It might be a “ridiculous standard,” as President Donald Trump put it, but presidents are measured by their first 100 days in office. In fact, even Trump has bought into it. On the 90th day of his administration, he proclaimed, “No administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days.” Ridiculous or not, the tradition has endured since it began under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and will no doubt continue beyond the 45th president. Regardless of whether Trump, or any president before him, believes in the artificial standard, it will still influence his legacy and one day be a measure for the first 100 days of others.
As Trump marks this milestone on April 29, The Cipher Brief presents a timeline of the most influential foreign policy and national security events since he took office. This timeline shows not only what the Administration has done, but what it has not. From the performance of the first 100 days, we can begin to see in practice what the Administration envisions for America’s role in the world.
Jan. 23 – Trump Withdraws from TPP
On his first full day in office, Trump signed an executive order formally declaring his intent not to present the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement to Congress for ratification. Addressing a meeting of union leaders at the White House after signing the order, Trump defended the decision, saying that “we’re going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country.”
The decision to withdraw the United States from TPP broke with decades of U.S. policy focused on the ever-expanding promotion of free trade. Instead, Trump’s “America First” economic policy emphasizes the use of hardball tactics to negotiate new bilateral trade deals or renegotiate existing pacts to win greater concessions for the U.S. and reduce the trade deficit. For instance, on April 23, the Administration levied new punitive tariffs on Canadian lumber exports ahead of NAFTA renegotiation talks. In response, competitors like China are looking to reposition themselves as the new leaders of free trade and globalization. Meanwhile, the remaining 11 members of the TPP are looking at ways to continue the free trade area. In March, those remaining members invited South Korea and China to a meeting in Chile to discuss ways forward without the U.S.
Jan. 27 – Trump Administration Issues Travel Ban
The Administration issued an executive order banning citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entry into the U.S. for 90 days. Protests at airports around the country erupted the following day and federal judges in New York and Massachusetts temporarily blocked parts of the order. In early February, a U.S. District Court Judge in Washington state halted the ban nationwide, and upon appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against reinstating the ban.
The Administration issued a second travel ban in early March, barring foreign nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (but excluding citizens from Iraq) from entering the U.S. for 90 days. District Court judges in Hawaii and Maryland blocked the ban, but the Administration has appealed this ruling as well and expects the case to be heard again by the Ninth Circuit Court.
Jan. 28 – Trump Orders 30-Day Review of Strategy to Fight ISIS
A week after assuming the Oval Office, Trump ordered members of his Cabinet and Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct a 30-day review of U.S. strategy to combat ISIS. According to General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the review includes government-wide input, including from the State Department and Treasury Department, as well as from the Intelligence Community. However, the Administration has yet to publicly release the findings of the review, and it remains unclear if it has been officially completed or reached the White House.
Although details about the report remain limited, Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Security Studies program at Georgetown University, told The Cipher Brief that “there is a strong possibility that [the review] will introduce a new strategy or a new approach.”
“One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign platforms was that the struggle against ISIS wasn’t going well and that we needed a change,” said Hoffman back in February around the time the report was supposed to be sent to the White House. “He promised to produce a new strategy shortly after assuming office. So all of this is consistent with one of candidate Trump’s main campaign messages.”
Jan. 29 – Administration Orders Raid Against Al Qaeda in Yemen
In late January, the Administration signed off on a Special Operations raid targeting al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen (AQAP), which ultimately left U.S. Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens and 14 AQAP militants dead and several other U.S. service members wounded. Since assuming office, Trump has focused considerably more attention on striking AQAP, launching a series of drone strikes against AQAP targets on several occasions over the last few months. The Administration has also stated that the January raid led to the procurement of critical information, including insights that AQAP was aiming to develop lithium explosives that fit into laptop computers and could be carried aboard airplanes.
AQAP is considered by many as the most capable al Qaeda affiliate and the group has demonstrated a propensity for targeting the U.S. and conducting operations abroad, including its most recent large-scale attack at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France in January 2015. The terrorist group has taken advantage of Yemen’s civil war to increase its control and influence across that country.
