As presidential aides H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn briefed reporters on President Donald Trump’s meetings with fellow global leaders, a television screen behind them displayed the latest Washington Post scoop tying Jared Kushner to the probe of possible campaign collusion with Russia.

That scene last weekend in Sicily provides an apt portrait of the president’s predicament after a weeklong venture designed to show him as a major player on the international scene. His Middle East initiatives may or may not produce long-term progress, and his clashes with European allies may or may not lead to long-term problems.

But his international efforts -- like his key domestic policy initiatives on taxes and health care -- are being overshadowed by the Russia probe and by his heavy-handed attempts to cope with it.

Trump’s nine-day trip fit the pattern of presidents in political trouble seeking opportunities to show international statesmanship and create some distance from their domestic woes. But the repeated intrusion of new developments in the burgeoning Russia investigation kept making unwanted news. And Trump may have created -- or intensified -- some other problems while abroad.

A well-staged visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel shared attention with renewed disclosures about Trump’s firing of James Comey, including the disclosure by the New York Times that he referred to the ousted FBI director as “a real nut job.” Accounts of Trump’s brusqueness with allies on the European leg of the trip shared the spotlight with reports alleging Kushner, his son-in-law and close adviser, sought in a meeting with the Russian ambassador to set up a back-channel communications link with the Kremlin.

To be fair, Trump succeeded to some extent in his goal of showing he wants to restore strong American leadership in the Middle East by providing a sharp contrast with the cautious ways of former President Barack Obama. He seemed to meet a receptive audience in urging the Saudis and other Sunni Arab nations to join in a stronger stand against terrorism and in pressing the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to resume efforts toward peace.

In the process, however, he stumbled by openly by discussing a security leak involving Israel that he precipitated. And he abandoned traditional US pressure for progress by Arab nations toward greater democracy and respect for women’s rights, cementing his image as someone who identifies with autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

That image was underscored when Trump, having soft-pedaled criticism of Arab countries that have played a double game by funding terrorism while denouncing it, went to Europe and displayed a far less collaborative attitude toward the very democracies that have traditionally been this country’s greatest friends.

He singled out Germany for particular criticism, assailing its trade policies in one session as “very bad” and vowing to cut German car imports to the United States. He was also the lone dissenter from the Group of Seven’s reiteration of support for the Paris Agreement on climate change.

More significantly, by refusing to reaffirm publicly the traditional US commitment to the NATO article requiring each country to come to the defense of any other, he intensified concerns in Europe the United States won’t be a reliable partner. That prompted Germany’s Angela Merkel to say European can no longer “rely fully on others” and must “take our fate into our own hands.”

And while much of that took place behind closed doors, one lasting image of the European portion may be the way Trump pushed aside the prime minister of little Montenegro to take his front row place for a photo of NATO leaders.

As Merkel’s speech showed, none of this will be quickly forgotten in Europe. This was Trump’s chance to ease the negative image he created with his bellicose anti-NATO campaign rhetoric, and, although aides reiterated he was fully committed to the Atlantic alliance, his actions left doubts.

Still, barring anything tangible, Trump’s major challenge remains to prevent his White House’s policy efforts from being overwhelmed by his obsession with the trio of investigations into his campaign’s ties with Russia, most importantly the probe by newly named special counsel Robert Mueller.

Changing communications directors won’t do the trick, nor will the re-enlistment of hard-line former campaign aides. And Trump’s repeated tweets denouncing the probes as “fake news” resulting from Democratic Party excuses for losing the election only strengthen the view he is more concerned about that than doing what he was elected to do.


By Carl P. Leubsdorf

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. -- Ed.


(Tribune Content Agency)