Dave Brat, Australia’s freshly confirmed U.S. ambassador, didn’t need to learn another language to qualify for his new gig. But he’s coming into the job fluent in a niche dialect that could give him a big advantage.

“He can speak Trump,” James Braid, President Donald Trump’s director of legislative affairs, said in a recent interview. “He can understand Trump, and he’s recognized as a longtime Trump ally. And I think that will really help him facilitate Aussie-United States relations.”

This dynamic could be key as Brat gets to work in Canberra, where political leaders have been rattled by the Trump administration’s aggressive trade agenda resulting in the implementation of a 12.5 percent tariff on Australian goods.

A longtime economist and academic, Brat is an avowed free trade advocate, which could quell some nerves on the ground. But Brat has also defended the Trump administration’s tariff regime as a kind of reset of the U.S. economic relationship with the world, telling a local news outlet in his home state of Virginia last year that “these tariffs are an attempt to bring some balance.”

At the same time, he has the ear of the White House, having earned Trump’s trust and respect long ago as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2014 to 2019. There, Brat was a member of the House Freedom Caucus — a contingent of conservative hard-liners known for taking uncompromising positions on federal spending — and in 2016 he embraced then-presidential candidate Trump as other more establishment Republicans turned their noses.

“The president hasn’t forgotten that,” said Braid, who was policy director of the Freedom Caucus during that period.

The Freedom Caucus was, as it is now, perpetually at war with party leadership on Capitol Hill, but the group harnessed Brat’s affable disposition and deft touch in high-stakes policy negotiations. He was obsessed with making sure that the group’s goals would be understood both by negotiators across the table and the public — something his former colleagues expect him to bring to the international stage.

Justin Ouimette, a former longtime executive director of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview that Brat’s approach has always been, “here’s the message and here’s where it is coming from” — a tactic that “tends to lower the temperature.”

“He was one of those guys that’s typically dispatched to disagree without being disagreeable,” Braid agreed. “Brat is really effective at stating a position, being firm while also collaborating to reach an outcome, and so that that experience will serve him well in his new diplomatic post.”

There’s hope among some in Washington that Brat’s views on trade, coupled with his ties to the Trump administration, could help soothe existing tensions and result in a positive working relationship between the U.S. and Australia. That optimism is shared by Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, who supported Brat’s nomination.

“He will be very focused on commerce, trade, and economic opportunity. You know, things that are good for the U.S. and good for the Australian economies,” said Kaine, who as governor once relied on Brat’s contributions to a bipartisan economic advisory panel to build the state’s budget.

“He’ll be very mindful of the commercial relationship, and I think that’s something that will be viewed positively by the Aussies,” Kaine added.

He noted that Virginia’s massive naval base would now have an advocate in Brat amid the continued implementation of AUKUS, a trilateral security pact among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. in 2021 aimed at helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

Warner was less effusive, saying he has “disagreed with Dave on a lot of issues,” but acknowledged he also was “a smart guy” he supported for the ambassadorship.

Brat also has long been vocal about the competitive threats to the U.S. posed by China, a concern shared by Australia in its diplomatic engagement with the Pacific region. Ouimette speculated that “his clear-mindedness and alignment with the administration on that particular issue weighed in his favor” as the White House was making its ambassador selection.

There are still some unknowns, however, including whether Brat will be living in Canberra full time and how he’ll handle staffing issues at the U.S. Embassy.

“I understand that Mission Australia’s current staffing and facilities are insufficient to meet the demands of our expanding Alliance activities,” Brat said in a written response to U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, as part of his confirmation proceedings. “Our investment in diplomatic infrastructure reflects our commitment to this vital partnership.”

Brat’s arrival heads a wave of new senior appointments at the embassy including Robert T. Koepcke as deputy chief of mission and Jonathan A. Habjan as counselor for political affairs.

A slew of new military postings at the embassy includes Col. Richard Bush as defense attaché; Col. Pete Roongsang as Army attaché; and Col. Kabir Rao as chief of MILGROUP, which manages security cooperation, foreign military sales and defense relations with the Australian Armed Forces.

Brat also hasn’t spoken publicly or at length about how or why he was recommended for this particular posting, though he said during his confirmation hearing that he “loved the Australian people I have met in my life and appreciate their decency, wit and sense of humor” — as well as being a “tennis fanatic” eager to engage in “sports diplomacy across the board.”