Feb 13/Feb 20 – Flynn Resigns as National Security Advisor/Trump Appoints McMaster
Michael Flynn resigned as National Security Advisor after revealing he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other senior officials regarding his conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the United States during the campaign. One week later, Trump appointed Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster to the post.
Flynn’s departure was a bellwether for the early confusion of Trump’s transition team, and we have since learned more about his transgressions. On April 25, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee stated Flynn did not disclose payments from Russia, and may have broken the law. In a further National Security Council shake-up, McMaster removed White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon as a permanent NSC member of the NSC April 5. While controversy surrounds the NSC, hundreds of appointments in the State Department and other agencies have gone unfilled.
March 15 – U.S. Charges Two Russian Intelligence Officers with Hacking Yahoo
In March, the Justice Department revealed indictments for four individuals – two of whom are allegedly officers of the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence agency – on charges of hacking and economic espionage. The charges are related to breaking into Yahoo’s networks beginning in January 2014 to view the contents of 30 million email accounts and steal information from at least 500 million. According to the indictment, “The FSB officer defendants, Dmitry Dukuchaev and Igor Sushchin, protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the U.S. and elsewhere.”
The close cooperation between criminal elements and Russian intelligence for both personal financial gain and for espionage – whether formally sanctioned by Russian leadership or informally through corrupt moonlighting – is a defining aspect of Russian activity in cyberspace. The indictment of FSB officials sends a strong message by the administration as a follow-up to the Obama Administration’s imposition of sanctions on Russian intelligence and expulsion of intelligence officials under diplomatic cover in response to Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and subsequent interference in last year’s U.S. elections.
April 6-7 – Trump Holds Summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping
Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time for a summit held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The two discussed trade and cooperation on North Korea, but sidestepped several other issues important to the bilateral relationship, such as tensions in the South China Sea and climate change.
The summit was short on deliverables—with the only one being a 100-day plan to find ways to reduce the U.S. trade deficit to China, but served as an important personal introduction between the world’s two most powerful heads of state and a reversal in Trump’s attitude on China. Since the summit, Trump has voiced his praise of Xi as a leader and reversed his decision to label China a currency manipulator, and the two have since had several phone calls over managing tensions with North Korea.
April 6 – Trump Orders Cruise Missile Strike on Syrian Airbase
In response to a deadly chemical weapons attack launched by Syrian President Bashar al Assad, which killed 87 people in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, Trump ordered naval vessels stationed in the Mediterranean to fire 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayat military air base near the city of Homs. Trump said that the retaliatory strike was “in [the] vital national security interest of the U.S.,” adding that “years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed.” Western and Middle Eastern allies have applauded the strike but Russian President Vladimir Putin, characterized the attack as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.”
The strike on Shayat was an abrupt about-face for the Administration. A week before, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the Administration “accepts the political reality” of Assad’s rule. Now, the Administration has taken the most significant U.S. military action against Assad since the Syrian civil war started six years ago. Nevertheless, it is unclear what the strike means in terms of a wider U.S. policy toward Syria. It is certainly a strong message that Washington will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons. Shayat was chosen as the target because that is where U.S. intelligence claims the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attack was launched from and, on April 24, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced follow-up sanctions on 271 Syrian scientists connected to Assad’s chemical weapons program. However, despite mixed statements from Administration officials, there has been no word from Trump himself on what his ideal future for Syria looks like, or whether that future includes Assad.
April 12 – Trump Backs Down on NATO Campaign Rhetoric
Trump spent his first days in office calling NATO “obsolete” and pressing members to meet the 2 percent of GDP on defense spending goal, or else. A few months in, Trump has reversed course. At a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington April 12, Trump called NATO “the bulwark of international peace and security.” He again called on all NATO members to spend more on defense, but it seems the “or else” part is no longer in play.
