It’s not unusual for presidents to want to hear some words of gratitude. But the friction usually happens behind closed doors.
After President Trump spoke on the phone with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last week, the White House wanted to make one thing clear: The Ukrainian leader was grateful to the American president. Very grateful.
The statement recounting the call mentioned four times that Mr. Zelensky had thanked the president for his efforts to negotiate terms of a ceasefire with Russia. It then went on to note that Mr. Zelensky was “grateful” for Mr. Trump’s leadership.
The description revealed a pattern in the Trump administration’s shaping of its foreign policy agenda: When it comes to diplomacy, Mr. Trump wants an implicit or explicit display of personal gratitude from American allies.
Michael Froman, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Mr. Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy suggests that he sees aiding U.S. allies as a favor, rather than as a cornerstone of foreign policy that will pay dividends down the road.
“That does sort of signal a fundamentally different notion of order than we have had for the last 80 years, which is that while our allies need to step up and do more for their own defense, our support of their defense is also in our interest,” Mr. Froman said. “ I believe President Trump is questioning that.”
The starkest example of Trump’s insistence on a thank-you came during a meeting last month in the Oval Office that included Mr. Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Mr. Zelensky.