Adjusting to the Trump presidency: Robert Ayson comments on the implications of Donald Trump's foreign policy for New Zealand and suggests the need for damage control.

• Author: Ayson, Robert

Many uncertainties surround the likely course of the presidency of Donald Trump, which is still in its early days. He has taken a number of measures that have created controversy. Self-inflicted problems have dogged his early days in the White House. So far Trump has not been confronted by a testing crisis that arises from external provocation, misunderstanding or disaster. It is sure to come, and the best that can be hoped for is a good-bad crisis, one that engages US attention and drives Trump towards a more orthodox approach to international relations in which he reaches out to allies and partners.

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Donald Trumps presidency is now three months old. By my calculation that is less than 2 per cent of a normal four-year term. This should alert us to the hazards of making straight-line projections on the basis of what we have seen since 20 January. We simply cannot know now the full range of challenges and opportunities that the wider world will be presenting between now and 2020 to Trump and his colleagues. Quite what happens to America and to us in the remaining 98 per cent of Trump's first term of office remains unclear.

My hesitancy may be regarded as strange. After all, we already know that some of Trump's controversial campaign rhetoric is becoming much more than that: executive orders and presidential memoranda are now part of Trump's expanded array of options as the holder of the world's most powerful elected office. He is not just tweeting stuff. He has been doing stuff.

With an early stroke of his pen the new president cancelled America's involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Years of challenging regional negotiations suddenly ended on the cutting room floor of US domestic politics. Trump also set in motion the process for the repeal of Obamacare. This is no accidental choice. It was the signature piece of domestic policy innovation during his predecessor's two terms of office.

Trump's anti-Mexican rhetoric on the campaign trail has been followed by the breakdown in one of America's most important bilateral relationships. A political wall is already in place well before a physical one gets built.

And fears that climate change mitigation would disappear as an American priority seem to have been fulfilled by its disappearance from the White House website. Climate change has become a non-person, a fact too uncomfortable to be acknowledged.

I hardly need remind about the most controversial step of all. That is the executive order entitled 'Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorists into the United States'. The New York Times Editorial Board called these restrictions on entry to the United States 'bigoted, cowardly, self-defeating policy'. The Washington Post equivalent branded this as 'a train wreck of decision-making'.

In trying to erect a travel fortress against citizens from seven Middle Eastern countries and Syrian refugees the Trump team achieved something quite remarkable. The new administration's first international crisis was one all of its own making. It is a drama playing out in the domestic politics of several of America's partners. Its not been an easy time for leaders who have given the appearance of wanting to soften their criticism of the new administration in the hope of building a strong relationship with those who now govern the world's most powerful country.

Coming crisis

So it was not a great start for Trump on the world stage. But what we have not seen yet is something that will undoubtedly come at some stage: a crisis not driven by the elevation of anti-Muslim populism into an executive order but one which results from external provocation, misunderstanding or disaster.

All administrations go through these. Just think of George W Bush's first term and the impact of 9/11 on his presidency and US foreign policy. Or think of how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis spelled the end for Jimmy Carter. Or think of the escalating problems in Crimea and Syria and the challenges these posed for the Obama administration's foreign policy.

We are only 2 per cent along the way. But at some point Trump and his team will be tested. It could be a provocation from North Korea. It could be a significant terrorist attack in Europe. Despite the warm fuzzies between Trump and Putin, it could be a Russian response to NATO's increased deployments in what used to be called Eastern Europe. It could be a test from Beijing designed to challenge Trump's flirtations with a two-China policy or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's robust language on preventing China's access to features in the South China Sea.

I am hoping for a good-bad crisis. A crisis bad enough to require Americas attention but which somehow demands that the Trump team reach out to allies and partners, and potential adversaries, for their co-operation; a crisis that reminds the new president that there is a reason why we have the United Nations and international agreements and norms. A crisis where Trump realises the importance of the daily briefings the intelligence community wants him to get, and where he sees the value that America's diplomats bring to the table. And a crisis where he decides that the kitchen cabinet of Bannon, Kushner, Conway and...