April 13 – “Mother of All Bombs” Dropped in Afghanistan
The U.S. dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its history when it targeted underground ISIS positions in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, or “Mother of All Bombs,” was dropped on a network of fortified underground tunnels that ISIS had been using to stage attacks on government forces, destroying the group’s underground infrastructure and killing 36 ISIS fighters.
“Fortunately, with this enormous bomb, we now have the technological means to not just damage but to pretty much destroy these kinds of facilities,” said Bruce Hoffman. “Dropping the MOAB bomb on the ISIS complex is a real blow to ISIS – destroying a major logistical facility before it becomes a launch pad to sustain a concerted terrorist campaign in that country.”
April 20 – Trump Misses Deadline for 90-Day Report on Cybersecurity
As President-elect, Trump pledged in January to appoint a team that would provide him with a plan for protecting the country’s digital networks within the first 90 days of taking office. The 90-day deadline for the evaluation expired last week and there remains little evidence that Trump has assembled an adequate team, created any sort of significant plan, let alone clarified who will be in charge of what specifically when it comes to the Administration’s cybersecurity policies.
However, since taking office, a number of executive order drafts – including one yesterday – made their way into the public’s hands. Changes between drafts have swayed between military spearheading coordination efforts with the private sector rather than the Department of Homeland Security, internet service providers being signaled out to combat botnets to more vague language, the separation of the federal IT modernization efforts to an entirely different office under White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and, most recently, a provisions requesting a review into how to train and maintain the necessary cybersecurity workforce.
The most notable decision toward a cyber policy has been Trump’s selection of Rob Joyce, the former head of the NSA’s elite hacking unit, to fill the top National Security Council cybersecurity position.
April 26—Joint Statement by Tillerson, Mattis, and Coats on North Korea
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats released a joint statement outlining Trump’s policy plan for North Korea. The plan aims to “pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our allies and regional partners,” while leaving the option of negotiations open. Trump also invited the entire Senate to attend a briefing on the North Korean nuclear and missile threat.
In a Trump meeting with then-President Barack Obama, the former president listed North Korea as the top national security threat for the incoming Administration. Since entering office, Trump has repeatedly denounced North Korean provocations and most recently claimed he was “sending an armada” to the Korean Peninsula. While the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson had been rerouted to Korea, there was much confusion as to when it would arrive, signaling a miscommunication issue within the Administration. Nonetheless, even the mention of the carrier’s presence, combined with the possibility of a sixth nuclear test by North Korea, inflamed regional tensions. While the joint statement points the way forward, its use of “tightening sanctions” and “diplomatic pressure” are not new. So far, remaining open to negotiations is the only major departure from Obama-era North Korea policy.
No action in Latin America, Africa
Noticeably, the Trump administration has hardly moved on Latin America and Africa in the first 100 days. This is not drastically different from predecessors – Latin America and Africa are often the forgotten regions when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. However, Trump has strongly advocated building a wall on the border with Mexico to curb migration, while seemingly failing to take into account the large numbers of migrants who move through Central America and the Caribbean to get to the United States. At the same time, Venezuela is on the verge of implosion. The economic and political crises there have already contributed to mass migration from Venezuela to the surrounding region – Colombia in particular. This could, in the future, translate into more migration to the United States. It is telling to note the lack of officials appointed in the Trump administration to deal with the region. Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy notes, “The Trump Administration has not nominated an Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs nor a new ambassador to the Organization of American States. At the Pentagon, no one has been named Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere, the highest-ranking civilian position in the Defense Department focused on the region.”
On Africa, a similar logic applies. Trump has made fighting terrorism and Islamic extremism a significant priority in his Administration, yet has taken few – if any – steps to combat the terrorism spreading across Africa, from al Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya to Boko Haram in Nigeria to Islamic State affiliates strewn throughout the continent. This lack of attention will likely hurt U.S. interests in the future.
Contributing to this article are Will Edwards (@_wedwards), Kaitlin Lavinder (@KaitLavinder), Fritz Lodge (@FritzLodge), Levi Maxey (@lemax13), and Bennett Seftel (@BennettSeftel).
