LONDON (AP) \u2014 Do not antagonize one\u2019s opponents unnecessarily, a basic principle of diplomacy says. But as the United States faces a trade war with China and various tensions overseas, President Donald Trump\u2019s emissaries are increasingly ticking off allied countries and being called to account. <\/p>\n
Just this week, no fewer than three U.S. envoys scrambled to extricate themselves from diplomatic hot water. <\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s foreign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat<\/a> in the country to answer for reports that at least three people with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland<\/a>, a Danish territory. France summoned the U.S. ambassador<\/a>, Trump in-law Charles Kushner, over his letter to President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> alleging the country has not done enough to fight antisemitism. And the American ambassador to Turkey, longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack, apologized<\/a> Thursday for using the word \u201canimalistic\u201d while calling for a gaggle of reporters to quiet down during a press conference in Lebanon.<\/p>\n But in the other two cases, the Trump administration stood pat. Kushner did not show up for his summonsing, leaving the French to take it up with his No. 2. The top diplomat in Denmark did attend his meeting in Copenhagen, and the State Department said a \u201cproductive conversation\u201d ensued. But behind the scenes in Washington, the Trump administration \u2014 through an official who spoke only on condition of anonymity \u2014 had a far more casual response.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Danes,\u201d the official said, \u201cneed to calm down.\u201d<\/p>\n A pattern emerges<\/p>\n There was much tsk-tsking from the diplomatic world over the indelicate exchanges, which would perhaps have been minor on their own. <\/p>\n But they\u2019re consistent with Trump\u2019s blunt-spoken style, his \u201cAmerica First\u201d approach to foreign policy and his attitude toward reporters \u2014 all of which appeal to broad swaths of his political base. And they track with the president\u2019s record of upending norms. Indeed, the State Department has offered little in response, except to say that it supports Kushner\u2019s letter to Macron and that the government \u201cdoes not control or direct\u201d the actions of private citizens in Greenland.<\/p>\n White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly dismissed the notion that the recent diplomatic kerfuffles have undercut Trump\u2019s global standing or dimmed his trust in his envoys.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump has restored America\u2019s standing on the world stage, and his foreign policy accomplishments speak for themselves,\u201d Kelly said, citing Trump\u2019s trade deals<\/a>, his strike<\/a> on Iran<\/a> \u2018s nuclear facilities and the freeing of Americans detained<\/a> in other countries<\/a> as examples. \u201cHe has full confidence in his entire team to advance his America First foreign policy agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n The trifecta of ire against American diplomats in recent days was only the latest against Trump\u2019s overseas appointees, several of whom raised eyebrows<\/a> during the president\u2019s first term. That\u2019s in part due to the particularly American practice \u2014 in both parties \u2014 of handing coveted postings to campaign donors and presidential friends regardless of their diplomatic experience.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s diplomats have something of a track record of annoying foreign governments. During his first term, numerous U.S. ambassadors from Iceland to Germany and South Africa as well as the European Union got under the skin of their host governments, prompting summonses if not private complaints.<\/p>\n One former senior State Department official said Trump loved the publicity these incidents received and often sent the ambassadors in question congratulatory notes when their actions produced news coverage. <\/p>\n The main exception to that was Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU whom Trump fired<\/a> just days after Sondland testified<\/a> on Capitol Hill during Trump\u2019s first impeachment proceedings<\/a> over Ukraine. <\/p>\n The hearings touched on another messy diplomatic matter \u2014 Trump\u2019s ousting of his ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who testified that<\/a> she felt pressured to issue statements of support for Trump. \u201cThe woman,\u201d Trump said during a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, \u201cshe\u2019s going to go through some things.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, the recent dustups were striking for their risk of amplifying tensions among Western allies as the U.S. and China vie for economic superiority and talk of a meetup<\/a> between their leaders as soon as this fall.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration stresses, I think rightly, that the U.S.-China rivalry is now the major axis around which international affairs turn,\u201d Iver B. Neumann, director of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, an independent think tank in Norway, wrote in an email. \u201cOne of the major assets of the U.S. in that rivalry is that it has a high number of allies, whereas China only has one (North Korea). Present U.S. policy alienates allies on purpose, which risks losing them.\u201d <\/p>\n What happened with France?<\/p>\n It started with Macron\u2019s decision to recognize a Palestinian state<\/a>, which angered Israel and the U.S. because it revived the prospect of a two-state solution to the seemingly endless conflict.<\/p>\n Kushner\u2019s response, published Sunday by The Wall Street Journal<\/a>, alleged that such \u201cpublic statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence and endanger Jewish life in France.\u201d Kushner urged Macron, among other things, to \u201cabandon steps that give legitimacy to Hamas and its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n France\u2019s Foreign Ministry said it \u201cfirmly refutes\u201d Kushner\u2019s allegation and declared that it fell \u201cshort of the quality of the transatlantic relationship between France and the United States and the trust that should result from it between allies.\u201d<\/p>\n (Trump has said several times and in several contexts, \u201cI don\u2019t trust anybody,\u201d<\/a> including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.)<\/p>\n The ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador on Monday, a formal and public notice of displeasure. He did not show, so French officials met with the embassy\u2019s No. 2<\/a> instead. Kushner, a real-estate developer, is the father of Trump\u2019s<\/a> son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n What about Denmark?<\/p>\n Trump has been relatively quiet recently about his desire to acquire Greenland, the Danish territory in the Arctic, for security purposes<\/a>. In March, Greenland voted to decide its own future<\/a> as it moves toward independence from Denmark.<\/p>\n