PRAGMATIC MR. TRUMP

This spring, the incumbent American president marked several major geopolitical events including NATO and G7 summits and the Arab-Islamic-American Summit. On May 20-27, Donald Trump made his first foreign visits to the Middle East and Europe. The signed (and unsigned) documents, as well as the statements of Mr. Trump and even his behaviour explicitly hinted a few important guidelines of the American foreign policy over the next four years.

Middle East

Trump ignored the traditional touring style of the American presidents, which normally starts with short visits to Canada or Mexico, and instead flew to the “heart of the Islamic world”, Saudi Arabia. The world media was quite impressed with such a move, given Trump's recent pre-election anti-Islamic rhetoric, as well as one of his first presidential decrees banning the entry of Muslims into the U.S. Nevertheless, the Saudi visit of the American president was emphatically peaceful - King Salman demonstrated in every possible way that he was glad to welcome his guest and arranged a magnificent greeting for him. The mutual understanding between the top monarchy of the Persian Gulf and the U.S. president was further nourished by Trump’s vision on Iran, which is the cause of the most regional problems for him unlike his predecessor Barack Obama. On the contrary, Riyadh had become Obama’s headache after the conclusion of the now-infamous nuclear deal with Tehran, hence cooling the relations between the two allies. Therefore, Mr. Trump decided to get everything back to square one.

While in the Middle East, the American leader has specifically underlined the fight against terrorism, noting that the existing confrontation is not “between different faiths” but “between the good and the evil”. He also noted that “the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them”. So, it is better if they “drive out terrorists and extremists themselves”. The same idea was voiced during the Arab-Islamic-American summit on May 21 in Riyadh, which was attended by representatives of 55 states, including the main Arab partners of Washington (Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait), and the U.S. The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev also took part at the meeting. It was the first time the summit was convened in this format. Mr. Trump stressed that it was “a truly historic gathering in Saudi Arabia with leaders all across the Muslim world.” During the opening speech, the U.S. president reiterated that bloodshed and terror are holding back the potential of the whole region, leading to humanitarian catastrophes and serious security problems, while the Muslim countries are the most affected by radicalism. In order to withstand the “battle with the evil”, the U.S. is ready to support its allies with weapons. In Riyadh, the Trump administration signed a $110 billion arms deal and agreed to sign new contracts for hundreds of billions over the next ten years, inaugurated the Global Centre for Combating Extremist Ideology and signed an agreement on the Terrorist Financing Targeting Centre. So, the arms deal becomes the largest lump sum weapons agreement of the U.S. By doing this, Washington does not only contribute to the security in the Middle East, but is supporting the American economy, which means new jobs and higher living standards. However, some experts expressed fears that American missiles, bombs, armoured vehicles, warships and THAAD systems may on the contrary contribute to increasing tensions in the region, especially between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in Yemen, and especially considering Trump’s statements on Iran.

Later, Mr. Trump left Saudi Arabia for Israel and Palestinian Autonomy. After all, the problem of extremism in the Middle East cannot be resolved without the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In fact, the previous presidential administration has failed to establish proper relations with the Jewish state. Israel was not fond of Barack Obama, perhaps even more than Saudi Arabia. These poor relations between the two allies climaxed by the end of Obama’s term, when he did not do anything to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning Israel's activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Trump appealed to both the Israelis and Palestinians, who interrupted the peaceful dialogue back in 2014 asking them to make “difficult decisions” in the name of peace and reiterated that the resolution of the Middle East conflict was possible. However, he did not mention how it was possible to achieve peace and to settle the most important issue of the conflict, the settlements.

