America’s Values Must Guide White House Diplomacy

Never in my lifetime can I remember a week when a president of the United States did more to insult our closest allies and flatter our biggest adversaries. Alienating friends who share our values while ignoring a hostile power’s intrusions into U.S. sovereignty is diplomacy at its most incompetent and counterproductive — and Americans in both parties must demand that it stop.

At Wednesday’s NATO summit in Brussels, President Donald Trump went out of his way to offend German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that her country is “captive” to Russia. He turned a legitimate and longstanding complaint about Europe’s under-spending on defense into a slap in the face by seeming to demand that their spending commitments be doubled. And he later undermined U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May by asserting that she is mishandling Brexit negotiations — and praising one of the ministers who just quit her government. His attempt to walk back those comments with his tired refrain — “fake news” — fooled no one. The damage was done. And there was more to come.