The conflict and power struggle between U.S. President Donald Trump's think-tanks in the White House has been a matter of discourse for quite a while. The group led by Steve Bannon, the former editor-in-chief of Breitbart, one of the news portals of the alternative right movement, is trying to fill Trump's "America First" rhetoric with his own ideological lines. This effort, however, is subjected to counter-attacks from globalists around Trump.
Bannon's allies in the White House includes Trump’s advisors, Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller, as well as Tera Dahl, deputy chief of staff for the National Security Council (NSC). Dahl and Gorka were also Breitbart columnists. The Breitbart staff are better known for their Islamophobic views. Senior Advisor Miller is said to be influential on Trump's speech texts.
Trump's National Security advisors, General Herbert Raymond McMaster, and Gary Cohn, who was transferred from American finance giant Goldman Sachs and was appointed as the National Economy Council director, are leading figures in the globalist team. Both teams are working hard to affect Trump's views. These teams in the White House have different positions on a number of issues such as the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, Washington’s withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which consists of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the tightening of immigration laws and the declaration of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
The resignation of Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the replacement of him by General H.R. McMaster was an indicator of the conflict between the teams. After this appointment, Trump's Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was made to withdraw from NSC meetings.
The battle of teams led to complications in Washington's foreign policy. A race to adapt Trump to a doctrine begun recently started in the U.S.. The increase in the number of articles titled "Trump Doctrine" in the American media indicates that this race has escalated. The articles criticize that the Trump administration does not have a doctrine in key topics such as the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the EU and Africa, and then move on to list recommendations. The most striking title in this search for a doctrine is the “Middle East.”
Trump laid the greatest emphasis on the Western civilization in Poland, where he visited shortly before joining the G20 Summit in Hamburg. Pointing out that Western values must be protected against internal and external enemies, Trump did not neglect to warn Europe against the threats from the East and the South. Trump, presented radical Islam as the greatest threat to the West, however it did not go unnoticed that he did not emphasize democracy in his speech. While it is considered that Trump's speech in Poland was shaped by both Bannon and Miller, it is said General McMaster was more influential on his G20 visit.
As the G20 summit progressed, an interesting development occurred in Washington. Tera Dahl, one of Bannon's allies in the White House, resigned her post at the NSC. It has been suggested that Dahl voluntarily resigned and would like to be appointed to a position outside the White House. Of course, there are some who interpret this sudden development as a reflection of the battle between the opponent groups in the White House. In a nutshell, it seems that many more people in the White House will fall under the wreck until the efforts to form a doctrine for Trump cease.
