It was probably early last Saturday evening in Washington when Donald Trump became aware of the terrorist attack in London. Sadiq Khan, the capital’s mayor, had issued a statement advising Londoners that they would “see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There’s no reason to be alarmed.”
A few hours later President Trump, who was in the middle of tweeting about his “Muslim ban”, decided to post about what had happened in Britain. “At least seven dead and 48 wounded in terror attack”, he told millions of followers around the world, “and mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed’!”
This wilful or negligent misreading of the mayor’s statement was soon corrected by Khan’s office. Their correction spurred another Trump intervention. As people searched for missing friends and relatives in London, the President of the United States of America tweeted “Pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement. MSM [mainstream media] is working hard to sell it!”
It was a far cry from his attitude the week before. The previous Friday, a man in Portland, Oregon, began shouting at a 17-year-old girl wearing a hijab. He told her (according to witnesses) to “go back to Saudi Arabia” and get out of “my country”. When three men — including an army veteran — intervened on her behalf the abuser produced a knife and slashed at their throats, killing two of them.
That weekend President Trump was busy on Twitter as usual. But it wasn’t until Monday that his more official (and less often used) Twitter account told readers “The violent attacks in Portland are unacceptable”.
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In other words, Trump was far quicker to wrongly denounce the mayor of London — a Muslim — after the attack here than he was to condemn what many would see as a white supremacist terror attack in his own jurisdiction. In the meantime the US embassy in London said that it “commend(ed) the strong leadership of the mayor of London as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack”.
The embassy knew it even if Mr Trump didn’t: Mr Khan was speaking on behalf of the capital. At that moment, in the hours after the bloodshed at London Bridge, he was a symbol of civic unity in the face of terror. And by insulting him, President Trump insulted Londoners. He didn’t care.
Back in January, after the inauguration, there was a slew of optimistic articles and speeches expressing the view that the Trump presidency should be given the benefit of the doubt. Usually the term “dealmaker” would punctuate these effusions. Mr Trump was likely to be pragmatic, or constrained by the establishment to follow traditional patterns of US policy, or somehow good for Britain.
“Some of Trump’s closest allies seem to find him appalling
In any case it seemed wise to maintain as much of an open mind as one could. America is our most powerful ally, after all. Its military might sustains Nato, its intelligence capacity vitally supplements our own and — over the decades — its values have been our values. Its servicemen and women have died for us. So although many of Trump’s policies seemed rather alien and occasionally even offensive to us, it was prudent to support a state visit by him to Britain, even if the speed and scale of the invitation seemed almost indecently needy.
A few weeks ago I discussed Trump with a very bright former senior diplomat. “You know,” he said, “we are very much programmed to look for continuities. And that’s not always a bad thing — they’re what we hope for. But it means we sometimes miss the discontinuities; the moment when big things change.”
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Shortly after that Donald Trump embarked on his first world tour. Whatever the Saudis and Binyamin Netanyahu thought of him, some of his closest allies seem to have found him appalling. If you haven’t already seen it, watch on YouTube the utterly discourteous address he delivered to his Nato colleagues in Brussels. Note his failure to commit publicly to collective defence of all the alliance’s members, as outlined in Article 5 of the Nato Charter.
We can all agree that body language tells you something about a person and what they think. In his foray into Europe, Mr Trump managed to look like a playground bully while becoming a laughing stock. The shoving aside of the prime minister of Montenegro (Nato’s newest member), the abortive attempt to hand-wrestle the new President of France, the pouty strutting, all demeaned an office once held in awe.
And then the climate climax when, back in Washington, he announced US withdrawal from the Paris accord with the words, “We don’t want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us any more.” When in reality they’ve only just started laughing — because the only alternative is to cry.
The repudiation of Trump in speeches and statements by both the German chancellor and the French president were testimony to their own peoples’ hostility to this terribly flawed leader.
Merkel and Macron will have noted that Monday was the 70th anniversary of General George Marshall’s speech setting out the huge US plan to help reconstruct Europe. It is impossible to imagine such an intelligent long-term vision emerging from the head of a survival-of-the-fittest Social Darwinist like Trump. Marshall was the antithesis of America First.
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Marshall’s America still exists, of course. A majority of US citizens voted for it. Like the rest of us they now have to endure a presidency that takes pleasure in discontinuity with a generally successful past. A presidency that regards our leaders as legitimate targets in its own campaigns, even at a time when we are bleeding.
There are, however, other Americas to talk to. On Tuesday the Chinese discussed a climate change deal with the governor of California. It’s called a workaround. Mr Trump may not be a reliable friend of ours but America still is. The challenge of Trump is not to seduce him; it’s to work around him.
In the meantime I’ve changed my mind about the proposed state visit. Short of an apology to London’s mayor, I don’t want him strutting through my capital city any time soon. He has insulted us and it is important that, like the French and the Germans, we exhibit a sense of self-worth, a basic dignity, when dealing with this aberration. For now at least, Britons don’t want him. Perhaps after today, when James Comey, the FBI director he sacked, gives evidence about the administration’s links to Russia, Americans will begin to feel the same way.