Trump has a tendency to agree spontaneously to requests pitched by foreign leaders.
President Donald Trump’s decision to quickly withdraw troops from Syria has sparked deep concern about an Islamic State revival, Iranian gains, and a Turkish attack on America’s Kurdish allies. For months, in both public and private, top aides—including Trump’s national-security adviser, his special envoy for the ISIS coalition, and his special representative for Syria—had all insisted that American troops were there to stay. Just one phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was all it took to upend the administration’s approach.
Trump’s tendency to agree spontaneously to requests pitched by foreign leaders, overruling his advisers, wreaks havoc on his administration’s agenda. His highly personalized, on-the-spot decision making disempowers and alienates his diplomatic team. But if past is prologue, there will be many more such episodes to come.
Jarring as the Syria decision was, it hardly marked the first time Trump suddenly agreed to a foreign suggestion over the explicit warnings of his officials.
In April, the U.S. Commerce Department slapped sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, charging that it had violated sanctions on Iran and North Korea and then lied about doing so. “This egregious behavior,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, “cannot be ignored.” The sanctions were tough, barring U.S. suppliers from exporting parts to ZTE. Within a month, ZTE’s operations ground to a halt, and the company looked done for.
Until, that is, a call to Trump from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi urged a solution that would resuscitate ZTE, and within hours Trump tweeted that he was working “to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast.” The Commerce Department, he added, “has been instructed to get it done.” The White House issued a statement reassuring all that the president “expects Secretary Ross to exercise his independent judgment … to resolve the regulatory action involving ZTE,” but the die had been cast. The “personal favor” Xi asked for was granted, the sanctions were modified, and ZTE was put back in business.
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