What John Bolton’s book reveals about Trump — and what it means for us
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
If the President of the United States doesn’t even know that Britain is a nuclear power, where does this leave the “special relationship”? According to a new book by John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser, the President reacted with surprise at a meeting with Theresa May in 2018 when a British official mentioned the fact, asking the then Prime Minister: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?”
In due course, Mrs May is bound to be invited to confirm the story, although there is no reason to doubt its veracity, given the presence of other witnesses. The question, says Bolton, “was not intended as a joke” — though the White House may well try to spin it as one of the President’s lame attempts at humour.
They will have a harder time trying to explain away another of Bolton’s allegations, that at a 2018 summit Trump privately threatened to tell his European allies that the US would “walk out” of Nato unless they all agreed to stump up the requisite 2 per cent of GDP on defence. This is known to be Trump’s view. What is alarming is that he came so close to acting on it — and might yet do so if he wins a second term.
Trump, according to extracts in the New York Times from The Room Where It happened, was “stunningly uninformed” on foreign affairs. No wonder the Trump Administration has sought to suppress the book, or at least some of its most damaging passages, on grounds of national security.
But the cat is already well and truly out of the bag. Bolton’s long awaited memoir claims that the President tried to enlist the help of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in November’s election, encouraging China to import wheat and soya from US farmers. He also allegedly told Xi that the American public would support a constitutional amendment to enable him to run for a third term — in effect, making himself President for life. The portrait of Trump that emerges is of a dangerously deluded President, quite capable of compromising himself and his country by giving “personal favours to dictators he liked”, and ready to do anything to stay in office.
Trump’s chances of re-election will not have been helped by another of the book’s revelations, namely that his most senior officials share Bolton’s view of their boss. At a meeting with the North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un, Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, is alleged to have passed the then National Security Adviser a note: “He is so full of shit.” According to Bolton, this referred to Trump, not Kim — though Pompeo will presumably deny this. That Pompeo’s comment was justified is suggested by the book’s claim that Trump was more interested in sending Kim an autographed CD of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” than in eliminating North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The President is said to have treated the historic meeting with Kim as a publicity stunt rather than a serious negotiation.
John Bolton is by far the most significant former member of the Administration to have turned on the President. He is rightly respected on both sides of the Atlantic and American conservatives will be dismayed by his depiction of Trump as unfit for the office of President and especially of commander-in-chief. Trump still has his defenders, of course, and they will point out that he has kept the United States out of new wars and foreign entanglements, while Bolton has a reputation as a hawk, particularly on Iran.
During the Obama Administration, Bolton was something of an Atlanticist voice crying in the wilderness. After the Bush years, when the Atlantic alliance still counted for something in Washington, Bolton was scathing about the unpatriotic drift of US policy under the Democrats. He wrote a devastating and influential critique of Obama in 2009 for Standpoint magazine, of which I was then Editor. It was entitled “The Post-American Presidency”.
Looking back now, Bolton seems even prophetic than he could have feared. Not only has a Republican President refused to reverse Obama’s failure to project US power in defence of the West — Trump has even accelerated the disintegration of the free world. The Atlantic alliance has never looked weaker; China and Russia have never been more aggressive; and peace on earth has seldom seemed more fragile. Nor does a Biden presidency hold out a more hopeful prospect — indeed, the putative Democratic candidate could well prove even less competent than Trump. He would almost certainly lack tough-minded, Atlanticist officials at his side, such as John Bolton.
Returning to the question with which we began — where does this leave the special relationship? The answer has to be a tentative one. Trump may know little and care less about Britain, but his instincts are still Anglophile. The Queen is probably the head of state whom he most respects. He is an awkward and embarrassing ally, but he has not — yet — been a disloyal one. What went on in “the room where it happened” in Washington is indeed disconcerting; by now, however, nothing should surprise us about this President. If, in less than six months’ time, the American electorate votes for four more years of Trump, we shall know exactly what to expect. Boris Johnson, one of the few Western leaders that Trump actually likes, should be cordial but frank. Above all, if Trump tries to bully him, the Prime Minister must stand up to the President. The ties that bind British and American interests together are in any case too strong for any individual to break.
