Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates criticized GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump for thinking “he has all the answers” Sunday
Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Gates also blasted Trump for thinking that “he’s the smartest man in the room,” which is the exact same criticism Gates lobbed at President Barack Obama earlier in January. This means that for Gates, Trump and Obama share striking similarities.
Past Republican presidents, Gates remarked, were willing to listen to the experts and incorporate their suggestions into decision-making. It’s unclear whether Trump is willing to do the same.
Apart from addressing his apparent arrogance, Gates also took shots at Trump’s “America First” foreign policy speech that took place last week. As far as Gates is concerned, Trump does not seem to understand the difference between business negotiations and negotiations between sovereign powers, The Hill reports.
“He doesn’t understand that there’s a give-and-take in international relations that is different than in the business community,” Gates said.
Gates also noted that international leaders are somewhat worried about the prospect of a Trump presidency because of his outlandish speeches and his promise that U.S. foreign policy will be both unpredictable and not nearly as publicized. Trump recently complained that the Obama administration provides far too much information to its enemies in press conferences, especially on troop deployments. He questioned why the U.S. publicly announced deployment of 250 special operators to Syria to target high-level officials from the Islamic State.
Gates did, however, agree with a couple of Trump’s points, namely that American allies should be contributing more to American-backed initiatives. For Gates, that point is “hard to disagree with” but noted dealing with 28 sovereign countries, for example, is harder than it seems.
“[N]obody argued harder for them to do more than I did, but how do you actually get these countries, many of which have weak governments, to agree to things that are very difficult?” Gates asked.
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