FOREIGN POLICY/PAKISTAN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A surprise New Year’s Day tweet by President Donald Trump in which he appeared to decree an end to U.S. aid for Pakistan, sent U.S. officials scrambling to suspend security assistance without even knowing how much aid they were freezing, four U.S. officials said.
The decision to freeze up to about $2 billion in security aid, according to a later estimate by U.S. officials, to a nuclear-armed ally is the latest example of how, nearly a year into Trump’s presidency, U.S. officials sometimes have to scurry to turn his tweets into policy.
The Trump administration had been weighing an aid freeze for months, including in a meeting of top national security advisers before Christmas. Washington has for years demanded that Islamabad stop providing sanctuary and other support for the Afghan Taliban and the allied Haqqani network.
At the time of Trump’s tweet, a U.S. assessment of Pakistani compliance with those demands was still under way. A cohesive U.S. policy – including preparations for possible Pakistani reaction – was not expected to be completed until March or April, three U.S. officials interviewed said…
Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, did not address whether the tweet had sped up the policy process, saying Trump had made clear his intent to take a new, tougher stance toward Pakistan as part of the Afghanistan war strategy he unveiled in August.”
-Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed, John Walcott, “‘A mad scramble’: How Trump tweet on Pakistan blindsided U.S. officials,” Reuters, Jan. 11, 2018 02:15pm