The Iran standoff shows the mistake the president and his team make in acting as if the world is full of passive characters.
Donald Trump has bullied other countries on everything from trade to how they govern themselves.
In just the last few days, however, global players have defied him, showing the limits of his influence.
Hungary’s voters tossed out one of Trump’s closest European allies, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Then there’s Pope Leo, who presumably answers to a higher power, saying he has “no fear” of Trump.
Trump and his aides often appear to operate as if most other people on the planet are “non-player characters” in a video game. They believe, with few exceptions, that America can use threats, economic muscle and military action to bend other capitals to its will.
But foreign policy has some basic laws.
One of them, similar to physics, is that every action has a reaction. It may not be equal or opposite, but it also may not be what the Trump team wants.
So far, the Trump administration does not appear to be adjusting well to the reality that more international players are willing to buck the American superpower.
“If there were an appreciation that bullying was no longer a likely to succeed tactic you’d see a move away from it,” but there’s no real sign that Trump is doing so, said Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
More than ever, I’m hearing concerns from foreign officials that critical information about geopolitical dynamics is simply not reaching the president because his aides won’t tell him hard truths. A New York Times rundown of his decision to go to war with Iran has fueled this worry.
“He is surrounded by ‘yes’ people,” one senior European diplomat fumed.
The Trump administration’s brash style came across in Vice President JD Vance’s
comments after he held 21-hours worth of peace talks with Iranian officials over the weekend.
Iran, Vance said, had “chosen not to accept our terms.”
Such a statement, which Vance gave some version of twice, implied that the U.S. was dictating, not negotiating, despite Vance adding that the U.S. was “quite accommodating.” It did not go over well, while many in other countries saw the whole drama as a missed opportunity to de-escalate tensions.
“If you want something from somebody you have to give them something, unless like in World War II they’ve truly surrendered,” said a Western diplomat based in the Middle East. “It can’t just be ‘we’re going to keep beating you.’”
The Trump administration, naturally, rejected suggestions that its hardline approach is counterproductive.
To date, there’s little evidence that Trump or his deputies understand the chain reactions they set off when issuing diktats or that they have learned lessons from past instances of blowback. Or maybe they don’t care?
Sure, Trump may retreat here and there on an issue (the so-called TACO phenomenon), but that is often followed by him later making another push on the same issue.
In January, as Trump ratcheted up his demands for Greenland, European leaders made clear to Trump that he couldn’t have it.
Trump backed down, but the damage was done. His Greenland gambit and his constant threats to pull out of NATO have added urgency to European efforts to reduce reliance on the US.
Trump and his team often fail to realize that people tend to fight for what gives their life meaning beyond material cost-benefit analysis.
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