Trump’s Diplomacy - The Art Of The Ego

Trump's second term has seen a seismic shift in how western allies interact, negotiate and do business with the United States. 

In contrast to his first term of “America First” grudges, his second term has seen a desperate pursuit of becoming a global power broker on the world stage, possibly fuelled by vain ambitions such as personal allure, recognition as a strongman amongst Putin and Xi, and the ultimate scoop of a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump craves admiration and recognition in everything he does, and Washington’s influence is being exercised with this squared firmly in the centre.

Trump spent large parts of the beginning of his first term seemingly struggling to come to terms with the fact he was indeed President of the United States, and with how the hell he was going to implement a system of governance to instantiate the MAGA agenda. The internal forces behind Trump were locked in power struggles, largely disorganised and had questionable loyalty to Trump himself. The lack of a clear chief of staff and power battle between Jared Kushner, Reince Priebius and Steve Bannon for Trump's attention led to internal turmoil in the White House that meant American power wasn’t projected as clearly as it could have been. The occasional vanity project like a North Korean photo shoot with Kim Jong-Un and meeting with Vladimir Putin came and went, along with intermittent trashing/threatening of his allies with possible NATO withdrawal, but by and large the conventional norms of international politics remained intact. At times it resembled Trump vs everybody else on the world stage. 

Now, that resistance has turned into ritual, and Trump versus the world has shifted to Trump shapes the world. Backed domestically by MAGA-pilled bureaucracy thanks to the implementation of project 2025, Trump has the power to project his image and concomitant ego to the world, fundamentally altering how global leaders now do business with Washington. 

His second term has seen a shift of foreign policy from isolationism to expansion and brokerage of American power. Trump has now firmly fixed the cost of doing business with the US as pandering to his ego. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte Chief calling Trump “Daddy”, Britain’s Keir Starmer falling over himself to gather Trump's dropped briefing papers, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky trading combat fatigues for a black suit are the shaping of statesmen and allies in Trump’s mould.  

Trump acknowledged this himself, commenting “they are kissing my ass” to make a deal in response to his raising of tariffs in April.    

But beneath the hubris, his comment shows a realisation on Trump's part that the deployment of his ego is a useful strategy. Trump has realised in the second term that ego-driven transactional politics can be used as a strategic diplomatic tool. The carrot in this strategy being adhering to the ritual praising of his leadership to gain favourable deals, and the stick of being frozen out of world trade and vital military support for a failure to kiss the ring.

This is evident in the diplomatic disaster of Trump and Zelensky first meeting in the White House, his favourable treatment of the United Kingdom in handing out tariffs, but also his ability to force NATO allies to commit to spending increases through the threat of US withdrawal from Ukraine support  

Perhaps the most striking example of how leaders now must do business with Trump is a contrast between two summits. During a G7 summit in 2018, Trump had shocked allies by announcing tariffs on the EU, Mexico and Canada. French President Emmanuel Macron commented that "international co-operation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks", UK Prime Minister Theresa May stated that the tariffs were “unjustified and deeply disappointing”. The most symbolic representation of Europe having its nose put out of joint by Trumps ego diplomacy was Angela Merkel’s office releasing the now infamous image of her leaning over, confronting and challenging a disinterested seated Trump.

This showed an allied resistance and push back against Trump's way of diplomacy, and his dislocating ego driven politics. Contrast this to the reaction to Trump’s Ukraine peace summit and it’s hard to imagine any European leader having a similar confrontation with Trump. The global perception of how to deal with Trump is now marked not by confrontation and resistance, but by flattery, alignment and adaption, Trump's Ukraine peace summit in Washington DC had European Leaders huddled around his oval office desk like contestants on The Apprentice, displaying a show of submission and acceptance that Trump’s ego was now the price of doing business with the US. His instance to Macron that Putin wanted to do a deal for him, the televised conference of European leaders taking turns to praise his diplomacy efforts coupled with his exhibition of the portrait of his assassination attempt as if it were a state artifact, made clear that international politics in the West must now be conducted only through the prism of Trump’s ego. 

From a PR and comms point of view, this is gold dust for the Trump administration. Trump is known for adoring good press, and his allies falling over themselves to praise his leadership and brokerage rather than confront and resist must be an immense satisfaction to him. 

Internally, global leaders must find this new dance they have to undertake deeply embarrassing, something California Governor Gavin Newsom (in his observation of the recent Ukraine peace summits) noted Trump should feel too. 

However, the threat of this new way of diplomacy threatens to have a deeper impact than embarrassment. It threatens to erode decades-long international rules-based orders painstakingly built in a post war consensus. Multinational governing bodies such as NATO and the EU now have competing priorities, e.g. what is best for Ukraine and what is best for Trump's ego and perception of us as allies? By centring diplomacy on appeasing Trump, allies reinforce a precedent that personal rapport outweighs institutional agreements. That seriously threatens to weaken them, as policy becomes less about collective commitments and more about Trump’s mood, which is a lot harder to predict. 

Vladimir Putin has tapped into this through his Alaska visit, nailing Trump's lust for photoshoots with world leaders and his need to be viewed and perceived as a strongman in the international order. Putin’s floating of a potential Moscow visit is likely a tool to bargain for time to enhance advancement in Ukraine, but it also emboldens Trump's ego-centric diplomacy and threatens a “charm race” between Russia and its adversaries to win Trump’s approval. As a result, this will embed Trump’s personality cult further into a sought-after diplomatic currency. 

Trump’s presidency and way of doing diplomacy is unpredictable and may change in shape in the next few weeks, never mind next few years, but for now he has masterfully moulded his allies into reluctantly kissing the ring as a price of doing business.

Image: Flickr/The White House (Andrea Hanks)

Licence: public domain.

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