The Six Methods

The wrecking-ball cover shows the
Economist's opinion of Mr. Trump's
foreign policy

Even more interesting--to this observer--than the President's objectives in foreign policy is how he conducts it . The WSJ has discerned six principles:

Method 1: “I Alone Can Fix It”
on May 8, 2018, he sat alone at a small wooden desk in the White House basement...as he dramatically signed a stack of documents withdrawing America from the seven-nation deal aimed at constraining Iran’s nuclear program.

Method 2: Soften Up the Opposition and Keep it Off Balance
The President...[called] Mr. Kim “rocket man” on a “suicide mission”....over the Easter weekend, the president switched tactics and surprised top advisers by urging restraint.

Method 3: Set Deadlines—Real or Imagined—to Create Pressure
No one loves negotiating against deadlines more than Mr. Trump, who proudly uses them as weapons....Mr. Trump also likes to create deadlines with consequences to prevent others from running out the clock...It also shows his deadlines aren’t bluffs, said Lawrence Kudlow, director of the president’s economic council. “The point is, when the president says something, believe it,” he said.

Method 4: Don’t Calm the Waters—Roil Them
He looks skeptically at advice from policy experts, previous administration officials and global allies—the “geniuses,” as Mr. Trump contemptuously privately calls them—which means the U.S. is often churning foreign policy waters instead of calming them.

Method 5: Make it Personal
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April 2017, the president shattered the careful choreography—something that took weeks of international negotiations—surprising the Chinese by immediately seeking a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Xi.

Method 6: Use “Maximum Pressure” and Be Prepared to Walk Away
A signature Trump tactic is to respond to every attack with a stronger counterstrike. When Beijing threatened to match his tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, he threatened to put tariffs on $100 billion...When North Korea increased missile tests, he vowed to respond with “fire and fury.”

As with any new strategies, once opponents study them they will be better prepared next time. For example, heads of state will now practice for personal negotiations, sans staff, in case Mr. Trump wants to take a one-on-one walk in the woods.

We have yet to see whether any of these unconventional methods will be successful, but the ride will surely be exciting.