President-Elect Trump could end up becoming a “very considerable” leader, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Sunday.
Kissinger, who has met with Trump on more than one occasion since the president-elect’s victory last month, said the billionaire businessman “is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven’t seen” before and “it is a shocking experience to them that he came into office.”
The next administration also offers an “extraordinary opportunity” for foreign leaders to pursue better relations with the U.S., Kissinger said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Here is a new president who’s asking a lot of unfamiliar questions. And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it,” he said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remain largely skeptical of Trump’s foreign policy outlook, and Kissinger admitted that the president-elect “operates by a kind of instinct that is a different form of analysis” from his own academic instincts.
But, he said, Trump has “raised a number of issues” that are “very important” and could lead to “great results” if his administration properly addresses them.
