TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A CHAOTIC PRESIDENCY
Foreign ambassadors to Washington are earning their pay with the difficult task of trying to explain what's going on in the American capital.
I was at a small dinner several years ago with a handful of ambassadors from Asian and European countries. All were being peppered by the same question from the home office: has America returned to normal after Trump 1.0?
The answer today is easy: it has not; Trump 2.0 now is the new norm for the foreseeable future.
Explaining how his new norm works, however, is complicated, even more so with two wars, tariff disputes and escalating tensions between the world's two great superpowers, the United States and China.
An ambassador wants to understand a President's philosophy and goals to get a better sense of policies and practices.
Trump has no real political philosophy or goals.
He does have two principal objectives: enrich himself and seek retribution against adversaries. Revenge is chiefly against domestic opponents.
In Trump 1.0, the House Oversight committee discovered the President failed to report more than 100 gifts from foreign leaders totaling more than a quarter million dollars.
This was penny ante compared to the current term. Already he plans to accept a $400 million airplane from Qatar among other gifts. A number of countries have cut deals with the Trump organization to develop hotels, condominiums and golf courses.
That'll probably make the job easier for their ambassador to Washington.
On policies, it's tactics. The 47th President has a long history of championing tariffs. He, no doubt, sees personal opportunities here. If the on-again, off again steeper tariffs take effect, critical decisions will be on exemptions. Donors, political and personal, are likely to be in the front of the line. That's the Trump way.
Critics of his tariff policies nickname him TACO as is in "Trump always chickens out." That's a certainty if his interests are at stake.
Instructive is the other issue where he has been adamant, deporting undocumented migrants, no exceptions. Except last week he exempted agricultural workers and restaurants and lodgings from deportation raids.
Yeah this was about the politics of the farm belt. But as journalist Judd Legum reported the largest contributor to Trump's inaugural committee was from Pilgrim's Pride, $5 million. Pilgrim's is the second largest poultry processor in America with a long track record of using undocumented workers.
A few days ago Trump created confusion by reversing this exemption. I'll wager whatever the policy there won't be many raids at Pilgrim's processing venues.
For those envoys to predict his policies, whether the Middle East, Russia-Ukraine or China, he is, more than any modern President, mercurial, given more to whims or his passion of the moment than to any strategic scheme.
In other Administrations it was important to try to establish relationships with key advisers, decision-makers: top White House officials like Jim Baker, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff, Brett Scowcroft, national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, or Bill Clinton and Barack Obama top aides, Leon Panetta, Rahm Emanuel or John Podesta.
There are no Scowcroft's or Panetta's in this White House. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is credited with bringing a semblance of order to Trumpland but she isn't in the Jim Baker league. The most important White House aide may be Stephen Miller whose policy preferences are centered in venom.
It doesn't get any better of looking for insightful and well-connected Cabinet members: a Dick Cheney or Hillary Clinton or Bob Gates or Bill Burns.
There are no heavyweights in the Trump cabinet; there may not be even any middleweights. John Bolton, a national security hawk in Trump's first Administration, calls Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, a lightweight, a widely held view. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while knowledgeable, is weak -- remember a little over a decade ago he was the prime champion of immigration reform until the politics got hot and he switched -- and would never challenge the President on an issue.
On global economic matters, Treasury Secretary Bessent's crew is more able, but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is more of a MAGA guy; that counts.
More than his predecessors decisions and policies are usually all about Trump, not particularly well informed but steeped in narcissism. Ambassadors can discount his blusters: He assured that the Russia-Ukraine war would end in day one of his Presidency and there would never be a Mideast conflict while he was in office. That doesn't help much on what he might do.
On Congress, smarter envoys will advise their governments that the Democrats will take over at least one chamber, possibly both, next year. They would add that other than confirmations that'll have a minimal impact on Trump whose only legislative priority is his big beautiful bill of tax and spending cuts.
Where does that leave an able well-intended Ambassador? One longtime high level Washington national security expert has a simple answer: "They are flummoxed."