Donald Trump’s foreign policy as told by his actors

ARTE – TUESDAY, APRIL 6 AT 8.50 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY

Nostalgic for Donald Trump, this series is for you! In three parts, documentary filmmaker Norma Percy strives to reconstruct the foreign policy of a single mandate, which was also a single mandate, and the main lines of “America first”, which was its slogan. The material is abundant. To trace its path without losing too much coherence, the series chooses geography.

Relations with Europe are thus articulated with those with Russia. The diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East, materialized by the start of Israeli-Arab rapprochement with Iran, combines with the burial of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Finally, Donald Trump’s North Korean bet is told as a counterpoint to the American awakening to China.

This choice is effective, even if certain principles of Trumpism are attenuated by it: a relativism which passes through profit and loss any form of American exceptionalism, in favor of purely transactional or mercantile relations; the disdain of soft power understood as a burden by virtue of a very shortsighted examination of its cost / benefit ratio; the fascination, finally, for strong men.

The diplomatic president who asserts himself during the three episodes of this series comes forward with simplistic ideas: the whole world benefits from the United States, especially their closest allies, the human-to-human relationship – he maintains icy or hateful relations with Theresa May and Angela Merkel – helps untie the Gordian knots, and Donald Trump, carried by an instinct which he considers to be second to none, always knows more than his advisers. Contrary to the image of a confusing president, as a Chinese expert explains, this Donald Trump is on the contrary perfectly predictable.

Obvious failures

It is told in great detail by dozens of witnesses from the first circle, who constitute the main wealth of the documentary. Norma Percy, who clearly dislikes the Republican president, no doubt welcomed the insane turnover of this White House and the shattering ruptures which precipitated the departure of many senior officials. The latter express themselves here with the freedom already experienced in books or interviews. In the case of John Bolton, the president’s third national security adviser, there is added contempt inspired by the character and the retrospective dread of high-risk encounters for which Donald Trump invariably seemed ill-prepared.

The palm of remembrance can be awarded to Fiona Hill, former adviser to Russia. She tells with humor how the turn of the press conference concluding, in July 2018, the Helsinki summit, piloted with authority by Vladimir Putin alongside a subjugated American president, had given her the desire to simulate a epileptic seizure to put an end to the disaster.

The new Israeli-Arab axis aside, the failures are obvious, on North Korea, Iran, and also China. After depriving himself of a valuable tool of containment, the free trade agreement with the powers of the Pacific, signed by his hated predecessor, Donald Trump is focusing on the trade balance and soybeans of Iowa, so that the main Chinese challenge now concerns technological supremacy.