The Art Of Tiptoeing Around Donald Trump

Alexia
Russell, for The Detail

In
Donald Trump’s firing line, foreign leaders decide whether
to butter up or shout back.

In Donald
Trump’s firing line, foreign leaders decide whether to
butter up or shout back.

Two months into the US
president’s presidency, leaders around the world are picking
their battle strategies: butter him up, or speak truth to
power?

To date, New Zealand has largely steered clear
entirely, treading a careful line. Earlier this month,
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters fired Phil Goff from
his position as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom for
making unflattering comments.

But this week, Peters is
in Washington – where it may be harder to stay above the
fray.

On today’s episode of The Detail, former
NZ Ambassador to the US Tim Groser weighs in on why some
world leaders are still tiptoeing around Trump while others
are lashing out, when it’s time for world leaders to stand
up to him, and what we can expect from the foreign affairs
minister this week.

On the last point, Groser is
confident.

“He will be very measured and very calm and
avoid rhetorical fights in public,” he says. “I’m certain of
that.”

And Groser says this is the right
approach.

“I remember when I was a young foreign
minister many years ago being told by one of our most senior
people, ‘from time to time, Tim,’ he said, ‘you will have to
go through life in certain crises in which your public
comments will make you look like an amiable
idiot’.

“In other words, he was saying to me as a
young diplomat, ‘just preserve your real position for
private discussions because very little if anything can be
gained by public spats’.”

Groser says that New
Zealand’s “orthodox, low-key approach” is the right one,
though “it doesn’t give a great deal of satisfaction because
people want to hear ‘strong statements of
principle’.”

Groser points to British PM Sir Keir
Starmer’s tactics of ingratiating himself to Trump as the
right way to do things. Last month, Starmer presented a
letter of invitation from the King, using Trump-like
language – “This has never happened before. It’s so
incredible. It will be historic.”

“My opinion of Sir
Keir Starmer, who I’ve never met obviously or had any
dealings with him… went up 100 percent as a result of that
performance,” says Groser. “I knew exactly what he was
doing.”

“I thought he was absolutely brilliant. Of
course, I’m not writing op-ed for the Guardian. I’m
looking at this from a professional’s point of view in terms
of how to manage a situation of immense importance to a
major European country like the UK.

“I think Starmer
did exactly the right thing. In fact, I’ll send him another
pallet of butter to go with his next meeting.”

Over
the past several weeks, the world has watched as Trump has
gone head-to-head with various other leaders, most notably
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I would guess
that the vast majority of New Zealanders would feel like me
that if there is an important political leader on the planet
today that deserves the title ‘heroic,’ it would be
President Zelensky,” says Groser.

“But he clearly made
a big strategic error by publicly arguing with the president
and vice president in vociferous terms.”

But with a
trade war fully in effect, at what point is it the right
time for the world to line up on the other side and push
back against Trump’s policies?

Groser says, that time
won’t come, and it wouldn’t work.

“He’s not going to
be constrained by ‘strong and principled arguments made
against him in public’. That’s just a fantasy, I’m sorry,
however satisfying it might feel to say them at the
time.”

“It will be the American people… that will
put constraints on him.”

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