Give President Emmanuel Macron of France an A for effort -- he is pulling out all the stops in his effort to manage the mercurial Donald Trump. Last week, Macron visited Washington for what was surely the handsiest summit in the history of French-American diplomatic relations, as part of his continuing bid to influence a volatile US president by hugging him as tightly as possible.
Macron’s is a strategy that a number of US allies have been pursuing, and so far it has borne some fruit. But now it is about to be tested in big ways.
Trump’s election was alarming to the vast majority of US allies. The “leader of the free world” was now a man who was clearly skeptical of America’s global role, who believed that many US partners were deadbeats, and whose first diplomatic impulse was to tear down multilateral agreements that his predecessor had spent years constructing.
US allies have since dealt with this problem in a number of ways. Some countries have simply sought to keep their heads down -- to avoid antagonizing Trump. Others, such as Germany’s Angela Merkel, have occasionally taken a more confrontational tone.
Yet confrontation is a problematic strategy in dealing with a country as strong as the US, particularly with a president whose urge is normally to escalate rather than de-escalate when attacked. So other US allies have chosen a different option. They have mostly declined to challenge Trump head-on, but instead have pulled him close in hopes of whispering in his ear and moderating his behavior.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan pioneered this strategy. Abe visited Trump Tower just days after the presidential election in hopes of forging a personal relationship; he followed up with an official visit in April during which the two leaders bonded over their love of golf.
Japanese officials also played to Trump’s self-image as a deal-maker and a job creator, announcing new investments in the US and allowing him to take the credit. The goal of all this has been to develop personal ties that will insulate Japan from some of the shocks -- on trade, on North Korea, or on other issues -- it might otherwise suffer in a Trump presidency.
After initially experimenting with a more confrontational approach -- manifested in the handshake for the ages last July -- Macron has taken a similar tack. He shrewdly invited Trump to Paris for the Bastille Day military parade, knowing the president would love this display of martial pomp. He has reportedly bonded with the president over their shared status as political outsiders who are determined to shake things up.
To be sure, Macron is no fan of Trumpism. He has nonetheless cultivated a rapport with Trump in a bid to keep him from starting a trade war with Europe, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, or otherwise upsetting global politics too severely.
This is a mostly sensible strategy, given the limits of the allies’ ability to change American behavior through anything other than persuasion.
During the opening months of the administration, for instance, Abe’s approach shielded Japan from the ire that Trump directed toward America’s European allies, and won strong presidential affirmations of the US-Japan alliance amid a sharpening confrontation with North Korea.
For his part, Macron claims to have persuaded Trump not to pull US troops out of Syria prematurely. Whether or not this is true, his strategy has at least given France a stronger voice in Washington than any other European ally enjoys.
Yet the fact that Trump is Trump still makes any strategy predicated on managing him perpetually precarious.
For one thing, the best buddy approach hasn’t always protected US allies from the unwelcome attacks and about-faces that seem to be Trump’s diplomatic specialty. Trump and Abe may be golfing buddies, but that didn’t prevent the president from blindsiding Tokyo with his aluminum and steel tariffs -- or subsequently denying Japan, at least initially, an exemption from those tariffs. Nor, apparently, did Abe’s personal diplomacy win him advance warning of Trump’s spur-of-the-moment decision to shift toward direct engagement with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
For both Japan and France, moreover, the biggest tests of this strategy are still to come, and there are reasons to be worried about how well it will fare. Abe is banking on the fact that his close ties to Trump will ensure that Japanese interests are safeguarded in any US-North Korea negotiation, but Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip style and America First instincts surely have Japanese diplomats worried.
Likewise, Macron has clearly wagered that close personal engagement will help dissuade Trump from ditching the Iran nuclear deal. Trump, however, has so far refused to say whether he will stay or go, and even blasted the deal as “insane” and “ridiculous” in Macron’s presence Tuesday.
This points to a final liability of the Trump-whisperer strategy -- it can easily turn into a political liability for the leaders pursuing it. To say that Trump is unpopular overseas is something of an understatement. Macron is already being lampooned in France for getting so close to the American president.
A little ridicule may be a small price to pay so long as Macron and other leaders can assure themselves -- and their voters -- that they are having a positive impact on US policy. But if Trump leaves them in the lurch, then they may find that the geopolitical benefits of hugging him are less than expected, and the political price is high indeed.
Tobin Harshaw Tobin Harshaw writes editorials on national security, education and food for Bloomberg View. -- Ed.
