In Praise of Trump Administration Transactional Diplomacy
(L-R) Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs Minister of Bahrain Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, and Foreign Affairs Minister of the United Arab Emirates Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan wave from the Truman Balcony of the White House after the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on Sept. 15, 2020. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Until the Trump administration began its experiment in 21st-century American transactional diplomacy, “intractable international problems” dismayed, vexed, and bamboozled establishment diplomats, whether they hailed from Washington’s Beltway morass, U.N. agencies, or cachet townhouses in European capitals.
Austin Bay
Author
Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and teacher of strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas–Austin. His latest book is “Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.”
