'There is still uncertainty'

President Donald Trump, left, at the G20 leaders summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ludovic Marin/Pool

Christopher Woody: There was a story back in August, a McClatchy story, it came out just after the transcript of Trump's phone call with [Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto] leaked, and apparently the contents of the call were the source of some amusement for the diplomatic community. The conversation in question was within Trump's first couple weeks in office. We're now over a year into his term. What's the mood among diplomats about Donald Trump and about his administration?

Jorge Guajardo: I would say it's less concerning in some areas, inasmuch as people have, I would say the diplomatic community has gotten to understand that they should indeed ignore most of his Twitter as white noise — distractions, if you will.

On the other hand there's uncertainty, and as diplomats you try to do away with the uncertainty and try to find ways of working out. So I think there is still confusion — for instance, you may come as foreign-government envoy or as a diplomat and you engage with your counterparts here, only to have it unravel because the president may tweet in another direction or just undo everything you had worked [for].

So even though there is less uncertainty with regards to everything blowing up in your face, there is still uncertainty into how much your counterparts are actually speaking for the administration, and you see a secretary of state who goes out and says something only to be disavowed by the president, and the same applies to most other areas. So that's complicated.