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Opinion: Trump passes his first test on the world stage
Trump scolds NATO members for low payments 01:30
Story highlights
- Nile Gardiner: On this first overseas tour, President Trump certainly made an indelible impression
- The President reintroduced a more assertive US, Gardiner writes
Nile Gardiner is the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation and a former aide to Margaret Thatcher. The opinions in this article belong to the author.
(CNN)President
Donald Trump's first presidential foray onto the international stage
should be judged as a success. His visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the
Vatican, Belgium and Italy were well managed by the White House and
effectively advanced some key foreign policy goals for the new
administration.
These
include rebuilding frayed partnerships in the Middle East and
pressuring allies in Europe to invest more in their own defenses; no
leader across the Atlantic should be left with any doubt about US
expectations of what they need to do to strengthen NATO.
Nile Gardiner
On
this first overseas tour, President Trump certainly made an indelible
impression. In the Middle East, traditional allies will feel reassured
that the United States stands with them, especially in reining in Iran's
nuclear ambitions. In Europe, Trump will probably never be loved, but
he is increasingly acknowledged as someone who means business in
aggressively advancing US interests, which include strengthening the
NATO alliance.
In contrast to his predecessor
in the White House, President Trump showed no willingness to atone to
other world leaders for his country's actions, and seemed determined to
project strength and resolve at a time when American leadership is
increasingly being challenged. This was not the "leading from behind"
approach of the Obama era, but a return to a more traditionally
assertive US foreign policy based on clear-cut national interests.
President
Trump got off to a strong start in Riyadh. After an exceedingly tough
week in Washington, he was received like royalty in the capital city of
an important US ally that had at times a strained relationship with the Obama administration. His speech to
the Arab Islamic American Summit calling on the Muslim world to unite
in defeating terrorism struck the right tone as the United States works
to solidify the anti-ISIS coalition. In Saudi Arabia, the President came
across as a statesman, choosing to jettison some of the sharper
rhetoric that peppered his campaign speeches in favor of building
bridges with Muslim allies.
Mr.
Trump was similarly well received in Israel, whose Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a close relationship with the new US
president thus far. The last eight years have been an extraordinarily tense time
in terms of US-Israeli relations, but there was little sign of division
between Trump and Netanyahu, and both leaders expressed a united
message in warning against the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.
The
European leg of the president's tour, meanwhile, was always going to be
tougher than the Middle Eastern one. When President Trump addressed the leaders of the 28-nation NATO alliance in Brussels, he was stepping into the lion's den. Many European leaders have been
openly critical of the US President, whose suggestion on the campaign
trail that NATO had become "obsolete" had also led to widespread consternation across the Atlantic.
Undoubtedly,
his remarks at the NATO headquarters could and should have been
stronger, with a robust declaration in support of the Article 5 NATO
commitment, support for further NATO expansion, and a clear warning to
Vladimir Putin's Russia to keep out of the Baltic states.
But
even absent those statements, Donald Trump did successfully hammer home
the key message that all 28 members of the alliance must do more to
invest in their own defense and contribute more to NATO military
missions. Many US officials have expounded on this theme in the past,
but until now, no American president had so bluntly made this point
directly to the entire alliance.
France's newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron, visibly smirked
during Donald Trump's remarks, but the force of his message will not
have been lost on the wider European continent-- much of which for the
past 70 years has thrived under the security umbrella provided by the
United States.
Donald
Trump's Brussels speech may not have been pretty, but its forceful
impact will likely be felt for many years to come. If European countries
do end up investing significantly more in their own defenses in the
next decade, the Trump administration's tough love will have reaped
dividends.
Overall,
the tour was an emphatic rejection of isolationism, and a reassertion
of American leadership. That can only be a good thing for the world.
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