Nikki Haley Fights Back Over Sanctions, Exposing Political Tensions
Deep divisions over United States foreign policy, usually debated in private, are spilling dramatically into public view as Donald Trump’s top advisers struggle to make sense of his rapidly changing views on Syria and Russia. Last week, shortly after asking the Pentagon to draw up plans to withdraw from Syria, the president changed his mind, ordering a military strike that left State Department staffers “whipsawed” by the reversal. “I think that people here are pretty much as clueless as everyone else in terms of what do you tell other countries about our approach in Syria now,” one senior staffer told me. Another State staffer groaned that Trump appeared to be “winging it” in Syria, a “Helter Skelter” approach to a crisis that demands discipline. “You have to have a really thought-out plan and think about all the unexpected consequences and contingencies and that is nowhere to be found,” they told me. “Stuff is being done in a vacuum.”
Confusion turned to chaos again this week when United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced plans to impose new sanctions on Russia for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only to be swiftly contradicted by other White House officials. Trump himself was reportedly outraged when he saw Haley discussing sanctions on television Sunday, believing that she was speaking without authorization. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders walked back her remarks from the podium on Monday and other administration officials, eager to ingratiate themselves, joined in throwing Haley under the bus. “She got ahead of the curve,” said Larry Kudlow, the perpetually wrong TV pundit the president recently tapped to serve as his economics adviser. “She’s done a great job. She’s a very effective ambassador, but there might have been some momentary confusion about that.”
Haley’s retort was sharp and unsparing. “With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” she responded in a withering statement. Kudlow quickly backed down. “She was certainly not confused,” Kudlow told The New York Times. “I was wrong to say that—totally wrong.”
Indeed, insiders suggest that Haley was not confused, but rather collateral damage in a relentlessly dysfunctional White House. According to a senior official, the Trump administration had, in fact, intended to announce a new round of sanctions against Moscow. “Russia sanctions were a part of the agreed-upon plan going into the strike and going into the weekend,” the official told Politico. The Republican National Committee had even circulated talking points following the Friday strike against the Assad regime. “We also intend to impose specific additional sanctions against Russia to respond to Moscow’s ongoing support for the Assad regime, which has enabled the regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people,” the memo read.
But Trump was not on board with the plan. According to The New York Times, the president erupted on Sunday when Haley said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin would make an imminent announcement regarding the new Russian sanctions, if he hadn’t already on CBS’s Face the Nation. The State Department reportedly called Haley’s team after the snafu, urging Haley’s office to issue a correction shortly after the appearance, but no such correction was issued. By Sunday night, Trump informed his national-security team that he had no plans to implement the new sanctions, according to a report from The Washington Post. The White House subsequently cast Haley’s remarks as a misstatement, with one White House official characterizing it as “an error that needs to be mopped up.” On Monday, Sanders told reporters in the briefing room, “We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future.”
The days-long, ugly dispute is perhaps the most public evidence yet of tensions within the Trump administration over an incoherent an uncoordinated approach to foreign policy. “How many other things do you want to mention have been rolled out that way?” Republican Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, lamented to reporters Tuesday, reflecting on the Haley episode. “I didn’t think much about it. You know, two weeks ago, we’re moving out of Syria the next day, and then the next day we weren’t. It’s just sort of standard confusion.” Still, the Trump-Haley clash comes at a particularly critical time for the administration. With the ouster of Rex Tillerson, and Mike Pompeo still awaiting Senate confirmation to take over the State Department, Haley has emerged as the face of Trump’s Syria policy at a time when the administration is grappling with a cascade of diplomatic crises. It is also a black eye for John Bolton, Trump’s new national-security adviser, whose responsibilities include ensuring cohesive messaging on foreign affairs.
Political observers in Washington wonder whether the flare-up was precipitated by nascent 2020 tensions. Earlier this week, Trump reportedly grew enraged when he learned that Vice President Mike Pence had tapped reformed anti-Trumper Jon Lerner, Haley’s deputy at the United Nations, to also serve as his national security adviser, reigniting whispers of a potential Pence-Haley alliance. (The Pence and Haley camps have both dismissed such speculation.) Lerner is well-known as a political operative, having worked with Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, who was in turn a major early supporter of Haley’s political career. “Why would Mike do that?” Trump reportedly asked, before telling Chief of Staff John Kelly to nix Lerner.
On Sunday night, as Trump was raging over Haley’s sanctions announcement, Lerner withdrew from the dual role. Yet rumors of a future primary challenge continue to swirl. On Tuesday, the United States Mission to the United Nations sent out an e-mail including press clips about how Haley would beat Trump in a 2020 challenge and another about a “grumpy Trump,” before recalling the message.
