A career diplomat who was appointed by President George HW Bush to serve as United Nations ambassador warned that Americans are "no longer a predictable partner" due to President Donald Trump's increasing self-interest and "fascination" with "dictatorial autocracy."
"We're getting out of agreements rather than fashioning them," ex-UN ambassador Tom Pickering told journalist Ian Bremmer. "We're no longer trustworthy."
The international diplomatic world's response to the Trump administration is, perhaps, part of "the growing up of the alternative of the liberal progressive order," Pickering said. "And that alternative is very clearly dictatorial autocracy."
Referencing Trump, the former diplomat noted that "dictatorial autocracy is the, perhaps, fascination of a small group of leaders who aspire to it."
Again referencing the current administration, Pickering said that it seems current American leadership is looking at its "own interest instead of your national interest."
"Is it good to have a disheveled world?" he mused. "Is it good to have increasing competition for power? Is it good to have an America where you can't turn and say, 'what's the United States going to do'?"
After World War II and during the Cold War, America's allies could predict and rely on its moves — but that stability is "seemingly now all disappearing," the seasoned diplomat added, noting that allied nations are "having a problem now of 'once burned twice shy.'"
"Americans at one time elected somebody who did all these things... that have not helped promote American leadership in the world," Pickering concluded. "Can we ever trust the US again to stay on track?"
Watch below: