Ignatius: Can Trump buy a foreign policy?

WASHINGTON – Maybe Donald Trump plans to buy a foreign policy. Because based on the CNN Republican presidential debate, he doesn’t seem to have one of his own – other than forming what sounds like a kind of “dictators’ club” with the big guys from Russia and China.

As for the other Republican candidates in Wednesday night’s debate, they mirrored the foreign policy frustration and disagreement that afflict the country as a whole. They all banged on President Obama’s allegedly weak leadership, but it was hard to know whether they would take the country deeper into war in the Middle East or move to a better-armed and safer distance.

David Ignatius

You could hear some of the air deflating from the Trump balloon when he talked foreign policy. Asked what he would do about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military moves in Syria, Trump offered what sounded like a Yalta-style embrace. “I would talk to him. I would get along with him,” he said.

Big-guy diplomacy was also Trump’s apparent answer for Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We don’t get along with China. We get along with nobody. I will get along.”