Trump loves to meet the enemies of America. It is not good.

When President Donald Trump declared that he would meet Iranian leaders "without preconditions" on Monday, he once again challenged conventional US foreign policy. This time, though, it may be just the right move.

For decades, US leaders have generally refused to meet adversaries without setting strict conditions, although there are some important exceptions in republican and democratic administrations.

One reason was related to domestic political pressure; the opponents of the president claim that the commander-in-chief was weak or naive to hold the meeting. There is also the perception that face-to-face with an American leader is a gift. Offering this reward to an opponent could increase the overall stature of the other leader, while the United States would probably have very little to gain in return.

Trump, however, does not seem to care about that. "Talk to other people, especially when you talk about potential war, death and starvation … you meet," he said Monday at a press conference

. "US presidents should always be ready to meet our opponents," says Kori Schake, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a UK-based think tank. . "The leader of a free society must always try to persuade our opponents of our ideas and avoid crises."

But Trump is an unlikely symbol for this engagement with rogue regimes. It's not at all prepared for highs with world leaders opponents, which experts regularly rate as being harder than any other type of meeting for any American leader. For example, Trump still has to make substantial progress to end North Korea's nuclear program or improve relations with Russia, despite meeting Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin

. In foreign policy, he also risks jeopardizing American interests when he pursues these meetings without a solid agenda or plan.

"It's one thing to meet without preconditions. It's another issue that does not articulate clearly the demands and interests of the United States, "said Stacie Goddard, US foreign policy expert at Wellesley College.

Why Trump Can Meet Hostile Country Leaders with Little Reaction

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

To understand why Trump's openness to meeting such leaders is Even possible, you must understand something. As Michaela Mattes and Jessica Weeks wrote in the Washington Post in May, a president with a hawkish foreign policy, like Trump, tends to receive less internal reaction when it comes to the situation. he meets an opponent.

] Take when Trump sits with Kim Jong Un in June. The Republicans supported Trump's diplomatic openness to Kim, and even liked the North Korean leader more than California's top Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Sean Hannity, Fox Host News and one of Trump's most fervent supporters, welcomed the President's decision Kim's invitation to meet.

"A huge victory of foreign policy for President Trump," Hannity said on March 8. "Little Rocket Man is flashing, now the president's hard rhetoric, his bold action, his tough penalties, they seem to work tonight."

Mattes and Weeks explain why Trump received so much support: Americans feel more confident in the will of the hawkish president of peace. On top of that, "a peaceful Trump seems more moderate than many feared."

Former President Barack Obama did not get the same support when he did not. he said that he would meet the leaders of hostile countries in the United States. Here again Hannity, just a week before the 2008 elections.

"One of the most disturbing events of Obama's lack of expertise in foreign policy came during the YouTube debate of the year. Last year, "he said on October 26. Illinois gave what many were calling a naive answer to a question from the audience about whether it would meet the leaders of Syria, Venezuela, Cuba or South Korea. North without preconditions.

as well as for his diplomatic action in Iran to sign a nuclear agreement. Part of this was due to entrenched lobbyists who advocated any engagement with Iran. Systematically decrying the talks was a way of exerting enough outside pressure to derail the agreement.

But this was also in the opinion that Obama was particularly weak in foreign policy and apologized for America abroad. "Engaging personal diplomacy with what we call rogue states is a blessing or an endorsement of the character of those states," said Paul Musgrave, an expert on foreign policy at the University of Mbadachusetts at Amherst. . Caring too much about meeting an American president with an adversary "leads to poisoned atmospheres and creates expectations that virtually any form of contact between the US government and the outcast regime is toxic," he continued.

problem, however, perhaps because of his heavy dependence on the military and his tough speech on Twitter. Whatever the reason, he gave him the political space to talk with whom he wants – like some of the world's most brutal dictators.

President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12, 2018. "style =" object-position: 49% 50% "src =" https: //cdn.vox-cdn. com / thumbor / PeQMRA4cNPDHfFGhv2QA6M2uf_g = / 0x0: 6261×4174 / 1200×0 / filters: InFocus (0x0: 6261×4174) /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_badet/file/11901119/971780958.jpg.jpg "/>

Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images

Not all criticism of speaking with opponents without preconditions is based only on the policy. Daniel Nexon, a foreign policy expert from the United States, helped me understand that there were three strategic reasons why this might be a bad idea

The first, as mentioned above, is that holding a meeting confers legitimacy and status to an opponent. . Remember the Trump-Kim Summit: when the president shook the hand of the North Korean leader in Singapore, he actually welcomed him as one of the best leaders on the world stage.

Like Nexon and Goddard, the expert at Wellesley College, after the summit, that counts because of the "social hierarchies that underlie the world order as surely as the hierarchical order in a secondary school". They went on to write, "Why do leaders care about status? The simplest answer: They are human beings, and some are more sensitive than others. "

North Korean experts note that Pyongyang for decades has called for a meeting with the US president to obtain this status.Trump has delivered, and Kim has finally achieved this goal.

The second reason is more logistical : The president's time is a precious thing.If he meets North Korea as opposed to, say, allies in Europe, this could send wrong signals to some key friends of America. [19659033] Finally, most meetings are not done without a lot of preparatory work at the lower levels.It usually takes months or even years for staff to set the agenda for a conversation. Bilateral to ensure that meeting is not a waste of time.The agenda, in a way, is a de facto condition – leaders will only talk about specific topics during a meeting. some time

The problem Me is that the opponents do not speak regularly and that the links between the United States and Iran have been broken. Therefore, if Trump met with Iranian President Hbadan Rohani, the meeting could finally prove unsuccessful because that staff members did not have much time to work on important issues.

"Talking with opponents," said Elizabeth Saunders, a foreign policy expert at George Washington University.

Trump loves meetings.

Chris McGrath / Getty Images

Trump should he change course and stop proposing to meet with opponents? No, but it's something he has to change: his attitude towards the preparations for the talks.

"What should worry us about Trump is not the lack of prerequisites but the apparent lack of preparation or meetings are taking place," said Goddard.

There is evidence of this in Trump's meetings with Kim and Putin. Trump left Singapore after signing a statement with Kim that contained little detail on how to end North Korea's nuclear program.

Trump, however, insists that there is no longer any nuclear threat from the country, even though Pyongyang seems to build more missiles. Indeed, there is more evidence indicating that the summit has been a failure rather than a success, especially because North Korea has shown no real sign of dismantling its nuclear arsenal.

And Trump's meeting with Putin is no better. The president spent more time boasting about his electoral victory and criticizing the investigation of special adviser Robert Mueller on the possibility of a complicity in the Trump campaign with Russia rather than getting closer to 39, a diplomatic agreement. More than two weeks later, it remains unclear whether Washington and Moscow have reached a real agreement

So, why is Trump continuing to conduct these meetings? One reason may be that he thinks that they are fine. "[O] Your relationship has never been worse than now.However, this has changed since about four hours," Trump said at a press conference after his July meeting with Putin. "I really believe it."

The other reason could be more personal for the president. "I'm worried that he likes [holding meetings] for the wrong reasons – they call on his ego and his brand as the biggest dealmaker that has ever lived – and so I'm not sure that." There is a lot of potential. together, Trump's instinct to hold meetings with opponents is always positive – but unless be careful, he could end up hurting US foreign policy interests because it's more focused on the quality of its appearance only on tangible results. "I just do not think we have a lot of evidence that Trump is very good at these meetings," said Nexon. [ad_2]
Source link