Australian Prime Anthony Albanese is also a keen tennis player, known to invite dignitaries and journalists to play on the court at his official Canberra residence, The Lodge.

“I’m very much looking forward to having a hit of tennis with David Brat,” Albanese told POLITICO, adding that he believes Brat’s appointment will “bolster” the existing alliance.

Brat did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for interviews.

But Braid made clear that sending Brat to Australia is not a vanity posting or just a favor for a longtime Trump loyalist, calling Brat “a serious lawmaker with serious chops.” He conceded that while Brat “comes from a political tradition that may be a little bit unfamiliar to the Australians,” he brings relationships and experiences to the table a career foreign service officer could not.

“This is a serious person,” Braid said.

Most of Donald Trump’s success in politics has stemmed from his reputation as a savvy dealmaker. But in his 11 years on the national political scene, that has been exposed as a fiction — a persona invented by Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter for the president’s bestselling book “The Art of The Deal,” who followed him around for 18 months and realized in the process that no one would want to read a book about the real Trump. 

After Trump announced his run for president in 2015, Schwartz told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer he felt deep remorse for creating this erroneous image of Trump, saying if he wrote the book today, he would call it “The Sociopath.” He said, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

His words were startling, to say the least, but Schwartz’s description of the president’s true personality was revelatory. The man who touted himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker was a pathologically dishonest hype artist with the attention span of a four-year-old, described by Schwartz as having “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance” who seemed “driven entirely by a need for public attention.” His alleged negotiation prowess was actually nonexistent, as the multiple failures of his businesses should have made clear. 

In Trump’s first administration, it became obvious that his idea of dealmaking consisted of willingly succumbing to flattery by malevolent actors and ineffectually bellowing at allies. Professional diplomatic and national security advisers managed to steer him away from most disasters, although he commonly embarrassed the nation on the world stage by displaying his ignorance and fondness for sucking up to adversaries. 

Trump’s second term is a whole other story. 

The president has confused his “Art of the Deal” with the art of diplomacy, and they are most definitely not the same thing. Even if he were actually talented at the former, which he is not, it would have no bearing on the latter, and the consequences of that are turning out to be substantial and damaging. By this point, it’s a cliché that Trump is “transactional,” which many (if not most) people understand to mean he is negotiating on behalf of the American people, bringing riches and security to the nation. In reality, Trump’s often self-serving deals are gravely harming the national interest. 

Diplomacy isn’t just signing a particular agreement between two countries. That may be the culmination of negotiations or just the beginning, but it isn’t actually the goal, especially for a superpower. The aim is to manage relations between countries over the long term to maintain stability and predictability; it’s not a “winner take all” proposition. Credibility is everything for a country like the United States, and now, without it, we are unleashing powerful forces that will be very hard to control.

Trump is a pathological liar. Schwartz discovered that from the very beginning. He was attached to Trump at the hip for many months, listening in on every phone call, observing his conversations and racking his brain to figure out how to present the man as a lovable rogue rather than the damaged personality he really is. The whole world has seen this up close for the past decade. 

At first, allies depended upon the professional diplomatic and national security apparatus to continue to run things in spite of Trump’s erratic behavior and belligerence. They understood early on he loved pomp and circumstance, and that he was easily flattered by obsequious compliments, so they played along, giving him the pageantry of over-the-top state visits and paying homage to him at his properties and the White House. But for the most part, they were just trying to wait out the term, expecting that the American people would realize the error of their ways and revert to being a serious nation. 

This time around is different. A recent report in the Washington Post by Steve Hendrix and Anthony Faiola revealed that the world is no longer taking the U.S. seriously, leaving the government with no credibility. As a result, international relations are unstable and dangerous. 

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When Trump regained office the second time, the world quaked at his swagger, backed up by a bizarre tariff regime that seemed to be put together by Mad Libs. The markets dropped, recriminations flowed, and it looked as if Trump had finally been completely unleashed. To some extent, he had been. He and his close circle had decided to do whatever they wanted and see what they could get away with. But it soon became evident there wasn’t really any strategy or even any particular goals, despite the apparent participation of people like Elon Musk and the authors of Project 2025. In the end, it was all about Trump’s whims, which changed from minute to minute. 

