WASHINGTON — Fear is spreading among the Republican Party’s foreign policy heavyweights that President Donald Trump’s inexperience and quick temper could permanently damage long-standing alliances and undercut America’s standing in the world.
After spending eight years criticizing former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy as feckless and insufficiently protective of America’s friends around the globe, many senior Republican lawmakers and foreign policy experts are worried that Trump is making matters worse after reportedly speaking harshly with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
“We need allies throughout the world in order to keep our homeland safe and our nation doesn’t have the luxury of creating division and picking unnecessary fights with countries we have traditionally worked with,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican and a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, told McClatchy.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, went a step further, announcing that he had called Australia’s ambassador to the U.S. Thursday morning “to express my unwavering support for the U.S.-Australia alliance” a clear rebuke to Trump, who chastised Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a phone call over the weekend and cut the conversation short, according to The Washington Post’s Wednesday report. And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., urged on Facebook Thursday, “We need to continue to strengthen our partnership with this essential ally.”
Such conflict with a close American partner has alarmed more traditional Republicans who follow foreign policy closely. During the presidential campaign, Trump faced perhaps his most sustained and fierce opposition within his own party from national security-minded Republicans who feared that he would mismanage critical relationships abroad. And that’s exactly what has come to pass now, said Peter Feaver, who was a national security official in the George W. Bush administration and a Trump critic during the campaign.
“One of the criticisms that was leveled against Trump on the campaign was that he was inexperienced and so would have a steeper learning curve than another Republican candidate might have had, and these kinds of stumbles are the things those critics had in mind, myself included,” he said. “This is the kind of thing that people warned about. The challenge will be for the administration to refine their processes, learn from it and improve it.”