Will Donald Trump end up following in the footsteps of George H.W. Bush? Many commentators are drawing invidious comparisons between the two men. Now that he has died at age 94, Bush is being hailed as a farsighted foreign policy president, while Trump is cast as the bad boy of international relations. But Trump, who had previously made disparaging remarks about Bush, signaled a more conciliatory approach at the G20, where he was fairly subdued in his meetings with foreign leaders and lauded Bush for his public service.
Bush's priority in international affairs was creating stability in a revolutionary age that would allow the United States to solidify its preeminence. He assembled a stellar foreign policy team. Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft shared Bush's realist vision of foreign affairs and helped him to implement it. After Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, Bush, who had served as the unofficial ambassador to China, insisted on maintaining ties to Beijing rather than turning it into an outcast. Bush felt an emotional tie to Beijing: “My long history with Deng and the other leaders made it possible for us to work through the crises without derailing Sino-American relations," he wrote in his diaries. He dispatched Scowcroft for a secret meeting in July 1989 to sound out the communist leadership.
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