by John Bolton;
While this meeting continued, the press was exploding on something else. In the hectic hours before the Syria strike, Trump had initially agreed to impose more sanctions on Russia. Moscow’s presence in Syria was crucial to propping up Assad’s regime, and perhaps facilitating (or at least allowing) chemical-weapons attacks and other atrocities. Afterward, however, Trump changed his mind. “We made our point,” Trump told me early Saturday morning, and we could “hit them much harder if need be later.” Moreover, the US had just imposed substantial sanctions on Russia on April 6, as required by the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,”2 which Trump detested because Russia was its target. Trump believed that acknowledging Russia’s meddling in US politics, or in that of many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, would implicitly acknowledge that he had colluded with Russia in his 2016 campaign. This view is wrong as a matter of both logic and politics; Trump could have had a stronger hand dealing with Russia if he had attacked its efforts at electoral subversion, rather than ignored them, especially since the concrete actions, such as economic sanctions, taken by his Administration were actually quite robust. As for his assessment of Putin himself, he never offered an opinion, at least in front of me. I never asked what Trump’s view was, perhaps afraid of what I might hear. His personal take on the Russian leader remained a mystery.
I tried to persuade him to proceed with the new sanctions, but he wasn’t buying. I said Mnuchin and I would make sure Treasury didn’t make any announcement. Fortunately, since many senior officials were all too familiar with the roller-coaster ride of Administration decisions, there was a built-in pause before Trump’s initial approval of new sanctions would actually be carried out. A final go/no go decision was to be made on Saturday, so I told Ricky Waddell, McMaster’s Deputy and still on board, to get the word out to stop any forward motion. NSC staff informed Treasury first, then all the others, and Treasury agreed it would also alert everyone the sanctions were off.
On the Sunday-morning talk shows, however, Haley said Treasury would be announcing Russia sanctions on Monday. Immediately, there were red flags and alarm bells. Jon Lerner, Haley’s political advisor, told Waddell that the US Mission to the UN in New York knew the orders on the Russia sanctions, and said, “She [Haley] just slipped,” a breathtaking understatement. Magnetic attraction to television cameras, a common political ailment, had created the problem, but it was also a process foul: the sanctions were for Treasury to announce. The Ambassador to the UN had no role to play, except, in this case, mistakenly stealing the limelight. Trump called me at six thirty p.m. to ask how the Sunday shows had gone, and I told him about the Russia mistake and what we were doing to fix it. “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Trump asked. “This is too much.” I explained what Haley had done, and Trump said, “She’s not a student, you know. Call the Russians and tell them.” That I did, ringing Moscow’s US Ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, whom I knew from the Bush 43 Administration, shortly thereafter. I wasn’t about to tell him what had actually happened, so I just said Haley had made an honest mistake. Antonov was a lonely man, since people in Washington were now afraid to be seen talking to Russians, so I invited him to the White House to meet. This pleased Trump when I later debriefed him, because now we could start talking about the meeting he wanted with Putin. I also filled in Pompeo on Haley and the day’s Russia events, and I sensed over the phone he was shaking his head in dismay.
Notwithstanding that Moscow was calm, the US press on Monday was raging away on the Russia sanctions story. Trump gave Sanders press guidance that we had hit Russia hard with sanctions and were considering more, hoping that would stop the bleeding caused by Haley’s comments. I spoke to State’s Acting Secretary, John Sullivan, who agreed State bore some generic responsibility, since in the Tillerson-Haley days, there had been essentially no communication between State and our UN mission in New York. Haley was a free electron, which she had obviously gotten used to, communicating directly with Trump. I told Sullivan of the screaming matches between Al Haig and Jeane Kirkpatrick in the early days of the Reagan Administration, and Sullivan laughed, “At least they were talking.”
