The Trump administration struggled to contain an embarrassing diplomatic flap after first saying Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson would skip a key gathering of NATO foreign ministers next month in Brussels to attend meetings with the Chinese president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The scheduling plans set off a new flurry of speculation over the depth of the new Trump administration’s commitment to the alliance that has long been the bedrock of U.S. foreign policy, and of Mr. Trump’s expressed hopes of forging a new working relationship with Mr. Putin, a fierce critic of NATO.
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis first attempted to ease concerns among NATO allies over Mr. Tillerson’s absence, saying Tuesday that U.S. representatives would in fact be in attendance. And the Reuters news agency, which first broke the story, reported Tuesday evening that Mr. Tillerson was now asking other NATO foreign ministers if the meeting could be rescheduled so he could attend.
It was not known if a new date can be found in what will be a busy diplomatic spring.
“We are certainly appreciative of the effort to accommodate Secretary Tillerson,” department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. “We have offered alternative dates that the secretary could attend.”
Despite Mr. Trump’s repeated statements that NATO’s Cold War mission was “obsolete” and that many NATO members have failed to pay their fair share of the defense burden, the U.S. “remains 100 percent committed to NATO,” Mr. Toner added.
Mr. Tillerson’s original decision to skip the April 5-6 ministerial in Brussels, which will likely focus on alliance-led efforts in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, in favor of bilateral talks with China and Russia was quickly interpreted by some as a slight against the Cold War alliance by the Trump White House. Past secretaries of state have almost always attended the gatherings.
State Department officials initially said Mr. Tillerson will be meeting with many of his NATO counterparts over the next two days as President Trump convenes a summit of the 68 countries that are part of the global coalition to defeat Islamic State. All 28 NATO members, except for Croatia, are participating in the anti-Islamic State coalition.
But the symbolism of Mr. Tillerson’s absence from the NATO gathering sparked another round of questioning of American commitment to the defense alliance and Mr. Trump’s desire for better relations with Mr. Putin.
Mr. Mattis, who has publicly championed NATO, attempted to ease the diplomatic row, saying details of an American delegation heading to the NATO meeting were being hashed out by administration officials.
“We’ll take care of the representation. This is something to be worked out, no problem,” Mr. Mattis told reporters shortly before a Tuesday meeting with Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinisto at the Defense Department.
Mr. Tillerson has been hampered because virtually all of the top political jobs at his department are being filled by Obama administration holdovers, with President Trump yet to nominate replacements.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg refused to address questions concerning Mr. Tillerson’s schedule before a meeting with Mr. Mattis at the Pentagon earlier in the day, saying only, “I think we all understand that in times of turmoil, in times of uncertainty, the need for strong international institutions like NATO is even greater.”
Late Tuesday, NATO officials hastily announced that Mr. Stoltenberg had been invited to the White House for his first meeting with Mr. Trump on April 12.
Mr. Tillerson is set to join President Trump in Florida for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping April 6-7, then travel to Sicily for a G-7 meeting, and then on to Moscow for bilateral talks with Mr. Putin and other Russian officials. That initial decision to skip the ministerial in order to attend bilateral talks with Russia sparked outcry from some House Democrats on the chamber’s intelligence and foreign relations committees.
The decision represents “a grave error that will shake the confidence of America’s most important alliance,” New York Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
“I cannot fathom why the administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” he added.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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