This Is Trump’s Oddest Self-Inflicted Wound

Source: Daily Beast | April 28, 2017 | Lachlan Markay

Japan. China. Even Canada! The White House only hurts itself with sparse summaries of the president’s phone conversations with foreign leaders—and lets them set the narrative.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had some stern words for President Donald Trump this week after the administration threatened import taxes on Canadian lumber, but you would never know it from the White House’s statement on the conversation.

That four-sentence, 42-word readout said “it was a very amicable call.” But the tone of a statement from Trudeau’s office suggested otherwise: “The prime minister refuted the baseless allegations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties,” according to Ottawa’s readout, which was five times the length of the White House’s.

The contrast between Trump’s and Trudeau’s public statements on the call highlighted an emerging White House trend: Its many short, vague readouts on discussions with foreign leaders are often far less detailed and descriptive than statements put out by the leaders with whom the president speaks.

As a result, reporters covering the White House are often forced to glean details of those diplomatic discussions from statements put out by foreign governments.

Two days before his call with Trudeau, Trump spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The White House’s readout of the call was just two sentences. “The two leaders addressed a range of regional and global issues of mutual concern,” it said.

Abe’s office released a far more detailed account, recalling “an in-depth exchange of opinions on the North Korea situation” that addressed, among other developments, joint naval exercises with the U.S.’s Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group.

Though a source of minor frustration for journalists, the lack of information from the White House has a more troubling effect, experts say: The resulting public reporting on high-level geopolitical discussions is inevitably colored by a non-U.S. perspective on U.S. diplomacy, potentially putting American foreign policy at a strategic information disadvantage.

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