By Tuesday, the press was still baying away. Haley called me at nine forty-five, worried about being left out on a limb: “I’m not going to take it. I don’t want to have to answer for it.” She denied she or the US mission had been informed of the Saturday rollback. I said I would check further, even though her own staff had admitted on Sunday that she had made a misstep. I had Waddell check again with Treasury, which was getting tired of being blamed. They emphasized they had made clear to everyone on Friday, including the UN Ambassador’s representative, that, whatever Trump’s decision, no announcement would be made until Monday morning, just before US markets opened. I thought that was a telling point. Treasury also confirmed they had called around on Saturday, as the NSC staff had done, to follow up. And anyway, why should our UN Ambassador make the announcement? Waddell spoke again with Haley aide Jon Lerner, who said, “She shouldn’t have done it… it was a slip of the tongue.” Meanwhile, Trump groused about how the press was spinning what was, without doubt, a reversal of policy, because he worried it made him look weak on Russia.
The wildfire, however, was about to break out on another front, as Larry Kudlow briefed the press on the Trump-Abe discussions. Sanders wanted me to join Kudlow, but I chose not to, for the same reason I declined to go on the Sunday talk shows: I didn’t see any point in being a TV star in my first week on the job. In live coverage of Kudlow’s briefing, asked the inevitable question about the Russia sanctions, Kudlow said there had been some momentary confusion and then made the points Trump had dictated to Sanders on Air Force One. Haley immediately fired off a message to Fox’s Dana Perino: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” and, boom, the war was on again, at least for a while. Haley got a good book title out of the incident. But, with all due respect, Haley wasn’t confused. She was wrong.
After Trump and Abe golfed on Wednesday morning, there was a working lunch, largely on trade matters, which did not begin until three p.m. The two leaders held a joint press conference, and a dinner between the two delegations started at seven fifteen, a lot of food in a short period. I flew back to Washington on the First Lady’s plane, considering this summit a real success on substantive issues like North Korea.
My focus now, however, was Iran, and the opportunity presented by the next sanctions waiver decision, on May 12, to force the issue of withdrawal. Pompeo had called me in Florida on Tuesday evening, spun up about what to do on the Iran nuclear deal. I couldn’t tell if he was still wired after his difficult confirmation process, which was entirely understandable, or if he was being played by people at State who were getting increasingly agitated that we might finally withdraw. After a difficult, sometimes testy, back-and-forth about the inevitable criticism from the High-Minded a withdrawal decision would cause, Pompeo said he would have State think more thoroughly about what would follow from our exit, something they had adamantly resisted doing thus far. I worried that Pompeo’s evident nervousness about blowing away the Iran nuclear deal could lead to even more delay. Knowing that State’s bureaucracy would seize on indecisiveness to obstruct the demise of yet another hallowed international agreement, hesitation at the Administration’s political level could be fatal.
Trump stayed in Florida the rest of the week, but back in Washington, I focused on Iran. I had long believed that Iran’s nuclear threat, while not as advanced operationally as North Korea’s, was as dangerous, potentially more so because of the revolutionary theological obsessions motivating its leaders. Tehran’s nuclear program (as well as its chemical and biological weapons work) and its ballistic-missile capabilities made it both a regional and global threat. In the already tense Middle East, Iran’s progress in the nuclear field inspired others—Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia—to take steps ultimately consistent with having their own nuclear-weapons capabilities, evidence of the proliferation phenomenon at wo
rk. Iran also had the dubious distinction of being the world’s central banker of international terrorism, with an active record particularly in the Middle East of supporting terrorist groups with weapons and finance, and by deploying its own conventional military capabilities in foreign countries in aid of its strategic objectives. And after forty years, the fervor of Iran’s Islamic Revolution showed no signs of abating in its political and military leaders.
I met with the UK’s Mark Sedwill, then with my German counterpart, Jan Hecker, and spoke at length by phone with France’s Philippe Étienne. While I said repeatedly no final decision had been made, I also tried every way possible to explain there was no avenue for “fixing” the agreement, as the State Department had pleaded for well over a year. For all three of my counterparts, and their governments, this was hard news. That was why I kept repeating it, knowing, or at least hoping, that Trump would withdraw from the deal in a matter of weeks. The news would be a thunderclap, and I wanted to be certain I did everything possible so that our closest allies were not surprised. With imminent visits to the White House by Macron and Merkel, there were ample opportunities for full discussion of these issues, but they needed to know in advance that this time Trump meant to get out. Probably.
