Bolton’s Departure Removes a Counterweight to Trump’s Foreign Policy

President Trump has rewritten the U.S. foreign policy playbook with his willingness to meet anyone and go anywhere to get a deal. With his hawkish national security adviser John Bolton gone, Mr. Trump has removed one of the last dissenting voices on his impulses and instincts.

So far, Mr. Trump has become the first president to set foot in North Korea and to meet its leader, and has sought to forge close ties to Russia’s president. Mr. Bolton’s exit could remove a barrier to a meeting at the United Nations with Iran’s president later this month, or to talks with members of the insurgent Afghan Taliban movement.

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“From the outset, President Trump has had two voices whispering in his ears: the one counseling diplomacy and…the other recommending belligerence,” said Rob Malley, who was an adviser to former President Obama and now heads the International Crisis Group in Washington. “With Bolton gone, the second voice undeniably has lost its loudest proponent. That could create new opportunities for diplomacy on Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and Venezuela,” Mr. Malley said.

The formalities and discipline of diplomacy were a tough fit for Mr. Trump from the start. He ran for office as a Republican but has few apparent ties to the party’s traditionally conservative philosophy on foreign-policy matters. He often cites his flexibility as a way to reassure people that some of his more unconventional and controversial proposals are subject to change.

Mr. Trump has said he shuns the need for consensus, hailing opposing views among his top advisers as an asset. As one of the last independent foreign policy voices in the administration, Mr. Bolton conveyed an unapologetic, ultra-hawkish but experienced view that frequently contradicted Mr. Trump’s boisterous but anti-militaristic approach to foreign policy matters.