By David K. Shipler
The forces
of international affairs usually drive US presidents toward the political
center. Wherever they may begin, on the left or the right, presidents tend to
feel pulled toward a middle ground, a place of more moderation and hesitation
than they might prefer. Confronted by the complexity of crisis and the
pragmatic limitations of power, most—not all—end up pursuing centrist policies.
These bear marked resemblance to those of their predecessors and successors.
A question
now is whether this happens to President Trump. He has staffed his key foreign
affairs positions with relatively level heads whose pronouncements are more
sober than his own. They often contradict Trump’s dogmatic, threatening tweets
and the absolutist, sweeping pledges from his campaign. Trump himself careens
from the absurd, scary, and impractical to a more reasonable zone of
compromise. Where he will end up on a given issue is highly unpredictable and
therefore unsettling across the globe. But his inconsistency also raises
intermittent hopes that realities are penetrating policymaking.
A president
has more authority in foreign policy than in domestic affairs, since he
commands both military force and diplomacy, and can move more quickly than
Congress ever does in picking over budget provisions on the tax code, health
care, environmental issues, the social safety net, and other government
programs to benefit Americans. In that domestic arena, the center has no
apparent magnetism for Trump. Despite the difficulties he faces with the
Republican-controlled Congress on health care, for example, he is getting win
after win for corporations over individuals, and might do so on his tax
proposals. Whatever happens in Congress, his regulatory agencies are in the
hands of extreme radicals of the right, whom he has installed to dismantle
decades of progress.
So if Trump begins to look moderate, and
beguiles the American public to see him as such, it will be in the
international arena, not the domestic.
