It turns out that Rex Tillerson was not referring just to the president’s flaccid response to the violence in Charlottesville last August when he said Trump “speaks for himself.” The context for the remark was interviewer Chris Wallace asking Tillerson if it was more difficult for him to “push American values around the world”—Tillerson was once secretary of state, you may recall—”when some foreign leaders question the president’s values.”
“I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values,” Tillerson responded. It was only when Wallace followed up specifically about the president’s personal values that the secretary of state remarked that Trump represented Trump, not the country—which, 11 months later, remains a startling, unprecedented assertion.
Tillerson may have accomplished little during his underwhelming tenure, but his diagnosis of Trump’s diplomatic roguishness, which has manifested repeatedly since then, was prescient. That was also the month that the president signed, despite his objection, a sanctions bill constructed in part to counter his deference toward the Kremlin. Under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), Congress can vote to block an effort from the executive branch to ease penalties on Russia written in the legislation or alter recent Russia-related measures, including support for Ukraine that was enacted in 2014.
This process of “congressional review” is uncommon in matters of national security. But it was approved in the House 419-3 and in the Senate 98-2—majorities that made clear the Capitol, not the White House, best reflected America’s official posture toward the Putin regime. Trump protested this obvious implication while signing the sanctions package last August.
“I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected,” he said in a statement. “As president, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”
That claim hasn’t aged well. In January, the president announced a graduated tariff on washing machines, beginning at 20 percent and jumping to 50 percent per each unit beyond 1.2 million imported. Whirlpool championed the move. “Nearly six months later,” however, “the company’s share price is down 15 percent,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The decline is partially attributable to the aluminum and steel tariffs Trump announced in March, which have increased raw materials costs to manufacturers. These decisions and more like them are oxygenating a trade war with the Chinese—which Trump has said was sparked “many years ago,” anyway—including $34 billion of retaliatory tariffs on agricultural, automobile, energy, food, and, naturally, steel products. Of course the president’s general assessment of China’s historical behavior is correct. But who comes out ahead in the confrontations he escalated is often circumstantial and unpredictable, due to the complexity of ripple effects in various markets. There aren’t many economists on the record saying the current U.S. strategy is a winning one. Nor farmers.
In June, Trump met Kim Jong-un to formalize some sort of détente between their two governments. It was evident that the president’s pressure campaign was due credit for producing the summit in Singapore. But showing up is only half the battle—probably less in matters of international relations. Once in Asia, Trump complimented Kim as “funny” and “smart” and called him a man who “loves his country,” a flabbergasting assessment given that Trump previously seemed aware of Kim’s oversight of systematic human rights atrocities. He was criticized widely for flattering a tyrant.
Soon after, Trump declared on June 13 that there was “no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” Yet eight days later, satellite imagery indicated that infrastructure improvements to the country’s nuclear research center were “continuing at a rapid pace,” reported 38 North, a research project at the well-regarded Stimson Center in Washington. While the president’s approach received high marks from Asia experts for beginning to reset North Korea’s relations with the outside world, he was the only one who proclaimed his efforts an unqualified success.
He’s also the only one who possibly could have thought that giving Vladimir Putin and Dan Coats equal credibility was a good idea, at least outside Moscow. This magazine suggested that Congress should censure Trump for selling out the United States intelligence community and kowtowing to an American adversary on the world stage Monday. That Trump regards Putin merely as a counterpart and not a rival notwithstanding, his actions seemed inevitable, propelled by inertia.
To sum up: Trump disagreed with nearly all of the House and Senate on how much control he should have over Russia sanctions. He disagreed with modern economic practice when he openly welcomed a trade war with China and hiked tariffs even on friendly, free-trading nations: mercantilist nonsense whose heyday was two centuries ago. He buddied up with Kim and accepted his vague intentions prima facie amid calls for prudence; he legitimized the denials of Vladimir Putin although his government has concluded and insisted that the neo-dictator’s regime meddled and continues to try meddling in American elections.
One of the reasons Trump was elected was his willingness to go it alone—to be the only one standing inside the swamp once it was drained. Playing the public on anti-establishment rhetoric is a winning political hand these days. And there are times that putting it into practice rejuvenates an arthritic and unimaginative government. But such occasions are not when the wisdom of the crowd is almost unanimously opposed. When literally 99 percent of Congress—517 of 522 members voting, duly elected by the people—say that the president cannot be trusted to challenge a foe wanting to do America harm, there is reason to believe they may turn out to be right.
