Donald Trump's mixed signals on security approach

US President Donald Trump presented a blueprint for the country’s national security on Monday that warns of a treacherous world in which the United States faces rising threats from an emboldened Russia and China, as well as from what it calls rogue governments, like North Korea and Iran.

To fend off these multiple challenges, the report says with Cold War urgency, the government must put “America First,” fortifying its borders, ripping up unfair trade agreements and rebuilding its military might.

But in his speech announcing the strategy, Trump struck a much different tone. Instead of explaining the nature of these threats, he delivered a campaign-like address, with familiar calls to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico and a heavy dose of self-congratulation for the bull market, the low jobless rate and tax cuts, which, he promised, were “days away.”

“America is in the game, and America is going to win,” he said, to an audience that included cabinet members and military officers.

The disconnect between the president’s speech and the analysis in his administration’s document attests to the broader challenge his national security advisers have faced, as they have struggled to develop an intellectual framework that encompasses Trump’s unpredictable, domestically driven and Twitter-fuelled approach to foreign policy. The same confusion has confronted foreign governments trying to understand  Trump’s conflicting signals.

Trump, for example, spoke of how Russia and China “seek to challenge American influence, values and wealth.” But he made no mention of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, even though the document itself makes fleeting reference to “Russia using tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies.” Indeed, Trump preferred to focus on a Sunday phone call from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who thanked him for intelligence that the CIA had passed on to Russian authorities, which Trump said foiled a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg that could have killed thousands of people.

©2017 The New York Times News Service