WASHINGTON: There is an increasing sense that President Trump’s tweeter posts is eroding the credibility of the administration and presidency itself, a New York Times report said on Sunday, citing examples about his tweets against different countries, including Pakistan.
An article titled “Trump’s Tweeter Threat Put America’s Credibility on Line” said that a year after Trump entered the White House after winning the 2016 elections, countries were unsure whether to take his tweets as policy pronouncements or if they could be safely ignored.
Last week, President Trump tweeted against Pakistan, making an oft-repeating allegation and threatening to withhold US aid. This week the US Statement Department made the formal announcement.
But, the article pointed out that while the President made a statement against Pakistan on tweeter last week, “the president was for the Pakistanis before he was against them.” It may be recalled that after assuming power, Mr Trump, in his first call with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said that he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people.
R. Nicholas Burns, a former ambassador to NATO, was quoted by the article as saying that Trump’s tweet posts have “devalued the president’s words.” Referring to this tweets about defending Iranian protests and to North Korea’s missile tests, “there’s always some excess or some objectionable statement that undermines American credibility, and it’s hard to win that back,” he said.
President Trump also chose Twitter to announce a major US decision to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that was far from years of international consensus which calls for settling the status of Jerusalem through negotiations.
“When you give away the status of Jerusalem unilaterally and get nothing from Israel and anger the Palestinians and challenge the world and then you lose, it’s a disastrous example of lack of US credibility,” Burns was quoted as saying by the article.
The UN General Assembly handed over a strong rebuke to the United States last month over it decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, when it voted against it 128 to 9, with 35 abstentions. Those, who voted against, included most of the US European allies.
Richard N Haass, President of the New York-based think-tank – the Council on Foreign Relations – however stated that President’s Twitter posts should be handled as seriously as any White House statements.
The article noted that in spite of President Trump’s threats to North Korea in his tweets, the country continues to carry out nuclear and missile tests. Various reports say that Trump’s tweets on North Korea have rattled the world amid fears of any nuclear confrontation between the two countries.
“Mr Trump has been equally changeable with the Chinese, whom the president repeatedly threatened to punish for what he termed trade dumping and currency manipulation, only to say in December that he had “been soft” on Beijing, needing its help on North Korea,” the article said.
“But when Mr Trump’s threats are not followed through – or are tempered by White House staff, Congress or the courts – that undermines American credibility, too.”