Donald Trump’s controversial foreign policy stances are threatening to dominate President Obama’s discussions with leaders of Japan and Vietnam this week, whether the White House wants to admit it or not.
Obama administration officials tried to keep the focus of the trip on Obama’s agenda before he headed off to Asia Saturday. But all anyone wanted to discuss was how world leaders feel about Trump’s latest plan to upend a major Obama priority if elected in November: the climate deal that Japan and Vietnam have signed.
“There is a lot of concern and confusion over the political discourse going on,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz conceded Wednesday in response to questions about Trump’s promise to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate deal if elected. “But our job is to reiterate what our policies are.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest was also forced to downplay the effect of Trump’s declaration.
“I don’t know that there’s anybody that’s losing sleep here at the White House about that,” Earnest said when asked if Trump’s comment is making foreign leaders nervous. “So, no; that’s not a source of concern,” heading into the week’s G-7 meeting in Sendai, Japan.
But whether it’s the Paris deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership or Trump’s vision of global security, world leaders are wary of an America under Trump’s possible leadership, and it’s an issue they want to talk about, especially in Asia. And as Obama prepared for his trip, it was becoming clear that Trump’s positions were likely to come up, no matter how much the White House wanted to downplay the controversial candidate.
Trump rattled the region by suggesting nuclearizing Japan and South Korea to counter North Korean aggression, on the eve of the final global nuclear summit. He has also suggested tearing up defense treaties with those allies if they don’t pay more for the U.S. troops stationed there. Those comments weighed heavily in Asia.
“In the presidential elections, there are arguments whether the United States is going for the isolationist stance,” Japan’s U.S. envoy Kenichiro Sasae said in Washington May 6. “I want to see the United States to be strong and come with a strong robust position, not really thinking of the United States only.”
The White House has also gone on the defensive to counter Trump’s comments. On Wednesday, Earnest picked up Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s theme that the U.S.-Japan partnership is central to Asian security, a comment he made on May 5 to counter Trump’s vision of regional security.
“The United States believes strongly in our alliance with Japan,” Earnest said unprompted when looking ahead to Obama’s time in Japan. “The U.S.-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of regional security in northeast Asia. And the United States has deployed resources and personnel to Japan to assist them in countering the threat that emanates from North Korea.”
Strategic thinkers have also been forced to hone their arguments against Trump’s foreign policy vision. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Michael Green, who focuses on Japan and Korea, said the next president will want Japan and South Korea to do more to maintain regional peace, but said Trump is still off base.
“I think what Mr. Trump clearly doesn’t recognize, or care to recognize, is that the effectiveness of alliances … it’s not like a real estate business deal where you look at a ledger sheet and see who’s paying for how much,” he said during a briefing Tuesday previewing Obama’s trip that frequently led to discussions of Trump.
Trump has also publicly accused Japan and China of manipulating their currencies. Although that is also a concern of the Obama administration’s, experts expect Obama to discuss it privately with Abe.
“I think currency issues will be discussed privately,” CSIS’ Matthew Goodman predicted during the briefing. “I don’t think there’ll be a public statement beyond anything that’s been said before about the importance of sort of market-based exchange rates and avoiding competitive devaluations,” said the National Security Council’s former international economics director.
Despite Obama’s best efforts to reassure Asian leaders, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Auslin, among other experts, says Trump’s words have inflicted damage on U.S. relations.
“Trump’s vision for American policy toward half the world frightens the Japanese … almost past the point of rational discussion,” Auslin wrote May 9.
Security in the United States’ regional alliances is the lowest “really since [President] Jimmy Carter, when he promised to pull out of Korea, which really shook the entire region … and took several years to undo,” Green said. “So we’re in some new territory.”
