Trump and Johnson: Allies in Disruption

Some European officials and analysts expect Mr. Johnson to act as more of a traditionalist than Mr. Trump. After all, he is a product of the British establishment — schooled at Eton and Oxford University, a member of Parliament, the former mayor of London. His stint as foreign minister from 2016 to 2018 resulted in some colorful quotes but no radical breaks from previous policies.

And for all his bluster and idiosyncrasies, Mr. Johnson does not rail against elite circles in the way that Mr. Trump does.

“People keep putting them in the same box,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, head of the United States and Americas program at Chatham House, a research group in London. “But I see them as very, very different kinds of people with quite different instincts and very different networks. Boris has been an insider all the way through — everybody knows him, everybody has worked with him.”

“Boris is highly intelligent,” she added. “He plays the game very differently.”

The test may come on Iran. Until now, the United States and Britain have been diametrically opposed over Mr. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of harsh sanctions to force political change in Tehran.

Under Ms. May, and during Mr. Johnson’s tenure as foreign minister, Britain denounced Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement, insisting that it was working. With France and Germany, Britain sought to set up a barter system to get food, medicine and other goods to Iran, noting that they were not banned by the unilateral American sanctions.

European officials say Britain is still working in concert with the Europeans on Iran, despite the seizure last week of a British oil tanker by the Iranian military.

There is no sign yet that Mr. Johnson will abandon the European project to save the nuclear deal. And if Mr. Trump stumbles into a war with Iran, Mr. Johnson would almost certainly face great opposition from the British public if he tried to deploy its military to stand alongside the United States.

Source: The New York Times

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