"We have effectively given up on trying to block the president's criticisms of our friends. It can't be helped. He wants to say whatever he wants to say, as he does on any other issue. If anything, when he's told not to say something- to avoid criticizing a leader directly, for instance, or to keep himself from breaking a promise we've made- Trump will say it louder. After these outbursts, it's embarrassing for Trump lieutenants who need to ask the same foreign partners for help on something, whether it is to catch a wanted criminal or to support the United States in an important vote at the United Nations. Imagine someone announced to a crowd that you were a "pompous fool" and then rang you up for a favor. That's the sort of cool reception American officials receive all the time in foreign meetings. President Trump does more than humiliate America's friends. He takes actions or threatens to take actions that will damage them in the long run. For example, Trump has hit Western partners with trade penalties, invoking "national security" provisions of US law to counter what he says are unfair economic practices in places such as Europe. He was on the brink of pulling out of a trade deal with South Korea in the midst of tense discussions on North Korea, putting the US ally in an awkward position. He threatened to scrap a longstanding US defense treaty with Japan, speculating that if America was attacked, the Japanese would not come to our aid but would instead "watch it on a Sony television." And he regularly threatens to discard existing or pending international agreements with our friends in order to get them to do what he wants, including displaying personal fealty towards him."