June 14, 2018

Trump Shakes Up World Stage in Break With U.S. Allies

Source: The New York Times

Journalist: Peter Baker

Rarely has President Trump’s role as a disrupter on the world stage been starker. At a moment of tumult over trade and nuclear security, he is shaking up the international order to make friends with America’s enemies and enemies out of America’s friends.

A businessman and entertainer with no diplomatic experience, Mr. Trump arrived at the White House nearly 17 months ago convinced that the economic and geopolitical alignments that have governed the world for seven decades were out of whack and biased against the United States.

But after a year of being restrained to some extent by advisers who championed that global order, Mr. Trump has replaced much of his national security team with more like-minded aides and is finally acting on his “America First” impulses in ways that are sending shock waves across Europe, Asia and North America.

At the annual meeting on Friday of seven major economies known as the Group of 7, Mr. Trump was the odd man out as he quarreled with Europeans and Canadians over trade and pushed for the reinstatement of Russia four years after it was cast out. Seemingly reluctant to spend more time with longtime allies than necessary, he planned to leave early on Saturday to meet instead with a longtime adversary, North Korea.



Read the Full Article at The New York Times

Author

  • Julianne Smith

    Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Security Program

    Julianne (“Julie”) Smith is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, where she coedits “Shadow Government.” She is also a senior advisor at WestExec Advisors, an adjunct senio...