AP Photo Washington And The World Why the State Department Is Worried About Donald Trump and His Tweets

Shamila N. Chaudhary is Senior Fellow at New America and Senior Advisor to the Dean at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She served at the White House National Security Council during the Obama Administration as Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan and on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff.

When President-elect Donald Trump announced last week that he wanted ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state, many in the foreign policy establishment were worried. Aside from the fact that Tillerson has zero public service experience, his history of striking oil deals with foreign leaders, notably Vladimir Putin, raises questions about his ability to defend U.S. interests that may conflict those of ExxonMobil.

But the State Department has a bigger disruption to worry about.


The person who actually sets the department’s diplomatic agenda—in ways both overt and subtle—isn’t the secretary of state; it’s the president. The president’s words, as uttered in speeches and other official statements, literally shape American foreign policy. In turn, State Department bureaucrats rely on the commander in chief to articulate clear, thoughtful and consistent views, based on facts and a knowledge of history. Only then can the entire weight of the large State Department bureaucracy follow seamlessly behind him—and carry out his goals.

As Trump veers from one surprise tweet to the next—at times misspelled 140-character statements that seem to contradict decades of U.S. foreign policy, State Department bureaucrats are facing a unique challenge: How to follow the lead of a president who seems uninterested in consistency, protocol and nuance?

In Trump’s November phone call to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, for example, he called Pakistan a “fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people,” neglecting to mention Pakistan’s involvement in fomenting terrorism against U.S. interests, a major point of tension for American presidents since Al Qaeda and its affiliates set up shop in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks. On December 2, Trump spoke by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move breaking with nearly four decades of protocol in U.S.-China relations.

This seemingly impulsive personal style makes it extremely difficult for the State Department bureaucracy to interpret Trump and follow his example. Do these new developments signal a real shift in U.S. alliances or are they offhand remarks? Will Twitter be the primary platform for Trump to issue new statements of foreign policy? If so, how much will the State Department be involved in the shaping, coordination and vetting of such messages?

Ambiguity from the White House can be extremely crippling for U.S foreign policy. On an operational level, when the secretary of state meets with a foreign leader, the bureaucracy churns out multiple papers to support the conversation. Those papers, if written well, use presidential statements and perspectives as the basis for their message. The president’s words are used and reused time and time again in speeches, talking points, public outreach and private meetings. As a result, the words themselves must be carefully crafted, thoughtful, deliberate and based in fact and history. Ambassador Richard A. Boucher, the former State Department spokesman who served for six secretaries of state , explained, “until the president gives a clear statement about where America stands in the world with our enemies and allies, it will be hard for career people to take that and turn it into policy.”

Likewise, U.S. diplomats overseas depend on the president’s words every day to convey American interests and intentions to foreign governments. If those words are inconsistent or incoherent, foreign governments will question the effectiveness and utility of diplomacy itself. It’s possible that civil servants and Foreign Service officers may not be taken seriously by their foreign counterparts, who could be unwilling to work through an American bureaucracy that its own president publicly discredits and does not utilize.

If Trump doesn’t embrace a new communication style, the inner workings of the State Department won’t be the only casualty. The Trump approach to diplomacy also means that he—and by association the United States—could more easily get played by other countries. Trump’s recent foreign policy engagements suggest as much. Pakistan’s readout of Trump’s overly effusive call with Sharif could have been released as such to put pressure on its archrival India. Similarly, Taiwan’s President Tsai could have viewed Trump as a willing target of opportunity in an attempt to boost her status at home.

Not to mention that the fallout from impulsive foreign policy decisions could destabilize the world. Just days after the Trump-Tsai call, China flew a nuclear-capable bomber over the South China Sea and seized a U.S. research drone from international waters off the coast of the Philippines. When Trump is president, it will certainly be his prerogative to recognize Taiwan; but such a policy needs to be thought through first, anticipating its benefits and managing the costs of doing so.

Luckily, Trump still has time to adapt his communication methods to work better with the State Department before he takes office. If Trump remains committed to using Twitter as a primary means of communicating foreign policy, for example, then his tweets should be coordinated and filtered through a bureaucratic process for accuracy, consistency and reputational risk.

I’d also recommend Trump bolster the role of careerists in foreign policy, who are trained to check for accuracy, consistency, protocol and potential risks to U.S. interests. He should let the bureaucracy do its job and include them in the work of the new administration in a way that values, trusts and respects their role. Trump will still be the chief diplomat, and will determine the pace and tone of U.S. foreign policy, but these experienced officials will be able to help him to do it in the most productive, effective way.

But if Trump doesn’t change his ways, the State Department faces a tough road ahead. For some, the entrenchment of the State Department bureaucracy might offer solace, encouraging hope that the large, complicated and slow systems of government will make it hard for the president-elect to dramatically change foreign policy. But let’s not be misguided in our search for silver linings: If Trump’s statements and actions so far accurately hint at what’s to come, American policymakers will spend the next four years wasting precious time deciphering tweets, as they desperately try to look for clues as to what U.S. diplomacy actually means in the age of Trump.