I expected, despite his wobble when I was at Mar-a-Lago, that Pompeo would instill some discipline at State, but he had run into a confirmation problem with Rand Paul. Paul eventually declared support for Pompeo, in exchange for Pompeo’s saying (1) that the 2003 Iraq war had been a mistake, and (2) at least according to a Paul tweet, that regime change was a bad idea and that we should withdraw from Afghanistan as soon as possible. I felt sorry for Pompeo, because I was sure those were not his real views. I was never faced with having to recant my views in order to get a vote, or even to get the NSC job from Trump, so I never had to make the decision Pompeo faced. State’s John Sullivan told me later that day about his courtesy call with Paul during his confirmation process. Paul had said he would vote for Sullivan for one reason only: “Your name is not John Bolton.” Kelly had also told me that, in the course of the Pompeo negotiations, Paul said I was “the worst fucking decision” Trump had made. Kelly replied, “He seems like a nice guy to me,” which set Paul off on another tirade. It all made me proud.
During these hectic first two weeks, I also participated in several trade-related meetings and calls. I was a free trader, but I agreed with Trump that many international agreements reflected not true “free trade” but managed trade and were far from advantageous to the US. I particularly agreed that China had gamed the system. It pursued mercantilist policies in the supposedly free-trade World Trade Organization (WTO), all the while stealing US intellectual property and engaging in forced technology transfers that robbed us of incalculable capital and commerce over decades. Trump understood that a strong domestic US economy was critical to the effective projection of US political and military power (not, as I began to understand, that he wanted to do much projecting), which precept applied to China and everyone else. And I had no truck whatever with WTO decision-making and adjudication processes that were intended to subsume national decision-making. I completely agreed on this point with US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer, a former colleague from Covington & Burling, where we had been associates together in the mid-1970s.
Decision-making on trade issues under Trump, however, was painful. There could have been an orderly path, using the NSC’s interagency structure, cochaired with Kudlow’s National Economic Council, to develop trade-policy options, but there was only one person who thought that was a good idea: me. Instead, the issues were discussed in weekly meetings, chaired by Trump, in the Roosevelt Room or the Oval, that more closely resembled college food fights than careful decision-making, with no lower-level interagency effort to sort the issues and the options. After these sessions, had I believed in yoga, I probably could have used some. I attended my first trade meeting in late April, in preparation for a Mnuchin-Lighthizer trip to Beijing. Trump allowed as how “tariffs are a man’s best friend,” which was chilling, but at least he said to Mnuchin, “You’re going to China to kick their ass.” That I liked. Looking at me, Trump said China was strictly enforcing sanctions against North Korea because they feared a trade war with us, which was only partially correct: In my view, China was not strictly enforcing sanctions.3 Mnuchin and Kudlow predicted a global depression if a real trade war erupted, but Trump brushed them aside: “The Chinese don’t give a shit about us; they are cold-blooded killers [on trade].” I could see that trade issues would be a wild ride.
Macron arrived on April 24 for the Trump Administration’s first State visit, replete with a ceremony that must have impressed even the French. Sadly for the press, nothing went wrong. The French and US delegations lined up on the South Lawn, with the President and First Lady in the Diplomatic Reception Room, waiting for the Macrons to arrive, and the military bands playing away. I asked Dunford at one point the name of one of the songs, and he asked the Washington Military District’s commander, but neither of them knew. “Another disappointment,” said Dunford, and we both laughed. The military pageantry was impressive, especially when the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms, marched in review, playing “Yankee Doodle.” It made up for a lot of bureaucratic agony.
