Author: Katie Rogers / Source: New York Times
President Trump remained in Washington for the Christmas holiday during the government shutdown. Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump retooled a campaign slogan on Monday to defend his worldview, declaring that “AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!
” during a four-hour Twitter tirade as foreign allies braced for the potentially destabilizing effects of his policy decisions on national security.Democratic leaders accused the president of “plunging the country into chaos” on Christmas Eve.
Ensconced in the White House with no official plans other than hosting a meeting on border security and tracking Santa Claus on military radar, Mr. Trump showed no sign of slowing a Twitter storm amid a government shutdown, the fallout over his defense secretary’s resignation and a cratering stock market.
In the midst of posting, he even lamented, “I am all alone (poor me).”
His posts were replete with grievances about funds for border security, the Federal Reserve chairman, Democrats critical of his relationship with American allies and Brett McGurk, the departing special envoy for the coalition fighting the Islamic State.
“To those few Senators who think I don’t like or appreciate being allied with other countries, they are wrong, I DO,” Mr. Trump wrote in a pair of tweets critical of Jim Mattis, his departing defense secretary. “What I don’t like, however, is when many of these same countries take advantage of their friendship with the United States, both in Military Protection and Trade.”
Mr. Trump added: “General Mattis did not see this as a problem. I DO, and it is being fixed!”
Mr. Mattis’s resignation letter on Thursday served as a rebuke of the president’s sharp demands of America’s allies and softened approach toward some of its adversaries. Only over the weekend did Mr. Trump realize that Mr. Mattis’s letter was a critique of the president’s policies, leading to him to accelerate Mr. Mattis’s departure.
The resignation was prompted by Mr. Trump’s abrupt decisions last week to pull troops from Syria and Afghanistan. Those moves have plunged some of the United States’ longest allied partners into uncertainty as they grapple with an American leader who largely treats those relationships as bottom-line business transactions.
Global leaders have also echoed Mr. Mattis’s rebuke of Mr. Trump’s worldview.
“I very deeply regret the decision made on Syria,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said during a news conference over the weekend. “To be allies is to fight shoulder to shoulder….
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