, a former special assistant to Nicholas Burns, an undersecretary of state in the George W. Bush administration.

She pointed to Trump’s softening his campaign trail rhetoric of slapping across-the-board tariffs on China, as well as a moderate NAFTA proposal that no longer includes the threat of withdrawing from the trade alliance. Manuel also credited McMaster with putting together a “thoughtful, moderate, nuanced review” on North Korea.

Even Trump’s former rival, Hillary Clinton, said in a speech hours before Trump launched more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield that she would have done the same.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...taffers-237046