Nato, Russia, friends, enemies: Trump reshuffles the deck

WASHINGTON: For Donald Trump, America’s “worst enemies” are sometimes “our so-called friends.”

The coming week will give the American president a chance to elaborate on that surprising diplomatic doctrine, but only at the risk of further fueling tensions with the country’s already deeply unsettled allies.

Trump’s Brussels-London-Helsinki itinerary — with a NATO summit followed by what looks like a stormy visit to Britain and then a tete-a-tete with Russian president Vladimir Putin — would seem to carry spectacular risks.

High in people’s minds is the head-spinning way in which Trump went in a few days from dismissing the G7 summit host, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, as “dishonest and weak” to warmly praising North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as “very talented” following their Singapore summit. Many observers fear seeing a summertime rerun of that sequence. As one European diplomat summed it up: “He chews out the allies then embraces the adversary.”

Just how far will the unpredictable president go? The question has people on both sides of the Atlantic holding their breath.

Will Trump — who uses the tool of provocation to galvanize his base while seemingly pushing his “America First” formula to its extremes — profoundly transform the Atlantic alliance, the cornerstone of international relations for more than a half-century?

If one believes some of his advisers, the Brussels summit should proceed along traditional lines, harmoniously and without a hitch. “The major overall theme of this summit is going to be NATO’s strength and unity,” said Kay Bailey Hutchison, the US ambassador to NATO. She insisted on the solidarity of the 29-member alliance and denounced the “malign activities” of Russia and its attempts to “divide our democratic nation.”

But for months former real estate magnate Trump, eager to distance himself from both the Democratic and Republican politicians who preceded him, has been preaching a very different message.

This week, before a wildly cheering crowd in the western state of Montana, Trump launched into one of his most pointed tirades against NATO members who “have to start paying (their) bills.”

The US, Trump stressed, was no longer going to be “the schmucks paying for the whole thing.” He did not spare German leader Angela Merkel, whom he referred to by her first name. But when he turned to Putin, Trump uttered not the slightest criticism — not about Ukraine, not about Syria — instead repeating over and over his hopes for “getting along with Russia” and its leader. The US president’s aides are regularly forced into awkward contortions as they try to explain, for example, his Twitter message accepting Putin’s denial that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections, even after American intelligence agencies said that meddling was a proven fact.