One-man diplomacy

There is a diplomatic vacuum at the heart of US foreign policy

The President seems to be making up foreign policy himself. He, and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo have only recently chosen to receive briefings on intelligence and foreign affairs, and then only as easily-digested verbal reports for someone with a short attention span.

The US has no recourse to Ambassadorial advice in many Middle Eastern countries. No Ambassador is in place in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, Turkey or The United Arab Emirates. There are no Ambassadors in South Africa, South Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Ireland or the European Union either. In total, Ambassadorial positions in 44 countries are vacant and another 16 Ambassadors have been nominated but have not yet taken up their posting.

Key positions in foreign relations have been either ignored or rejected by the President since coming into office. President Trump has said about critical positions in the State Department, “I’m the only one that matters because, when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.” Well, with an embasy in Jerusalem and aid drastically reduced in Palestive, the whole world knows how, US policy in the Middle East is shaping up.

Despite Congress rejecting the State Department budget cuts, a 31% reduction in the diplomatic corp. is going ahead. A senior ranking officer in the US Army was quoted as saying, “'When the military is called in, it means that all other systems, particularly the diplomatic corp, have failed.' He went on to say that 'in this case, after Tillerson hollowed out the entire State Department, there is no one on-board to deal with crises and so the fall-back is the military. The trouble is, we are not policy makers. We in the military have only one function, to make the battle plan and make it work. He finished by saying, I am very scared about what is happening, very, very scared.”

The president has reversed the normal course of diplomatic initiative, preferring to meet with Heads of State (Putin and Kim Jong-un) before the negotiations have reached a useful stage. The consequences of US foreign policy being drawn up by amateurish or parochial opinion is indeed troubling for the whole world.