Gerard Araud, French Ambassador To The U.S., On Trump: "Brutal, A Bit Primitive, But In A Sense He's Right” On Free Trade

Very interesting. More positive than I'd have guessed:

   You are offering us a test case of what happens when a populist is elected in a liberal democracy. So thank you very much for the test case. What is important in this crisis is the strength of your institutions.
   I don’t think that anything irreparable is happening in the U.S. I don’t know what would have happened in France if Marine Le Pen had been elected, because our institutions are much weaker.
   Let’s look at the dogma of the previous period. For instance, free trade. It’s over. Trump is doing it in his own way. Brutal, a bit primitive, but in a sense he’s right. What he’s doing with China should have been done, maybe in a different way, but should have been done before. Trump has felt Americans’ fatigue, but [Barack] Obama also did. The role of the United States as a policeman of the world, it’s over. Obama started, Trump really pursued it. You saw it in Ukraine. You are seeing it every day in Syria. People here faint when you discuss NATO, but when he said, “Why should we defend Montenegro?,” it’s a genuine question. I know that people at Brookings or the Atlantic Council will faint again, but really yes, why, why should you? 

These are the questions which are being put on the table in a brutal and a bit primitive way by Trump, but they are real questions. Where the shift is going to push us, I really don’t know.

Child of the Cold War that I am, I have a not-obviously-justified pr-NATO attitude. In fact, it's Trump's treatment of NATO that probably alarms me most.
   But wait, there's more:

   It’s possible to work with him. You define your agreement, which usually is a very narrow agreement, and you can work together. The guy is a real professional, but is also an ideologue, so it’s a bit difficult. He has been working on foreign policy for 40 years … which is not the case with the secretary of state. Admittedly, you have to know what the narrow limits are of working together—his nationalism, the fact that he hates international organizations.
   But on some issues he is a realist, so we can work with him. Syria is a very good example. The president took the decision of withdrawing from Syria. He consulted nobody. Bolton didn’t know that the decision would be announced. After that, what they tried to do is not to actually to negate the decision, but to alleviate the consequences of the decision.