Trump’s Asia trip exposes ad hoc approach to foreign policy

US president Donald Trump returns to the United States on Tuesday at the end of the second major foreign trip of his presidency.

In many ways, the 12-day trip followed a similar pattern to his first overseas visit, to the Middle East and Europe, back in May. While the first half of the visit passed without incident, as Trump stuck to scripted comments and generally avoided controversy, he threw convention out of the water as the trip advanced.

The latter days of his Asia trip were marked by Trump's befriending of authoritarian leaders such as Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, and taking the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence services on the question of Russian interference in the US presidential election.

But even aside from the tweet-driven controversy that dominated the final days of his trip, the 12-day visit throws up more questions than answers about the Trump administration’s policies.

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Running through the five-country visit that encompassed Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines was a pattern of contradiction and mixed messaging that suggests a foreign policy forged by impulse and reaction rather than long-term thinking.

In China, though he spoke of the importance of putting America first on trade, there was none of the anger at Chinese trade practices that was a central theme of his presidential campaign. While he described the trade relationship between the US and China as “one-sided” and “unfair”, he blamed previous US administrations rather than China for the imbalance.

Transactional approach

In Japan, Trump displayed his transactional approach to foreign policy by suggesting that Japan should “shoot down” North Korean rockets with US-made arms. “The prime minister of Japan is going to be purchasing massive amounts of military equipment, as he should,” the US president said as he stood beside prime minister Shinzo Abe. “It’s a lot of jobs for us and a lot of safety for Japan,” he added.

While his visit to South Korea was overshadowed by an aborted visit to the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, as expected he used an address to the National Assembly in Seoul to deliver a stern warning to North Korea, warning that the weapons it was developing were putting the country in "grave danger". However, he stopped well short of repeating his "fire and fury" threats that sparked tensions with the region in August.

But while Trump steered clear of incendiary statements while he was in the company of his Asian hosts and visited some of the world’s most famous sites such as the Forbidden City, once off-script he returned to provocative mode.

Following a brief meeting with Putin on the fringes of the Apec summit in Vietnam, Trump told reporters during an impromptu press conference on Air Force One that he believed the Russian president's denial of interference in the US election, despite US intelligence services confirming in January that Russian interference had occurred.

Senator John McCain was one of many US representatives, including Republicans, who took issue with the comment, tweeting that there was “nothing America First about taking the word of KGB colonel [Putin] over the US intelligence community”.

Ego and insecurities

Former CIA director John Brennan said Trump was being played by foreign leaders who appealed to his ego and his insecurities. A day later, Trump appeared to row back on his comments when asked about the issue, sowing further confusion. "As to whether I believe it or not, I'm with our agencies, especially as currently constituted . . . As currently led, by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies," he said.

Trump also caused astonishment in a tweet on Saturday when he responded to a reported comment by the North Korean foreign ministry. “Why would [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old’, when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!”

Pressed the following day by journalists about whether he could become friends with the adversary he previously dubbed “rocket man”, the US president said it was a possibility. “Strange things happen in life.”

But it was perhaps his meeting with Duterte that caused most concern about America’s changing alliances under the Trump administration. Criticised by human rights groups for conducting thousands of extra-judicial killings as part of his antidrug crusade, the Philippine president boasted as recently as last week that he had personally stabbed and killed a man when he was 16.

Rather than publicly raise the country's human rights abuses, Trump hailed America's "great relationship" with the Philippines during a press conference with Duterte in Manila. The previous evening the controversial president performed a song at a function for the visiting dignitary.

Trump’s comment that Duterte had done an “unbelievable job on the drug problem” gave some insight to the thinking of the US president, who takes a transactional, deal-making approach to policy, whatever the moral or ethical costs.

For those in the foreign policy community who mourn America’s abandonment of the values of liberal democracy that have underpinned the post-war global order under Trump, the US president’s latest foreign policy trip gives little hope. Rather it shows a US president who takes an instinctive, ad-hoc approach to foreign affairs with little thought for the consequences.