London: Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, by Twitter, that he has sacked Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Tillerson's brutal departure may reduce the US administration's divisions on key foreign policy issues, but is unlikely to stop continued flip-flops by the President which reflect the ad-hoc nature of his style of governing, policy inexperience, and contrarian nature.

When Trump moved into the White House, he promised an “America First” platform that could have reshaped US foreign and trade policy more radically than at any point since the beginning of the Cold War. But so far he has failed - abjectly - to forge any new Trump doctrine centered around his vision.

To be sure, he has made some moves to shift away from the post-war orthodoxy pursued by both Democratic and Republican presidents, such as building US-led alliances to expand the liberal democratic order. He has, for instance, scrapped US involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal with key allies in Asia-Pacific and the Americas; withdrawn from the Paris climate change deal agreed by more than 170 nations; and launched a review of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which may yet collapse in 2018.

The first two of these initiatives were Obama signature policies, and Trump has also partially rolled back other key measures from the previous administration like the Cuba liberalisation initiative. He has also put into serious jeopardy the nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, France and Germany.