News / Foreign Policy

Trump's foreign policy approach out of my 'comfort zone': McMaster

Friday, 29 December 2017 12:19 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 29 December 2017 3:01 AM ]

US President Donald Trump (L) and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base for Miami, Florida on June 16, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster says US President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach “has moved a lot of us out of our comfort zone, me included.”

McMaster, a three-star Army Lt. General, suggested in a new interview with The New York Times on Thursday that Trump has altered the international community's view of the United States.

“The consensus view has been that engagement overseas is an unmitigated good, regardless of the circumstances,” said McMaster, who served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“But there are problems that are maybe both intractable and of marginal interest to the American people, that do not justify investments of blood and treasure,” he added.

McMaster defined Trump foreign policy, which is often critical of multilateral international agreements and trade deals, as “pragmatic realism” rather than isolationism.

Back in May, McMaster said, “Some people have described him as disruptive. They're right. And this is good — good because we can no longer afford to invest in policies that do not advance the interests and values of the United States and our allies.”

McMaster reportedly often mocks Trump’s intellect. He has allegedly called Trump an “idiot” and a “dope” who has the intelligence of a “kindergartner.”

According to reports, a cadre of generals and former generals — McMaster, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and John Kelly at Homeland Security — has taken over control of the Trump administration, and the generals are making important foreign policy decision, not the president.

PressTV-‘Trump's foreign policy confounds Deep State’

It is difficult to parse Trump’s exact foreign policy because it seems to run counter both to the media narrative and long-established American policy, Don DeBar says.

According to American journalist and political analyst Don DeBar, it is difficult to parse Trump’s exact foreign policy because it seems to run counter both to the media narrative and long-established American policy.

‘It is difficult to parse exactly what Trump’s foreign policy is going to end up looking like. First, there is a tremendous amount of constraint placed on him. The media narrative about Russia that he's a puppet of Putin and all of that - a constant narrative, it's like a carpet bombing every day through the media here,” DeBar told Press TV.

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