NATO and G7

Mr. Trump was in the focus of everyone during the G7 and NATO summits again. This is not surprising given that the U.S. is the unofficial leader of both alliances providing the bulk of funding to them. That is why the recent NATO summit was called rather demonstrative. Although the U.S. Vice President, Secretary of State, Defense Minister, and Security Advisor had previously expressed the support of their government to NATO, the North Atlantic community has been eagerly waiting for Trump to utter his stance on the Alliance, which he had often called obsolete and incapable of doing ‘real stuff’ during his pre-election campaign. Trump had been also merciless in his criticism towards the allies for not contributing their share of expenses on a par with the U.S. Therefore, Trump reminded again about a “fair contribution” to a common budget, which is set to be 2% of each state’s GDP on defense annually, but only five of the 28 members currently meet that goal. Same as in the Middle East, Mr. Trump made a call to continue the fight against terrorism, which incidentally coincided with the notorious terrorist attack in Manchester, UK. As a result, in order to reassure Trump, the NATO leaders decided to draw up annual national plans for increased spending on defense, while a number of member states immediately agreed to increase contributions to the organization's budget. In addition, NATO agreed to join the coalition against ISIS, although prior to the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had stated that this was unexpected. Apparently, the Alliance is not going to participate in combat operations directly, but it will provide assistance through the systems of long-range radar detection and anti-terrorist reconnaissance.

Mr. Trump has actually failed to soothe his European colleagues. This was largely brought about by the fact that speaking in front of a fragment of the WTC towers in New York during the opening ceremony of the new NATO headquarters, Trump did not mention directly the famous Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which states that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies, and has been used only once so far - just after 9/11. So, NATO was waiting for a symbolic gesture from Trump but he did not make one promising instead to “never leave friends who are on our (Americans) side.” This tactical move bewildered many European politicians and experts, who recognised it as a sign of uncertainty on Trump’s side instead of firm guarantees.

Trump's statements were somewhat puzzling during the G7 summit in the Italian city of Taormina, which immediately followed the NATO event. The agenda of the meeting was traditional including the issues on global economy, situation in Syria, assistance to Africa, anti-Russian sanctions, fight against terrorism and cyberattacks. Since the G7 decisions are recommendatory and the members are limited only to expressing views on certain issues, Trump was in the focus again. According to the media, the biggest disappointment of the meeting was the inability to reach agreement on compliance with the Paris Agreement on climate change, which assumes the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and the provision of $100 billion by 2020 to developing countries to solve the environmental problems. The U.S., which is emitting about 14% of the world's greenhouse gas volume into the atmosphere, declined to confirm his government’s readiness to fulfil the commitments of the agreement. This is not surprising, given Trump's lack of confidence in global warming and his statements that reducing carbon dioxide emissions limits the industrial growth.

Apparently, the G7 partners have not only climatic problems. So, rumour has it, the American leader also expressed his view on trade agreements and the migration crisis. The degree of divergence can be judged by the unexpected and quite emotional statement of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over. I have experienced that in the last few days. We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands,” quotes her the German Bild. There is no doubt that Mrs. Merkel came to this conclusion after talking with the American president.

Thus, Trump defined the U.S. priorities quite clearly and voluminously. The United States return to their old allies in the Middle East, the Gulf monarchies and Israel. The new administration is not likely to tear up the existing agreement with Iran, but Tehran is pushed back into the camp of opponents again. Both in the Middle East and in Europe, the U.S. president tried to solve the geopolitical issues based on his entrepreneurial skills scrupulously calculating all the costs and possible benefits. Hence, his appeal to the Saudis to expel the extremists themselves with the help of weapons bought from America, and his call to the Europeans to be more active in sharing NATO spending with America. There is no doubt that the billionaire and businessman Trump can count money. Apparently, he has considerably confused the Europeans, as they do not know what to do yet - to accept the new demands or, perhaps, to listen to Merkel and rely more on themselves. Trump did not provide any clues on Russia during his entire tour although he remains in the focus of accusations for his special relations with Moscow, while the number of high-ranking officials involved in this scandal is increasing. It is hard to guess the approach of the incumbent U.S. president to the Kremlin. But so far, Trump has made fairly pragmatic moves.