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If there is one thing you can say when it comes to President Trump's foreign policy, it's that he likes to keep people on their toes. Trying to pin down Trump's vision of global affairs has, in fact, become a parlor game of sorts for foreign policy specialists who are searching for just the right label. NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam looks at some of the theories.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Last month, President Trump made it clear he wanted the U.S. to acquire Greenland, by military force if necessary. Then at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he seemed uncharacteristically coy.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland?
NORTHAM: Trump announced he wouldn't use force against Greenland but sent a clear warning he still wanted the island in a way that left his audience guessing.
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TRUMP: They have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.
NORTHAM: For many, such a move made no sense. But Stacie Goddard, a political science professor at Wellesley College, says Trump's moves seem incoherent because you're looking at them through the wrong lens.
STACIE GODDARD: And it becomes really logical if you apply this kind of 16th century dynastic politics - say, "Game Of Thrones."
NORTHAM: Goddard says Trump is using a neo-royalist approach to foreign affairs, shifting policies at whim and using his enormous power as leverage. Goddard argues this imperious approach has less to do with the country's national interests and more to do with ensuring Trump's personal wealth and status.
GODDARD: So he is the absolute sovereign.
NORTHAM: A sovereign surrounded by a royal clique.
GODDARD: Some of it is family. Some of it are loyalists. Some of them are financiers, you know, people who can actually give him the capital to do what he wants to do, and he can also pay them the spoils. And then there are also the ideologues, the people surrounding him that are giving him the legitimacy that he needs in order to be able to conduct this foreign policy.
NORTHAM: Seva Gunitsky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, agrees the Trump administration operates with all the power concentrated on one individual. Gunitsky calls it a personalist style of foreign policy, which is an extension of one person's ego or psyche.
SEVA GUNITSKY: Personalist leaders - they're driven purely by their own private fixations, their own incentives, not coherent national interests. And for Trump, those incentives are, you know, being flattered, not being mocked.
NORTHAM: Gunitsky points to a letter Trump sent earlier this year to the prime minister of Norway trying to justify an invasion of Greenland.
GUNITSKY: Where he said, you know, I've been denied the Nobel Peace Prize, and therefore, I'm no longer going to be the peace president - that's a clear indication of where his personal grievances interact with national policies.
NORTHAM: But Trump's erratic rhetoric and actions could just be an act, says Roseanne McManus, a political science professor at Penn State University. She says since his first presidential campaign, Trump has claimed that U.S. foreign policy needed to be more unpredictable. McManus says Trump is employing what she calls a madman strategy.
ROSEANNE MCMANUS: I think Trump doesn't really want people to know what he's thinking or how far he's willing to go. You know, it's not clear what strategy he's going to use at any time.
NORTHAM: McManus says Trump's rhetoric suggests he's aware of his madness reputation and thinks it helps him get what he wants.
MCMANUS: You don't actually have to follow through every single time. People just have to believe that there's some chance you might do absolutely anything.
NORTHAM: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Mideast analyst at Rice University's Baker Institute, believes Trump is more of a realist when it comes to foreign policy - power through strength.
KRISTIAN COATES ULRICHSEN: He feels that the U.S. has the upper hand and that maybe other leaders in the past haven't acted as he would see it in the U.S. national interest, by putting U.S. interests first and foremost.
NORTHAM: Including invading another country.
COATES ULRICHSEN: To the extent that the U.S. has the capability and the power to do that, I think he probably thinks, why wouldn't we do it if we can?
NORTHAM: There are plenty of other theories about Trump's approach to foreign policy - isolationist, sovereign decisionist, the Monroe Doctrine, which has morphed into the Donroe (ph) Doctrine. Some believe Trump's style is based on reality TV. Trump's handling of foreign policy could be a bit of all of these. Only one person knows, and he's not telling. Jackie Northam, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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