Time Sept. 2–9, 2019O
n his way To an aug. 1 campaign evenT
in Ohio, President Donald Trump was asked
about America’s position on the months-
long pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
“That’s between Hong Kong and that’s between China,
because Hong Kong is a part of China,” Trump said. But
as tensions mounted in the self- governing enclave in the
following weeks, Trump’s aides and allies took different
positions, with his State Department, National Security
Adviser and supporters in the Senate backing the pro-
testers and warning Beijing against intervention.
The mixed messages left U.S. and foreign officials
struggling with basic questions about American
policy, such as to what extent the U.S. considers
Hong Kong autonomous and how Washington
might respond to the use of force to quell the
demonstrations. More broadly, the confusion
captures an enduring challenge of the Trump
presidency: it’s almost impossible to discern
America’s approach to key foreign issues, from
trade to humanitarian crises to military deploy-
ments, because the process for setting and en-
forcing policy is ignored or irrelevant.
In interviews with TIME, more than a dozen
current and former U.S. officials in the White
House, the State and Defense Departments, and
the intelligence community said the lack of clar-
ity on Hong Kong reflects a muddled approach
not just to that crisis but to policy making across
the national-security bureaucracy. And while
some have found Trump’s unpredictability re-
freshing, it has left America’s closest allies won-
dering whether the U.S. will honor treaties, re-
evaluating their relations with adversaries like
Russia and China, and planning for what a sec-
ond Trump term might bring.
The PresidenT’s PenchanT for ad hoc policy-
making has spread across government, these of-
ficials say. National Security Adviser John Bolton
has dispensed with most of the inter agency
meetings that allowed top officials in previous
Republican and Democratic Administrations to
present and debate the risks and benefits of dif-
ferent policy options, according to four current
and former National Security Council officials.
As a result, said two of the officials, there is
less—and sometimes no— coordination among
Cabinet departments. Some policies are decided
without input from diplomatic, political or mili-
tary experts. Bolton’s top aides have called coun-
terparts to ask if they know what was discussed or decided
in certain meetings, only to be told, “We don’t know either,”
according to one Administration official. A National Secu-
rity Council official declined to comment on the record.
The top-down pattern also has been adopted by Sec-
retary of State Mike Pompeo, State Department officials
say. Pompeo meets with some top political appointees
only every other week, according to two current depart-
ment officials and one former one. When Colin Powell
was Secretary of State during President George W. Bush’s
first term, he met with his Under and Assistant Secretar-
ies every morning, those officials said.
In a July 25 closed-door meeting with the Business
Council for International Understanding, according to two
people in attendance, Under Secretary of State for Man-
agement Brian Bulatao, a West Point classmate of Pom-
peo’s, said that because Pompeo was away from the build-
ing 80% of the time, he was streamlining the management
of the department by slashing the number of officials who
report to him. Deputy Secretary of State John Sul-
livan, Bulatao said, was taking responsibility for fi-
nance; public diplomacy and public affairs; and ci-
vilian security, democracy and human rights. “That
means only about half the department has regular
access to the secretary,” said one of the attendees, a
former department official. That has left some of-
ficials in the dark about what issues are at the top of
Pompeo’s agenda at any given time and what other
parts of the department are doing.
The lack of orderly policy processes across gov-
ernment is what has led to the confusion on Hong
Kong, insiders say. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
told CNBC on Aug. 14 that the dispute “is an internal
matter.” The same day, Pompeo’s State Department
said it was “deeply concerned” by reports that Chi-
na’s People’s Armed Police were mobilizing in nearby
Shenzhen. “We condemn violence and urge all sides
to exercise restraint, but remain staunch in our sup-
port for freedom of expression and freedom of peace-
ful assembly in Hong Kong,” the statement said.
Bolton also took a harder line than Ross, warn-
ing the Chinese in an Aug. 15 interview that they
“have to look very carefully at the steps they take
because people in America remember Tiananmen
Square”—a reference to the 1989 demonstrations
that were brutally crushed. “We urge all sides to
remain calm and for the HK government to peace-
fully address the situation. The United States ex-
pects that Beijing will uphold its commitments in
the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” a senior Ad-
ministration official said in an email to TIME on
Aug. 19. “Preserving HK’s autonomy as agreed to
by China is in everyone’s best interest.”
It was as close as the Trump team has come to
embracing America’s long-standing position on
Hong Kong. But it was just one voice among many
in the unpredictable Trump Administration this
summer. TheBrief Opener
‘That’s between
Hong Kong
and that’s
between China,
because Hong
Kong is a part
of China.’
PRESIDENT
DONALD TRUMP,
asked on Aug. 1 about
the protests roiling
Hong Kong this summerWORLD
The real problem with
Trump’s foreign policy
By John Walcott
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