Photo by Marek Studzinski on unsplash.jpg
This week we’ve been watching Trump diplomacy – both with respect to the ‘conclusion’ of the US-Iran war and with Trump’s actions towards his allies at the recent NATO Summit. Both leave me aghast at some of his statements and also some of the actions of the President, even though you’d think I’d become inured to Trump’s diplomatic behavior 2 years into his second term. But I’m afraid I am still bewildered by both his statements and his actions – I mean he is President of the United States after all.
Let’s look at these two potential negotiating spaces – Iran on the one hand and the meeting of the Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Ankara Turkey. First the conflict. Here we are looking at several days of kinetic action by both sides, Iran and the United States though the two supposedly are in a period of negotiation to end the conflict under a mutually agreed MOU. It certainly doesn’t look much like a negotiation and the threat to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has if anything risen recently. As Ed Luce describes it in his recent article in the FT:
““Iran has never won a war and never lost a negotiation,” tweeted Donald Trump in 2020. “
“Now it seems like Trump has forgotten his aphorism. Six years later, Iran has survived the recent war with America and holds the whip hand over talks. In reality, nothing substantive has been discussed between US and Iranian negotiators since Trump unveiled his 14-point MoU last month in the Palace of Versailles. Dubbed by others “the memorandum of misunderstanding”, the piece of paper is a list of inducements for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
“None of the points were binding. Iran did not agree to give up control of the waterway. It simply pledged a resumption of prewar traffic and a return to nuclear talks. In exchange, it would eventually get hundreds of billions of dollars via unfrozen assets, lifted sanctions and future investments. This was not a deal. To paraphrase Tacitus, Trump baked a dessert for Iran and called it a memorandum. The problem is that Iran has all the initiative.”
“Now, apparently, we are back to square one. Earlier this week, Iran attacked three tankers in Omani waters — one Qatari, two Saudi — and Trump responded with air strikes on Iran. In turn, Iran said it attacked 85 US military targets in the region.”
Now Trump says talks can still continue, though he doesn’t seem to believe success is possible but how do you proceed after Trump’s open distain for Iran leaders:
“Three weeks ago, Trump said he was dealing with “strong, smart people” in Iran who were not radicals and were ready to hold good faith talks. One hugely attended ayatollah’s funeral and several ceasefire violations later, Trump now describes Iran’s leaders as “scum”, “sick”, and “vicious, violent people”. Talk about mood swings.”
David Sanger in the NYTimes underlines the rather unpalatable actions available to this President in an article titled, “As Iran Cease-Fire Frays, Trump Faces a Muddled War and Unpalatable Options”:
“At the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday after the two sides had exchanged strikes, he threatened major new combat operations. Those included seizing a key Iranian oil processing island and attacking the country’s infrastructure and desalination plants, which experts have said could constitute a war crime. (Mr. Trump did say he was most hesitant to hit the desalination facilities.)”
“The president could instead reimpose the American blockade of Iranian ports, an attempt to cut off the country’s economic lifeline. But that would require a continued, intense American presence in the region, and while Mr. Trump contended in April that it would lead to Iranian economic collapse, his earlier imposition of it did not.”
“Or he could elect to live in a world of neither war nor peace, an era of episodic skirmishes in the Persian Gulf, punctuated by periodic negotiations, with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil-shipping route, greatly reduced from the 130 or so ships that passed through each day before the war. The energy markets would most likely adjust; to some degree they already have.”
But as Richard Fontaine, describes and, quoted by David, suggests:
““The problem is that all the options — endure, escalate or agree — are unattractive in different ways,” Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security and a former aide to Senator John McCain, said on Wednesday. “The likeliest outcome is a continuing series of low-level, tit-for-tat attacks, followed by frantic diplomacy by mediators, the emergence of a new and fragile cease-fire, and then probably another round of strikes.”
“Mr. Fontaine added: “It will be a long oscillation between cold war and low-level hot war.””
As you can tell, notwithstanding the livid Trump threats, the opponent is seemingly undeterred by the President. As Luce, and indeed others, are suggesting that when it now comes to Trump diplomacy:
“But having vowed Armageddon on many occasions in the last four and a half months, Trump’s threats are subject to the laws of diminishing returns. Each time he vows hellfire, his bluster sounds a bit more hollow.”
“To a country that has been so intensively bombed, the spectre of more bouncing rubble is not concentrating Iranian minds. Indeed, at his press conference at the end of the Nato summit in Ankara, Trump seemed to have half-talked himself out of his earlier threats. Negotiators could continue to talk if they wanted, he said resignedly. He doubted they would get anywhere.”
