Tillerson Sacking Will Not Reverse Trump's Foreign Failures

Donald Trump announced March 13, by Twitter, that he had sacked Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Tillerson's brutal departure may reduce the U.S. administration's divisions on key foreign policy issues, but is unlikely to stop the continued flip-flops by the president which reflect also the ad-hoc nature of his style of governing, policy inexperience and contrarian nature.

When Trump moved into the White House, he promised an "America first" platform that could have reshaped U.S. foreign and trade policy more radically than at any point since the beginning of the Cold War. But so far he has failed ― abjectly ― to forge any new Trump doctrine centered around his vision.

To be sure, he has made some moves to shift away from the postwar orthodoxy ― pursued by both Democratic and Republican presidents ― such as building U.S.-led alliances to expand the liberal democratic order.

He has, for instance, scrapped U.S. involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal with key allies in the Asia-Pacific and the Americas; withdrawn from the Paris climate change deal agreed to by over 170 nations; and launched a review of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which may yet collapse in 2018.

The first two of these initiatives were Obama-era signature policies, and Trump has also partially rolled back other key measures from the previous administration. This includes the Cuba liberalization initiative, while he has also put into serious jeopardy the nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

But dismantling policies is one thing. Building something new is another.

Indeed, well over a year after the president assumed office, during which he has had well over 130 meetings and telephone calls with foreign leaders, his plans to deliver on his promised dramatic new foreign policy direction are already in tatters.

With no clear international achievement to his name, the major achievement of Trump's foreign policy has been provoking significant global backlash almost across the board internationally.

A few weeks ago, for instance, Gallup found that the image of U.S. leadership in the last year is significantly weaker worldwide, across 134 countries, with median approval of U.S. leadership at a new low of 30 percent.

This finding adds to the Pew Global poll last summer that around three quarters of the thousands surveyed internationally had little or no confidence in...