The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., the evening Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced his resignation, on Dec. 20, 2018.SARAH SILBIGER/The New York Times News Service
U.S. President Donald Trump is marking a tumultuous end to a turbulent year. The President is losing one of the last powerful voices of moderation in his cabinet and has triggered a government shutdown – even as investigations into his administration and business draw an ever-tighter net around the chief executive’s inner circle.
It all caps 12 months in which Mr. Trump showed himself increasingly willing to deliver the disruption on which he campaigned: He has sparked a global trade war by slapping tariffs on U.S. allies and foes alike, demurred on challenging Vladimir Putin over Russian election interference and abruptly announced the pullout of U.S. troops from Syria.
Defence Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation Thursday after clashing with Mr. Trump for much of his tenure over the importance of NATO and America’s role as a leader of the democratic world. The Syria withdrawal was the last straw for Mr. Mattis, who rebuked the President in an extraordinary letter.
The retired general wrote that the U.S. must stand up to “authoritarian” countries like China and Russia and stay close to its allies – but Mr. Trump’s views were not “aligned” with this vision.
“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held,” Mr. Mattis wrote. “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
His exit, which will take effect at the end of February, follows the resignation earlier this year of economic czar Gary Cohn, and the firings of secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster – all officials who tried to steer the U.S. closer to its historic role as leader of the free world and champion of free markets.
Jennifer Spindel, an international security expert at the University of Oklahoma, said U.S. retrenchment from foreign and military affairs could embolden autocrats – giving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a free hand to attack the United States’ Kurdish allies in Syria, or allowing Mr. Putin space to step up his support for secessionist forces in eastern Ukraine.
She said it could also encourage U.S. allies to go it alone without co-ordinating a broader strategy, something that could prove risky if, say, Australia or Japan chose to confront Beijing over the South China Sea, or the Baltic states got into a fight with Mr. Putin.
“Withdrawing from Syria without notifying our allies – why would any other group want to ally with the U.S. and work with the U.S. in the future?” Ms. Spindel said. “With a dissolution of policy co-ordination, it’s a whole unknown what could happen there.”
The U.S. commitment to NATO, which Mr. Trump repeatedly disparaged but that Mr. Mattis successfully convinced him to stick with last summer, could also be uncertain.
On the home front, special counsel Robert Mueller and investigators in New York have secured convictions of several of Mr. Trump’s associates for everything from tax evasion to breaking campaign finance laws. Most of them have agreed to co-operate with Mr. Mueller in exchange for reduced sentences, and the special counsel has hinted they have turned over valuable information.
The President faces an additional threat in less than two weeks when a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives takes office. The Democrats will gain the power to issue subpoenas and launch further investigations – likely including public hearings.
Far from trying to turn the temperature down, Mr. Trump has cranked it up. Earlier this week, Republican congressional leaders crafted a spending package that would keep the government funded until February. But Mr. Trump rejected it, demanding that any spending bill contain US$5-billion ($6.8-billion) in funding for a wall on the border with Mexico.
Without a funding package in place, the government closed down some services and sent civil servants on furlough starting Friday at midnight.
“We are totally prepared for a very long shutdown,” Mr. Trump said Friday. Democrats had little incentive to give in to his demands after Mr. Trump said publicly last week that he was “proud to shut down the government for border security” and would take responsibility for such an outcome.
Even loyal Republicans have expressed exasperation in recent days. Mitch McConnell said in a statement that he was “distressed” by Mr. Mattis’s resignation, and that the U.S. had to “maintain a clear-eyed understanding of our friends and foes, and recognize that nations like Russia are among the latter.” Senator Lindsey Graham demanded legislative hearings on the Syrian withdrawal, warning on Twitter that no country will want to work with the U.S. in future if it goes ahead with Mr. Trump’s plan.
There is no sign, however, that his caucus is going to turn on him any time soon. And with the guardrails that figures such as Mr. Mattis tried to erect around the President rapidly vanishing, the next year of Mr. Trump’s term is guaranteed to be as unpredictable as the last.
Presidential scholar Barbara Perry contends that Mr. Trump has made chaos in his administration such an organizing principle, and tumult so par for the course, that no single controversy seems particularly damaging to the President.
“The potential tipping points seem to happen every day, every month, and we’ve lost perspective and we can’t get our bearings,” said Prof. Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “He’s pressing down on the accelerator.”