The short attention span Schwartz described is now even more pronounced. The president’s obsession with building monuments to himself notwithstanding, he flits from subject to subject, bellowing threats to all who oppose him and rewarding his cronies with ever more obvious modes of corruption. 

The world has decided to stop paying attention. “[M]ost consequently,” Hendrix and Faiola wrote, “Iran refuses to bend under American bombs and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and Russian President Vladimir Putin persists in his war in Ukraine. Europe met Trump’s recently renewed demands for Greenland with a collective sigh, and trading partners have shrugged off the latest tariffs.” 

Over the years, world leaders have had varying reactions to American presidents of both parties. But the country’s leaders have never been disregarded. 

Jeremy Shapiro, director of the U.S. program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the Post he was surprised at how long Trump’s bluffs and bellicosity had worked, crediting it to the “awesome power and deep, long-stored-up diplomatic capital of the United States” that Trump has “finally started to blow through.”

The president’s threats are now seen as empty, and his so-called deals aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. This was most recently on display in mid-July when he made a big, splashy announcement of a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Within a day, Trump added a poison-pill requirement by way of a Truth Social post that left the Saudis reeling. His threats to annihilate Iran are now falling on deaf ears because he’s all over the place, usually lying about the progress of diplomatic talks, showing that he’s full of bluster and bombast but lacks a strategy to win and ideas about how to get out. 

America’s political dynamics have us all just trying to hold on until he’s out of office so we can try to rebuild from the rubble. But the loss of credibility, the exposure of the nation’s weaknesses and the people’s willingness to put such a man in charge will not be easily repaired. The long-term damage to our international reputation, coupled with the weakness we are demonstrating in any number of areas, will leave us vulnerable for a long time to come.

The post The world is finally calling Trump’s bluff appeared first on Salon.com.

Iran said Monday there are currently no direct talks with the United States, after President Donald Trump said negotiations would resume. Speaking at his weekly news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran’s current negotiations are limited to Oman and focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“Our negotiations are with Oman. We are focused on an understanding on a route that will ensure the safe passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” Baghaei said at a news conference, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

He added that “the focus of the negotiations with Oman will be on this issue,” while “the issues related to Iran and the United States should be examined in the next stages to see where the situation will go.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran would resume Monday, after scrapping a planned military strike over the weekend. Speaking on Sunday, the American leader also refused to set a deadline for reaching a broader deal with Tehran.

“They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming. Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll see,” said Trump, talking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

Asked whether he had imposed a deadline, the U.S. president responded: “Would I rather make a deal? I’m not looking to kill people because people die, a lot of people die, and we don’t want that.”

Trump’s remarks came on the heels of his early Sunday announcement on Truth Social that the U.S. was shelving a “massive attack,” after Iran and several Middle Eastern countries asked Washington to pause military action while negotiators worked toward an agreement. He said the framework under discussion included the “Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT” and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat, adding that Israel had also agreed to pause strikes.

Baghaei stated there would be “no significant change” in the situation in the Strait of Hormuz as long as Iran remained under what he described as U.S. military pressure.

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U.S. President Donald Trump said late Saturday that he was canceling planned strikes on Iran pending a rapid agreement with Tehran to end the conflict in the Middle East.

“We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” Trump announced in a post on Truth Social.

He said the agreement would include the “Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT” and “an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Trump added that Israel supported his commitment to pause strikes, contingent on “being able to rapidly make a DEAL.”

The announcement came after reports in U.S. media that Washington had been preparing new, intense strikes on Iran over the weekend, including on the country’s energy infrastructure. On Saturday the U.S. government urged Americans across the Middle East to remain alert and prepare for possible evacuations “should there be escalation” in the region.

Iran has not yet responded to Trump’s announcement and has not confirmed that a deal with Washington has been reached.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held calls Saturday night with counterparts in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, according to posts on his Telegram channel. The country’s acting defense minister, Majid Ibn al-Reza, said Sunday that Tehran would “neither be caught off guard nor remain passive,” according to state media.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, called for diplomacy to ease tensions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Trump in a phone call that dialogue should be prioritized to “de-escalate tensions” in the Middle East, Saudi state media reported Sunday.