WASHINGTON—As the world recoiled at the televised images of lifeless children in the latest atrocity in Syria’s savage civil war on Tuesday, the White House issued a statement expressing outrage just as any White House presumably would.
But where other presidents might have used the moment to call for the departure of Syria’s authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad, President Donald J. Trump’s spokesman dismissed the notion as impractical because it would not happen.
“We would look like, to some degree, rather silly not acknowledging the political realities that exist in Syria,” said the spokesman, Sean Spicer.
Trump has dispensed with what he considers pointless moralizing and preachy naïveté. He has taken foreign policy to its most realpolitik moment in generations, playing down issues of human rights or democracy that animated his predecessors, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. His “America First” approach focuses not on how other nations treat their people but on what they can do for the United States.
The past week has showcased the emerging philosophy. Even before Tuesday’s brutal chemical-weapons attack in Syria, the Trump administration had said pushing out Assad, Syria’s president, was not a priority, reversing Obama’s position. On Monday Trump welcomed Egypt’s authoritarian leader, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, to the White House with no public mention of the thousands of political opponents imprisoned there. On Thursday Trump will host China’s communist president, Xi Jinping, in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where trade and security will overshadow domestic repression.
“He seems to have a view that he’s the president of the United States and it’s the job of the president of the United States to protect the interests of the American people—and the interests of the American people come ahead of the interests of citizens of other countries,” said Paul J. Saunders, the executive director of the Center for the National Interest in Washington. “We’ll see how that turns into operational policy, or if it does, but that certainly is the point of view that he articulates.”
But the president’s view has stirred concern among foreign-
policy specialists in both parties. Rep. Randy Hultgren, Republic-Illinois, a chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said he was “concerned at the muted attention the administration has given so far on human rights”.
“I know President Trump wants America to remain strong,” he added by e-mail on Tuesday. “We remain strong when our values are upheld around the world, and when leaders understand we are serious when it comes to defending human rights across any border. We must speak truth to power.”
Trump’s statement on Tuesday called the Syria chemical attack “reprehensible” and “intolerable” but blamed Obama as much as Assad. “These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution,” he said. “President
Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing.” The statement overlooked the fact that Trump himself urged Obama not to strike Syria when Assad crossed that red line. “President Obama, do not attack Syria,” Trump posted on Twitter at the time. “There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day!”
Still, Trump has been more consistent in making clear that he does not see it as the United States’ place to get involved in other countries’ affairs. During last year’s campaign, he posted on Twitter that “Syria is not our problem” and signaled acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. After taking office, when an interviewer suggested that President Vladimir Putin was a “killer”, Trump said the US could hardly criticize.
“What, you think our country’s so innocent?” His foreign policy seems defined more by a transactional nationalism, rooted in the sense that the United States is getting ripped off—by Nato allies who are not paying enough for their own defense, by trading partners like China that are “eating our lunch” and by neighbors like Mexico that are sending drugs and criminals over the border. Rather than spreading American values, his policy aims to guard American interests.