James Gibney, Columnist

Team Trump Seems Unaware of Soft Power's Punch

Military force can provide leverage for diplomacy, but not if the State Department has no officials to talk to our allies and enemies.

April 19, 2017 at 3:38 PM UTC

By James Gibney

James Gibney is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. Previously an editor at the Atlantic, the New York Times, Smithsonian, Foreign Policy and the New Republic, he was also in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1989 to 1997 in India, Japan and Washington.

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The grown-ups are back in charge. President Donald Trump has at last become presidential. “The Blob” is winning.

From his cruise missile strike on Syria and chocolate cake-date with Chinese President Xi Jinping to his newfound embrace of NATO, Trump’s flurry of flip-flops last week infused Washington’s foreign policy establishment with barely muted giddiness.