Tillerson’s aversion to the press does not reflect a becoming modesty, or even a canny desire to pop the big surprises on them only when he is ready. It reveals, rather, that he does not yet understand his job. For a democracy’s foreign policy to succeed it must be understood and argued out. That task the secretary of state has hitherto avoided. If he shuts out the diplomatic press corps—the wonkiest of them all, and the easiest to deal with in Washington—he is only asking for more trouble for himself and the administration.
Sooner or later, someone needs to explain what Trump’s foreign policy is beyond the macho swagger expressed by Mulvaney, whose hard-power experience has consisted chiefly of earning the enmity of John McCain for trying to slash military budgets as a congressman. At the moment there is no Trump foreign policy doctrine, no coherent explanation of the world as seen by the Trump team, and the broad outlines of their policy for dealing with it. There are threats leveled at North Korea, which will either have to be backed up by force or retreated from in humiliation. There is a far warmer reception for an Egyptian dictator than for a fairly elected German chancellor. There is foreign policy conducted as though the United States government were a Middle Eastern court, where the ruler’s family counts for more than the sovereign’s foreign minister. And there is the invocation of America First, a slogan with a rancid history, as the president knows very well.
Perhaps this will end. Perhaps Secretary Tillerson will find a voice.
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