NIKKI HALEY AND JOHN BOLTON WERE NOT ON SAME PAGE

Nikki Haley’s demise paves the way for unbridled ‘America First’

By Edward Luce

Financial Times
October 9, 2018


Days after Donald Trump appointed John Bolton as his national security adviser last March, Nikki Haley, the outgoing ambassador to the UN, was publicly humiliated.

It was no coincidence. Ms Haley had announced a fresh wave of US sanctions on Russia for supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Hours later she was contradicted by a White House official, who said she had been “momentarily confused”. Ms Haley shot back: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.” Nor does Mr Bolton. As a behind-the-scenes operator, the mustachioed hardliner is second only to Dick Cheney, the former vice-president. Mr Bolton rarely appears in public. But he can manipulate Washington’s bureaucracy better than anyone else.

Ms Haley is the most high-profile casualty so far of Mr Bolton’s infighting skills. She is unlikely to be the last. Among the so-called axis-of-adults Mr Trump originally appointed, only Jim Mattis, the US defence secretary, remains.

Her exit is ominous for those still clinging to the hope that Mr Trump’s “America First” bark is worse than his bite. It strips one of the last remaining layers between Mr Trump and an unbridled Boltonian contempt for virtually any international institution.

Although she was loyal to Mr Trump’s agenda, the gap between what she said, and what Mr Trump believes, grew increasingly wide. Foreign diplomats say it causes “cognitive dissonance”. Did Mr Trump mean it when he criticised allies more than adversaries? Ms Haley tried to sooth the rising anxieties of America’s western partners. That became increasingly hard once Mr Bolton came on board.

Mr Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly last month was most noticed for the laughter that ensued after he boasted of accomplishing more than any US president in history. But allies were more worried by the rest of its content. Mr Trump singled out Angela Merkel’s Germany for criticism. He made no mention of Russia. This undercut Ms Haley’s efforts to retain some semblance of conventional US foreign policy, notably support for other democracies and tough words for autocracies. A few days later, Ms Merkel criticised Mr Trump’s “highly dangerous attitude” towards the UN.

What happens now? With the exception of the late senator, Jesse Helms, Mr Bolton’s disdain for the UN — and any notional restraint on US sovereignty — is unrivalled among US public figures of the last generation. As the acting US ambassador to the UN under George W Bush 12 years ago, Mr Bolton famously said the building’s top 10 floors could be demolished without changing a thing.

Ms Haley tried to follow Mr Bolton’s agenda in their six months of overlap. She pulled the US out of the UN Human Rights Council and Unesco. She also cut its budget by almost 10 per cent.

Mr Bolton wants to go much further by removing any notional limits on US freedom of manoeuvre. In a speech last month he attacked The Hague-based International Criminal Court as an “illegitimate” and threatened “any means necessary” to protect US soldiers from its jurisdiction.


At the very least, Mr Bolton’s tightening grip is likely to result in increasingly sharp US alienation from most forms of international co-operation. Chief targets include the World Trade Organization, which is likely to rule against many of Mr Trump’s recent trade actions when it is given the chance, Nato and the UN.

The upshot will be to give more license to other great powers, chiefly Russia and China, to follow their own paths with greater impunity. Mr Trump is rapidly escalating his war of words and tariffs against China. Should there be a diplomatic fallout, or worse, Mr Trump will find fewer allies at his back than when he started the job.

When she had the chance, Ms Haley tried to smooth ruffled allied feathers. Whoever replaces her will find that task considerably harder. Meanwhile, the “adult death watch” is likely to shift to Mr Mattis’s tenure at the Pentagon.