President Donald Trump's communications with foreign leaders, exemplified by his call with Ukraine's president and letter to Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are far from the presidential norm.

Instead of carefully crafted statements, Trump complains about personal politics and offends leaders.

The calls and letters show that Trump is more concerned with himself than advancing America's interests.

Brett Bruen was the director of global engagement in the Obama White House and a career American diplomat. He runs the crisis-communications agency Global Situation Room.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Trump tells us his call with the leader of Ukraine was "perfect." My question is: for who? Instead of talking about national security, he mostly talked about his political insecurities. Our country's concerns went unaddressed.

The scarcity of substantive presidential communications is creating real problems around the world for America's interests and influence.

What a presidential call should look like

Some problems are so big that they can only be resolved by presidents. Our diplomats, ambassadors, even the Secretary of State can try to make progress. Sometimes, they keep running into obstacles. This is when issues get elevated to the Oval.

The process of getting presidential attention is normally a pretty long, slow path. The National Security Council (NSC) will exhaustively debate the seriousness of the subject. They'll explore if we might not have other ways to pursue what we need from that country.

Different cabinet secretaries will push for their particular problems to be taken up personally by the President. Most of them will never reach his desk. Ultimately, the NSC has to prioritize what is so important only he can and should handle the matter. The rest gets delegated out for others to try and resolve.

These are high-stakes engagements. There is a lot that can go wrong. You don't leave to chance or go in unprepared.

So, the NSC puts a lot into teeing these talks up for success. The President used to get a comprehensive memo, it contained a lot of background on the topic, provided him with the key points to make, and flags any subjects to watch out for or tread carefully around. We would then brief him before the discussion with his foreign counterpart, answering any additional questions that he still had on the subject.

After all of this preparation, a call would take place. The level of thought that goes into these communications should be extensive because when a US president and another world leader finally hold a call, no less than the weight of the world is riding on their discussions.

What calls sound like under Trump

This isn't exactly how Trump handles those kind of calls.

He reads little to nothing before going into these meetings or calls. Sometimes the subject is simply a story he saw on Fox News. Other times, he prefers to plug his properties. Often the conversations just deal with his personal insecurities, rather than anything that has to do with our national security.

That's precisely what took place during his call with Ukraine's new leader. He didn't discuss the threat of Russian-backed soldiers occupying large swaths of the country's territory. There were scant few words said about enhancing the fledgling democracy's institutions. They didn't even get into organized crime and the danger they represent to the United States. Instead, Trump focused on his personal political problems.

Let's set aside the obvious abuse of power for second. That's being pretty exhaustively examined up on Capitol Hill. Instead, I think it's important to focus on what was not said.

In this call and hundreds of others, the country's business is just not getting done. Major global problems are piling up, worsening by the day.

It's even grown hard to handle the small stuff under President Trump. His lack of consistency on major policies makes it really difficult for diplomats to try and negotiate on his behalf.

Most of the country's diplomats I've talked to prefer to take no action, rather than finding themselves suddenly on the wrong side of a presidential tweet.

When Trump does speak, as in his letter to Turkey's President, his language is often off the mark and just downright offensive. As Erdogan said after receiving the letter, such slights don't go unnoticed.

While other heads of state may not be as impulsive as the current occupant of the White House, they will not soon forget how they were treated. There will be greater reluctance to respond the next time the United States asks something from them.

Trump is hurting America's standing in the world

It is increasingly clear that the President's communications with world leaders are doing an extraordinary amount of damage to the country's relations and reputation.

Pressing national security priorities are going unaddressed. The United States is largely absent from key global debates. In the US's place, voices from places like Beijing, Moscow, and Riyadh have grown more influential. When Trump does speak, it often offends and further ostracizes the country from old allies.

Beyond what the president is saying in regards to his personal grievances, Congress also needs to examine what is not being said during calls with foreign leaders. The level of presidential neglect of critical national security issues in his exchanges with other leaders is alarming.

Presidential communications are supposed to build bonds that form barriers to keep major threats at bay. Those structures now have major cracks. That's one wall designed to protect our country that desperately needs attention.

Bruen is President of the crisis communications firm, the Global Situation Room, Inc. He was Director of Global Engagement at the White House and spent twelve years as an American diplomat. In addition to teaching crisis management at Georgetown University, he serves on the Board of the FDR Foundation at Harvard and the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin.