A PERSONALITY PORTRAIT OF DONALD TRUMP:PREPARING A MICRO-FOUNDATION FOR UNDERSTANDING THE US FOREIGN POLICY

YIN JIWU

Professor, School of Inernational Studies, Renmin University of China

Since the onset of the Trump presidency, there have been considerable changes in the way the United States views and puts into practice concepts such as external relations and international order. While most observations in the mainstream academia focus on the impact of structural factors including domestic politics and power shift in the US, few have taken notice of the political psychology of a political leader and his/her policy preferences.Even for those who did have studied on the president, their understanding has been confined within an institutionalized framework, according to which Trump is considered as an elusive or fairly negative leader. These observations and perspectives well explain the difficulty in understanding the foreign policy of the Trump administration, as manifested in the demonization and below-average ratings of Trump or the incomprehensibility of the administration’s unconventional strategic behavior. In view of the above, the author attempts to present a panoramic and objective understanding of President Trump and his foreign policy on the basis of psychological analysis.

The Paradoxical Trump

To most outside observers, the impression of Trump, be it the public image he presents or his inherent character, almost seems certain, which is invariably one-sided, biased, absolute and negative. These outside impressions come with particular positions, sentiments and interest inclinations. As a matter of fact, however, what one finds in Trump is a more sophisticated, paradoxical complex.

First, there is the complex of negative image and successful political career.The negative image of Trump has been created on account of his unconventionality, his disrespect for certain common social customs and norms, his mercurial moods as well as his extreme statements and actions. As a businessman, he used to utter at will extreme opinions about issues relating to specific groups such as women and immigrants. More often than not, such rude and antiintellectual behaviors add to his negative image. His performance during the election campaign in 2016 can also be best described as extreme. A year and more into his tenure, even as he struggles to adapt himself to the role of US president, inappropriate statements still cropped up on a variety of issues, especially on the foreign affairs front relating to the middle east and DPRK. In domestic politics, Trump exhibited his lack of agreeableness so convincingly in the successive departure of his closest aides, most notably National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Contrary to these negative impressions, Trump has been fairly successful in both business and a politics. As a businessman, he was once the best known celebrity in the US. He won a resounding victory in the 2016 US elections. Despite negative media image and abysmal approval ratings, his first year in office ended with impressive achievements thanks to the implementation of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and“Make America Great Again” programs coupled with surging economic indices.

Since becoming a politician, Donald Trump has created a highly uncertain situation in both domestic and foreign affairs with his distinctive personality, image and capricious remarks. The picture shows US President Donald Trump waiting to attend an event in the Whitehouse in Washington on Jan. 19th, 2018.

Second, there exists the complex of both negative and positive personality traits. The most prominent feature of Trump’s personality has been a high degree of narcissism, which found ample expression in his everyday behavior and manner, his self-adulation at his father’s funeral and his obsession with turning every speaking occasion into his personal show. The personality traits of Trump can be classified into five categories, i.e., fickleness, entrepreneurship,profit-seeking ego, aggressiveness and extroversion. Of these traits, fickleness,profit-seeking ego and aggressiveness embody his negative personality of disrespect for and ignorance of ambience,challenge to traditional norms, lack of responsibility and stability as well as poor agreeableness with ambience and preference for competition and attack.However, historical data and an overall personality analysis of political figures show that there also exists a more positive aspect in Trump’s personality trait.These positive traits thus form the necessary personality basis for his success. For instance, fickleness might well explain his uniqueness and possible talent for innovation whereas his profitseeking ego might suggest his pursuit and defense of interests. Similarly, his aggressiveness might be interpreted as constant pursuit of goals and credibility of policy commitments while extroversion might make him an effective negotiator and communicator.

Third, there exists the complex of wayward actions and rational calculations. Considering his particular trait such as grandiose narcissism and most notably his fickleness, ego serves as the core personality driving the personal behavior of Trump. Trump’s judgement on matters is based on intuition, a trait he has been so confidently proud of that he often boasts of his intuitive decisionmaking every time he shares his success experience in real estate business. In political decision-making, Trump neither likes traditional bureaucracy nor trust expert opinions. Instead, he acts out of his own intuition and preferences. His opposition to global multi-lateral regimes and his willful imposition of tariffs amidst China-US trade dispute have been typical examples of his intuitive impulse. As for team leadership style,he prefers to select aides among business elites or people with military back-grounds. In the course of team work,most of his closest aides resigned successively because of their uneasy relationship with Trump or differences in preferences and policy positions. This reflects the continuation of Trump’s business style and a partial failure to integrate himself into the political circle. Despite the seemingly willfulness and extreme irrationality he exhibits in decision-making, team work and policy paradigm,Trump has proved to be skillful at calculating on many occasions. For instance,in weighing on the costs and benefits of foreign policy, he would reconsider those options that cost so much that the US might lose in economic terms. It is for this reason that, from Trump’s perspective, all multilateral regimes, bilateral trade and economic relations as well as global alliances need to be readjusted.

Trump does put his negative personalities into rational application. This explains his behavior in waging the trade war: caprice, ignorance of traditional norms, disregard for conventional wisdom and aggressiveness in face of confrontation and conflict.

Possible Positive Political Effects of Negative Personality Traits

Traditionally, the academia prefers to view political leaders from positive perspectives such as pursuit of achievements, uplifting spirit, devotion to public interests and strong sense of responsibility.In reality, however, many leaders,American presidents included, exhibit paranoia, extreme and other abnormal personalities, or get on in years and suffer from illness.On account of this, people often turn a blind eye into the possible positive effects of those leaders who are distinctively unique and especially with certain abnormal traits. Rather, these leaders are viewed from negative and stigmatized perspective, resulting in misjudgments and mistaken responses.

First, negative personalities are conducive to diagnosing problems. Some psychologists in the US conclude that Trump may suffer from certain kinds of mental illness including extreme narcissism, self-aggrandizement, domineering temper, intolerance of dissents and masochist fantasies. Negative personalities might actually be helpful for him/her to analyze and solve problems.Take extreme narcissism as an example, the sensitivity to ambience and lack of tolerance, together with strong sense of insecurity and hostility towards surroundings, constitute the common trait of outstanding leaders. These personalities could help leaders acutely identify the nature of problems amidst the chaotic and complex developments.Just as a victimizer with certain mental problem could easily spot his “prey” in a crowd, Trump as a leader would quickly identify problems the US is faced and particularly the challenges since the beginning of the 21st century. This, in turn,would amount to analysis of domestic issues from an economic perspective and affirmation of America First from a diplomatic perspective. Trump’s ability to spot problems corresponds to the need to address the challenges the US faces under the new circumstances,challenges that are of fundamental and overall nature instead of technical ones.

Besides, Trump’s poor sense of morality and modest degree of value balancing dilemma might be conducive to making quick, rational decisions and breaking with tradition to challenge the liberal international strategy of the US Such interpretation of “America First”is equivalent to American selfishness,which surely deserves criticism. Relevant research into business elites shows that all of these leaders demonstrate certain common personalities such as poor agreeableness and reluctance to be led while many of them rely on innate intuition in making decisions. Notwithstanding the above, there have been negative consequences arising from overlooking the moral and ethical dimensions in executing leadership, including the way ensuing problems were handled, the choice of taking China as the biggest strategic competitor as well as ignorance of international moral obligations.Those decisions, as they were neither made out of moral considerations nor capable of enhancing the moral choice ability of the US or her people, do not exhibit leadership of excellence.

Second, policies do deliver under the influence of paranoia. The seemingly crazy statements of Trump during his election campaign, such as accusations on immigration,trade and other sensitive issues,were considered as electioneering tactics. But all these policy statements have been translated one by one into action after Trump took office. As a matter of fact, Trump has fulfilled his erstwhile policy commitments through a series of measures on domestic issues such as infrastructure development, economic renewal and curb on illegal immigrants and on international issues like the onslaught of trade war, the partial attitude towards Israel in the Middle East policy and withdrawal from several mainstream multilateral framework regimes. On the one hand, ever since his early period as a businessman,Trump has always stressed on honoring one’s words as a principle in his rhetoric regarding commitments, particularly threats against adversaries and enemies.On the other hand, some of the Trump’s rhetoric, though at first seemed unthinkable and different from our usual impression of the US, has in essence reflected his real policy intentions.

Third, Trump does put his negative personalities into rational application.Trump insists that the strategic intentions of the US should be unpredictable and not too transparent. In his view,caprice and emotional changes may well serve this purpose. This explains his behavior in waging the trade war:caprice, ignorance of traditional norms,disregard for conventional wisdom and aggressiveness in face of confrontation and conflict. In fact, he was intentionally using some of his unpredictable traits to gain an upper hand and advantage in negotiations and competition.

The Certainty of Trump and His Policy Preferences

From the moment Trump became a public political figure, his distinctively unique personality, image and capricious statements have created a highly uncertain scenario in both domestic and international politics. Nevertheless,the so-called “uncertainty” poses greater challenge to our own knowledge than to anything else. For Trump himself,however, there are rules regarding his personality traits, his cognitive style, his leadership style and his policy preferences.

First, Trump’s policy preferences are constant. Judging from his statements over time on economy, immigration,foreign strategy and international order, he can be described as highly consistent and constant, a view shared by American scholars. Following are the three most outstanding policy preferences for Trump. Preference 1 relates to trade, i.e., opposition to multilateralism, emphasis on bilateral reciprocity,not allowing other countries to “take advantage of the US”, and opposition to the infringement on American interest by the post-WWII multilateral international regime established under American auspice and the cost the US paid. Preference 2 relates to security, i.e.,greater emphasis on the cost of alliance in the global security system of the US Although Trump does not oppose the responsibility US assumes in safeguarding security, he emphasizes more on the provision of public goods for security under the prerequisite that allies in regions concerned should not consume them for free. This not only reflects the long-term consistency of Trump’s policy paradigm and strategic design, but also has a lot to do with his shrewdness as a businessman. Preference 3 relates to the authoritarian political style Trump favors inherently. Given his over-aggrandized ego, arbitrary decision-making style and authoritarian personnel management, Trump is by no means a man of democracy as a political leader. At the heart of his preferences, he favors strongman politics. Similarly, Trump’s personal contacts with strong leaders may be considered as a supplement to his strategic interest calculations, of which the fundamental aim lies in harvesting profits and rewards.

The three certain aspects of Trump’s foreign policy have been amply demonstrated in both strategy and practice over the past year and more since he took office. For instance, the US willfully withdrew from Paris Agreement on climate change, TPP, UNESCO and other multilateral international regimes and entered into renegotiation on trade pacts with traditional allies in North America and Europe. In handling intraalliance relations, the US has been putting pressure on allies to foot the bill.Along with the decrease of ideologybased diplomacy, there has been an increase in strategic planning focused on trade and regional security hot spots.The preference of Trump’s China policy also derives from interest calculations,such as the trade war and the US cooperation with China on DPRK nuclear issue. His preference to gains manifested itself so clearly in the about-face immediately after he visited China in November 2017. The US posture to engage in all-round strategic competition with China is aimed at gaining strategic interests and advantages.

Second, Trump inherits the foreign policy tradition of the US Since taking office, Trump made adjustments to the foreign strategy of the Obama administration. As the US diplomacy becomes more inward-looking, it is usually categorized as a pragmatic diplomatic strategy based on the principle of “America First”.

The US foreign policy tradition can be classified into four schools, i.e., the Hamiltonian school, the Wilsonian school,the Jeffersonian school and the Jacksonian school. To a certain extent, Trump’s foreign policy is a combination of Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian schools. Trump’s policy and philosophy undoubtedly represent a continuation of Hamiltonian mercantilism as they value business interests, “America First” and the protection of business development environment. Trump’s own business experience also exerted considerable impact here. In conformity with Jeffersonian philosophy, Trump cares much about cost-effectiveness in maintaining US hegemony and promoting American national interest at minimum price and cost. Reverence for military might constitutes an important feature of the Jacksonian school. Reflected in the Jacksonian school was the American populist mass culture, which reveres honor,independence and courage and prefers people with military backgrounds as national leaders and cabinet members.That is also a striking feature of Trump.In a nutshell, the foreign policy philosophy of Trump is not a deviation from the tradition of US diplomacy, but rather an organic integration thereof.

Conclusion

As the analysis of Trump’s policy shows, he has identified the adaptive challenges the US faces and offered his own remedy, albeit lacking ethical and moral basis. The uncertainty of Trump not only has a lot to do with his unique personality and leadership style, but also mirrors the challenges on the part of observers who are under the influence of stereotype perception and reluctant to accept him. Therefore, finding certainty in Trump’s behavior might be more enlightening. For instance, despite his extreme image and behavior, Trump is a sophisticated, paradoxical complex,which explains the existence of both positive and negative traits in his personality as well as the dual behavior of caprice and rational calculation. Nevertheless, stereotypes aside, it may be possible to see the positive political effects of those negative traits. From a longterm perspective, there is constancy in Trump’s policy paradigm and his foreign policy is a continuation of the US foreign policy tradition.

The CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting Africa Thematic Event was held in Dar-es-Salaam from July 17th to 18th, 2018. The event was hosted by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and supported by the Tanzania Party of the Revolution.The picture shows the scene of the thematic event.

The 5th China-Africa People’s Forum was successfully hosted by the China NGO Network for International Exchanges and the People’s Government of Sichuan Province in Chengdu on July 23rd and 24th, 2018.Jakaya Kikwete (L), the former President of Tanzania and Vincent Meriton (R),President of Parti Lepep and Vice President of Seychelles received interviews during their attendance at the forum.