The real way to do American diplomacy is leader to leader – Thatcher and Reagan did it, and so can Boris and Trump Charles Moore
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/07/real-way-do-american-diplomacy-leader-leader-thatcher-regan/
In leaked emails, the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Kim Darroch, describes President Trump as “radiating insecurity”, and speaks of his White House as a “uniquely dysfunctional environment”.
Sir Kim deserves a smidgeon of sympathy: it is no secret that dealing with the ever-changing Trump team can be tricky. But, overall, his memos raise a question: “What is the valued-added here?” We send diplomats abroad so that they can get closer insight into foreign powers. Sir Kim is effectively saying that he and his team cannot manage this. He blames Mr Trump’s shortcomings for their failures. The information contained in his missives is the sort of stuff you can read every day in posh newspapers and seems to contain nothing from the inside.
It is not true that no one British can get close to Donald Trump. I can immediately think of at least four people who have managed this in recent years. Three of them – Nigel Farage, Conrad Black and Piers Morgan – are outside the normal systems with which diplomats are familiar; but one was Foreign Secretary when Sir Kim first started writing his plaintive emails. Now that same man, Boris Johnson, is almost certain to become our next Prime Minister.
The failure to connect with Trump and Trumpery was a joint effort by the Foreign Office and Theresa May. Neither saw Trump coming. Neither wanted him. The Foreign Office leaned heavily towards the defeated Hillary Clinton. Mrs May was too nervous of EU displeasure and too protective of her own sense of virtue to exploit the special relationship after the Brexit vote which Mr Trump warmly welcomed. Hating and fearing Boris, she did not let him develop his personal entente with “the Donald”.
Seeping through all Sir Kim’s messages is a profound pessimism. It does not occur to him that Trump, in his scepticism about the value of the Paris climate change agreement, or the Obama-era Iran deal, or about China and Huawei, or, above all, about the state of the EU, might be on to something. The ambassador misses the opportunities for Britain in all these fields, seeing only threat.
The situation was similar in January 1981 when a supposed hick called Ronald Reagan came to town for the first time. Diplomats predicted that the man from California would turn away from Britain towards the Pacific. They complained they could not get close to his allegedly ignorant team.
Luckily, this turned out not to matter much because Reagan, when in the political wilderness, had started a friendship with another leader who had not yet tasted power, Margaret Thatcher. Now that he was President and she was Prime Minister they could reach over the heads of doubting officials and work together on little trifles like winning the Cold War.
There is no doubt that Donald Trump can be trouble. But the overwhelming feeling one has with the British Government and the current President is of missed opportunities which are its fault, not his. As I wrote last Saturday, Prime Minister Boris can change this almost overnight if he flies to see President Donald at the end of this month and ignites our two countries’ friendship all over again.
Comments are closed.