It is certainly not a given but I think there is a growing sense that Trump’s dire threats but his then turns away from such ‘hard’ threatened action undermines Trump’s threats. And if you can call it that, his diplomacy. Ian Bremmer along with his colleague, Firas Maksad describes the repositioning of Middle East partners, for example, in an FP piece:
“For many Middle Eastern states, the problem with the war’s resolution is not only that the United States was unable to achieve a decisive victory against Iran but also that throughout the conflict, it was erratic and unpredictable. This has damaged confidence in Washington’s ability to maintain its role as the sole guarantor of stability in the Middle East. As Washington’s credibility erodes, U.S. partners in the region have resorted to forming new coalitions that afford them greater agency.”
This separating from Trump diplomatic actions is underscored with the analysis provided by my colleague, Dan Drezner in a recent Substack Post in Drezner’s World concerning Trump’s behavior at the Ankara Summit with Trump’s NATO allies.
“Krugman argues that it is due to a shift in perceptions about American power: “Europe’s turn away from Trump also reflects plummeting perceptions of his power. At one time the world feared Trump although it never respected him. The silence that met his renewed demand for Greenland shows that the world no longer takes him seriously…. while Trump is able to run roughshod over Americans, he can no longer bully the rest of the world. Thanks to Trump, the U.S. has seen its global influence plunge.””
In fact the NATO Summit turned out to be less dramatic that some had feared going in, probably not least NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte. In fact in the same Substack Post. from Dan, “The Crazy Uncle Trump Effect” the all-in considered ‘positive’ outcome of the NATO Summit was described:
“It’s true that this week Trump has lusted over Greenland, bashed NATO allies for not assisting with Iran, and threatened to cut off all trade with Spain — and yet the summit ended up going better than expected. At
least that was my takeaway from Politico’s Paul McLeary, Victory Jack, and Dasha Burns about what happened in the private portions of the summit:”“Indeed, Trump’s rhetorical and material support to
Ukraine likely mattered more to European members of NATO than his vituperative
remarks the day before.
So progress was made on several fronts. NATO 3.0, that is NATO Europeanized, made progress and serious defense commitments were had. The willingness, to license Patriot defense production is a major commitment to Ukraine by the US. And this was all accomplished while keeping Trump in the room and seemingly relatively content, probably in part due to efforts by Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan whom Trump seems to like.
Steve Erlanger of the NYTimes even suggested that in fact there had been two Summits. As he described it:
“The two-day meeting of NATO leaders in Ankara, Turkey, which ended on Wednesday, was a tale of two summits.”
“The first belonged to President Trump, who dominated the news cycle with a steady stream of complaints, grievances and insults aimed at his NATO colleagues, with his unpredictable changes of tone and mood, and with his decision during the meeting to unleash new airstrikes against Iran.”
“But the second summit belonged to the alliance itself, as it worked to show its commitments to more military spending, more trans-Atlantic industrial cooperation and continued support of Ukraine in its war with Russia.”
“That summit was marked by a kind of quiet, steady progress toward a new kind of NATO, the one Mr. Trump says he wants, where Europeans would take primary responsibility for the conventional defense of the continent, letting Washington concentrate its resources on the threat of a rising China.”
European NATO progress will take time and it will, one suspects, not occur without much ill-considered Trump behavior; but it will be progress nevertheless:
“But what is most striking is the divergence between the messages of Mr. Rutte and those of Mr. Trump, said Torrey Taussig, a former official on the National Security Council and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Allies are stepping up with more money and production and support for Ukraine, she said. “But the U.S. and Trump are in their own show,” she said, “with the president showing up to rant at allies.””
“Mr. Trump “has won the argument that Europe has to step up and spend more, and that’s a huge achievement,” she said. “But they can’t land the win, which is to lead the alliance and stay politically engaged and give Europe the consistency and stability it needs to plan. Instead we’re not getting that, we’re getting the Trump show.””
“In the end, she said, “the Americans are shouting in the wind here and the Europeans are moving on.””
““But that doesn’t change the reality that NATO is undergoing and will need to undergo a transformation, and it will come out in a way that rebalances U.S. and European contributions,” he said. “Ideally, we’ll look at a weaker, transformed NATO, but one that is good enough.””
So progress is occurring notwithstanding the ill-considered Trump threats. As is noted above, progress with NATO allies is upon us. We will have to see now if progress with Iran is also possible. It will require I anticipate quiet but strong behind the scene words from US Arab allies. The Trump ‘huffing and puffing’ will no doubt continue in the meantime. But that is Trump foreign policy.
