President Donald Trump likes to claim that he represents a break with the past, veering away from the failed policies of his predecessors in an “America First” direction. Yet as shown in vivid detail by his meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, President Trump’s handling of rogue regimes is eerily reminiscent of President Barack Obama’s approach to America’s foes.
While Democrats may want to deny it now, talking to antagonists was a key tenet of the Obama doctrine. As Ben Rhodes writes in his new memoir, “It. Is. Not. A. Reward. To. Talk. To. Folks.” Rhodes recounts candidate Obama pounding “his open palm on the table as he spoke” to enunciate the point during a strategy session for his 2008 run. During that campaign, Obama chastised the Bush administration for its standoffish approach toward rogue regimes, saying “the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them—which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration—is ridiculous.”
“I will meet not just with our friends but with our enemies, because I remember what Kennedy said, that we should never negotiate out of fear but we should never fear to negotiate,” he said at another point.
Hillary Clinton went so far as to accuse Obama of being naïve for such views, and Republicans roundly criticized this approach to the world in 2008 and in 2012 when Mitt Romney derided what he called the president’s global “apology tour.”
Yet throughout his presidency, President Obama stuck to his belief in the power of diplomacy with despots, pursuing a “reset” with Russia that morphed into promising “more flexibility” after his reelection, conversing with Chinese leaders, concluding a nuclear deal with Iran, and personally engaging with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Raúl Castro of Cuba.
Like President Obama, President Trump seems to have few hesitations about engaging totalitarian leaders. In addition to his meeting with Putin, he recently concluded a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and has spoken proudly of the relationship he has developed with China’s Xi Jinping. After his disastrous press conference with Putin, he tweeted that their confab was “even better” than his meetings with allies that led up to it.
Despite his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Trump has even speculated about modeling Iran negotiations on his outreach to Kim Jong-un. One State Department official recently went so far as to express hope that the Iranian mullahs—men with the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on their hands—would become “statesmen wise enough to recognize and respond to what Secretary Pompeo described as our ‘commitment to diplomacy to help solve the greatest challenges, even with our staunchest adversaries.’ ”
Why has the Trump administration embraced this Obama obsession with diplomatic engagement of totalitarians? Some of it likely stems from their shared fatigue with America’s international commitments. A country focused on “nation-building at home” can’t dictate terms to foreign adversaries. Standing up to thugs requires a willingness to use force, or at a minimum to deploy forces to strategic locations and keep them there, something that both President Obama and President Trump have shown an aversion to. President Obama allowed Russia to insert itself into Syria’s civil war and now President Trump is negotiating the consolidation of that fact.
It is also a byproduct of a view that America is just one among many in a crowded global landscape. Just like Obama with Iran, Cuba, and Russia, Trump seems willing to set aside America’s traditional focus on universal values and to ignore the nature of hostile regimes in his ardent pursuit of deals. Just as the Obama administration claimed that Iranian human rights would become a priority once a deal was inked with Tehran, and then promptly did little to advocate for the Iranian people, it’s hard to believe that the Trump administration will ever press Kim Jong-un for better treatment of his people, much less the likes of Putin or Xi Jinping, given the issues he hopes to work with both on.
Recall that when given the opportunity to speak directly to the North Korean people during the Singapore summit, Trump’s response was to say that their oppressor was “smart, loves his people, he loves his country.” He has made similar naïve and damaging statements lauding Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and undermining long-term American support for Russian and Chinese dissidents. Even President Obama was more circumspect, at least for the most part, in praising the oppressors he did business with. Cuba and Venezuela are the only two dictatorships that the Trump administration has consistently attempted to isolate.
The renaissance of dictator diplomacy that has now dominated two presidencies appears to be driven by a modernization myth. The pitch from Washington goes like this: Negotiate with us and great wealth and prosperity will follow as your country opens up to the world. Foreign investment will pour in; we might even send a few pallets of cash your way. In President Obama’s case, he wasn’t so brash as to propose condos on the Iranian coast, although Secretary of State John Kerry did at times try to act as the de facto head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce.
This appeal betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how totalitarian regimes work. Totalitarian leaders are not often in a position to deliver the reforms asked of them, even if they might want to. Their aura of absolute power may appear alluring to President Trump. Yet as President Reagan said of the Soviet leadership in a speech on East-West relations in 1982, they maintain their grip on power because “they fear what might happen if even the smallest amount of control slips from their grasp.”
Reagan’s views are worth noting because he is the president most often cited by defenders of the Obama-Trump dictator engagement doctrine. If Reagan could negotiate with the Soviets, why shouldn’t an American president at least talk to this or that dictator?
Well, for one thing, the tyrant in Pyongyang doesn’t rule the Soviet empire (nor does Putin). Kim’s country is an isolated backwater. And the human rights situation in North Korea is in many respects even worse than that of the Soviet Union. As a 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry found, the Kim regime’s violations of fundamental human rights “constitute crimes against humanity. . . . The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”
Nor is North Korea comparable to Vietnam, an example Secretary of State Pompeo has tried to promote to his North Korean interlocutors. Vietnam and China have gone through slow, methodical openings completely unlike the transformation that is being suggested for North Korea. The ruling parties in those countries still live on a knife’s edge, worried about their future on a daily basis.
There are many unexplored ways to pressure Pyongyang if President Trump so chooses. In the broad sweep of history, North Korea is a minor nuisance to U.S. national security compared with the more pressing challenge of China’s rise. Similarly, while President Putin cannot be ignored, the United States and Russia will both be fine if each side defends its interests in Syria and new arms control agreements are postponed until Russia stops cheating on those it has already signed.
Much as President Trump has decided that Cuba and Venezuela are not worthy of his diplomatic time and attention, other dictatorships can be isolated and pressured through means besides military force or a Trump charm offensive. The power of totalitarians is always more fragile than it appears to those on the outside. These are regimes run by leaders keeping the masses at bay with purges while themselves cowering behind loyalist security forces. These are not strong, confident individuals.
This fundamental insecurity, not the NATO-led intervention, was what brought about the bloody downfall of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya after he gave up his nuclear program yet failed to open up politically. Nuclear weapons can’t protect you from your own people, and neither can noninterference pledges from the United States. Freedom will eventually win.
That is why Kim Jong-un is not interested in giving North Koreans a better life or more access to the outside world. Doing so would likely be the beginning of a bloody end for him and his family. Thus without fundamental regime change in Pyongyang, the journey President Trump began with Kim last month is likely to be a fruitless one.
President Trump would do well to heed President George W. Bush’s conclusion in his memoirs after eight years of dealing with Kim’s father: “In the long run, I am convinced the only path to meaningful change is for the North Korean people to be free.” It is a relevant lesson that applies to all totalitarian states.
American presidents are shortsighted to ignore the power of freedom. Their status as duly elected representatives of the American people can be their greatest asset when dealing with undemocratic negotiating partners. It is not, as President Trump appears to believe, a liability that limits his power.
Compare Reagan’s summitry with the Soviets with that of Trump glad-handing Putin in Helsinki and one immediately sees the fundamental difference. Reagan knew that it was he, not the despot across the table, who held the most power in the relationship.
The Obama-Trump approach to dictators may seem alluring in a time of increased distaste for an engaged American leadership in the world. Yet it ultimately ends up empowering rogue regimes at the expense of American security and that of our allies.
Better to isolate the rogues and marshal our resources to help those on the inside who, as Reagan noted, embody “man’s instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination.” It’s strategically smarter and morally more in line with America’s founding purpose to undermine dictatorships from within rather than to empower oppressors.
It is also, as President Trump is starting to find out, easier than attempting to cut a deal with the devil.
