Trump has sent his secretary of state to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin to drop Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, recommitted to NATO in the face of growing Russian predations, confirmed Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and otherwise behaved like — dare we say it? — a normal president. And though Trump has stuck by his pledge to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he also indicated he will pursue bilateral trade agreements, a far cry from a reversion to Smoot-Hawley some feared.
Where Trump has neither flipped nor flopped is on his strident anti-refugee, anti-immigration posture. The president followed through on pledges to limit immigration from states of terrorism concern, to put in place “extreme vetting” and to ban refugees from Syria. While implementation of those executive orders is suspended pending litigation, the White House appears bent on staying true to that campaign promise. Similarly, Trump seems as uninterested as president as he was as candidate in picking personal fights with foreign despots such as Russia’s Putin or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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