Before the Macron-Trump one-on-one in the Oval, the press mob shambled in for the customary pictures and questions. Trump characterized the Iran deal as “insane,” “ridiculous,” and the like.4 I wondered if this time people would take it seriously. With the press cleared from the Oval, Trump and Macron spoke alone for much longer than expected, the bulk of which consisted, as Trump told me later, of his explaining to Macron that we were exiting the Iran deal.5 Macron tried to persuade Trump not to withdraw but failed. Instead, Macron worked to ensnare Trump in a larger negotiating framework of “four pillars” that was discussed in the expanded meeting in the Cabinet Room after the one-on-one (the four pillars being: handling Iran’s nuclear program now; handling it tomorrow; Iran’s ballistic-missile program; and regional peace and security).6 Macron was a clever politician, trying to spin a clear defeat into something that sounded at least somewhat positive from his perspective. Speaking almost entirely in English during the meeting, he said unambiguously about the agreement: “No one thinks it’s a sufficient deal,”7 arguing we should work for “a new comprehensive agreement” based on the four pillars. During the meeting, Trump asked for my opinion of the Iran deal. I said it wouldn’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and that there was no way to “fix” the deal’s basic flaws. Knowing of Trump’s penchant to deal on anything, I mentioned Eisenhower’s famous observation “If you can’t solve a problem, enlarge it,” and said I thought that was what Macron seemed to be doing. It was something we could explore after withdrawing and reimposing US sanctions, which Mnuchin affirmed we were “completely ready” to do.
Said Trump the builder, “You can’t build on a bad foundation. Kerry made a bad deal. I’m not saying what I’m going to do, but if I end the deal, I’m open to making a new deal. I’d rather try to solve everything than leave it like it is.” We should, he said, “get a new deal rather than fixing a bad deal.”8 (Macron told Trump in a subsequent call that he was eager to rush to find a new deal, which didn’t produce any resonance from Trump.) The meeting then turned to trade and other issues, and broke around 12:25 to prepare for the joint press conference. At that event, neither leader said much that was new or different on Iran, although, at one point, Trump observed, “nobody knows what I’m going to do…, although, Mr. President, you have a pretty good idea.”9 Later, the black-tie state dinner was very nice, if you like eating until 10:30 at night. Even at that, Gretchen and I skipped the subsequent entertainment, as did John Kelly and his wife, Karen, whom we ran into as we all picked up briefcases and work clothes from our offices on the way home.
Preparations to leave the deal took a giant step forward when Mattis agreed on April 25, “If you decide to with
draw, I can live with it.” Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement, but it at least signaled that Mattis wouldn’t die in a ditch over it. Even so, Mattis extensively restated his opposition to withdrawal every chance he got, to which Trump said resolutely a few days later, “I can’t stay in.” That was the definitive statement that we were leaving. Later in the morning of April 25, Trump again emphasized to me that he wanted Mnuchin fully ready with “the heaviest possible sanctions” when we exited. I also met that morning with Étienne, and my clear impression was that Macron had not briefed the French side fully on the one-on-one with Trump. This was excellent news, since it meant Macron fully understood that Trump had told him we were about to withdraw.
The Trump-Merkel April 27 summit was a “working visit” rather than a “state visit,” so not as grand as Macron’s. Trump’s one-on-one with Merkel lasted only fifteen minutes before the larger Cabinet Room meeting, which he opened by complaining about Germany’s “feeding the beast” (meaning Russia) through the Nord Stream II pipeline, moving on to the European Union (EU), which he thought treated the US horribly. It was clear to me that Trump thought Germany was Russia’s captive. Trump also used a line I later heard countless times, that “the EU is worse than China except smaller,”10 adding that the EU was set up to take advantage of the US, which Merkel disputed (in English, as the whole meeting was). She also asked for three to four months’ delay in imposing global steel and aluminum tariffs Trump was considering, so the EU could negotiate with the US. Trump answered that he didn’t want to negotiate with the EU. Too bad he didn’t feel that way about North Korea, I thought to myself.11 Trump had already turned to Germany’s failure to meet its NATO commitment to increase defense expenditures to 2 percent of GDP, describing Merkel as one of the great tap dancers on NATO, which she was now doing on trade.12 Merkel kept pressing for an extension, even two months, on the tariffs, but Trump said it would be a waste of time, just like NATO. He asked when Germany would reach 2 percent, and Merkel answered 2030, innocently, which caused even Germans to smile and Trump to say that she had been saying the same thing for sixteen months. On tariffs, Merkel finally said he could do whatever he wanted because he was a free man.
