The guilty secret of every diplomat in Washington DC

[WhiteTara]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40534572

When he was just a candidate, Donald Trump declared in his first major speech on the issue that "our foreign policy is a complete and total disaster". His solution was to replace it with a slogan: America First. What he hasn't replaced, now that he is president, are the people normally tasked with projecting America's power around the world.

"It can't be business as usual when the entire [upper] floor of the State Department is missing," one ambassador said.

snip

A Western diplomat said his team had decided there were three groups of people President Trump listens to. There is his inner circle of White House advisers containing people like Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law; the former investment banker Gary Cohn; and Mr Trump's right-wing svengali Steve Bannon.

The second group is his cabinet, and their influence varies widely from person to person, reflected in the time they each get with him inside the Oval Office.

The third group is his pre-presidency contacts from New York, and the property and media industries.

snip

The guilty secret of every ambassador in DC is that the first thing they do in the morning is check the president's Twitter feed. That is now the best, perhaps it's the only, way to work out what is going on with US foreign policy.

[gordianot]

1. You do not even get press conferences by the liar of the day.

I do not think the United States has yet quite hit bottom.