Foreign leaders don’t want to work with Trump — so they’re forming alliances without him

Foreign leaders don’t want to work with Trump — so they’re forming alliances without him

"Eliot A. Cohen is the director of the Strategic Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a former senior State Department official and contributing editor at The Atlantic. Writing in the October issue, he says President Trump is “ending the American Era.” Cohen notes, “one defense of Trump is that his deeds are less alarming than his words. But diplomacy is about words, and many of Trump’s words are profoundly toxic.” “Foreign governments have adapted,” Cohen explained. “They flatter Trump outrageously. Their emissaries stay at his hotels and offer the Trump Organization abundant concessions (39 trademarks approved by China alone since Trump took office, including one for an escort service). They take him to military parades; they talk tough-guy-to-tough-guy; they show him the kind of deference that only someone without a center can crave.” Foreign leaders “have begun to reshape alliances and reconfigure the networks that make up the global economy, bypassing the United States and diminishing its standing.” “In almost every region of the world, the administration has already left a mark, by blunder, inattention, miscomprehension, or willfulness.,” Cohen explains. “On issues that are truly global in scope, Trump has abdicated leadership and the moral high ground"."