President Trump’s stunning dismissal of John R. Bolton clears the stage for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — along with Vice President Mike Pence, one of the few members of Mr. Trump’s original national security inner circle still standing — to wield more influence over a raft of foreign policy challenges confronting the White House.

While Mr. Pompeo was publicly aligned with the ousted national security adviser’s notoriously hard-line positions on several fronts, in particular on Iran, the two sharply disagreed in private on a range of other matters, most notably the pursuit of sensitive nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

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National security sources said Tuesday that Mr. Bolton’s departure could open the way for renewed “working level” talks and a possible step-by-step approach with North Korea — an approach the State Department was once seen to advocate only to be shut down by Mr. Bolton’s demand that Pyongyang accept an all-or-nothing deal.

It wasn’t the only area where the two men disagreed. Mr. Pompeo’s background as a tea-party-backed star in the House of Representatives has made him more adept at working personally with Mr. Trump, particularly when it comes to threading the policy needle implementing the president’s “America First” foreign policy impulses.

But the secretary of state’s influence was challenged when Mr. Bolton, an entirely different kind of foreign policy conservative, joined the administration’s inner circle in April 2018.

Mr. Bolton’s neoconservative bent — favoring U.S. military intervention and regime change as go-to policy options — initially added heft to the administration’s pressure campaigns against Iran and North Korea. But it also soon clashed with Mr. Trump’s desires to withdraw U.S. forces from undesired conflict zones and to persuade foreign nations to take more responsibility for global security, even if it means pressuring allies to pay more for their own defense. . . .

The secretary of state has not always meshed perfectly with his boss, including Mr. Trump’s surprise recognition of Israeli control of the Golan Heights and the president’s cut of foreign aid programs to Central American nations.

But Mr. Pompeo’s personal rapport with Mr. Trump, his willingness to defend the administration in the media and his determined campaign never to show daylight between himself and the president on major issues are likely to take on new significance with Mr. Bolton gone. . . .

“He said that [on] North Korea, he’s actually said that [on] Iran, and you know, Bolton’s been very, very loud in his call for regime change around the world,” Mr. Paul said. “I think the problem is that it’s a naive point of view to believe that we can militarily topple regimes around the world and that they’ll be replaced with democracies.”

Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolton were like “oil and water,” while the president’s “relationship with Secretary Pompeo is quite strong.”. . .

Mr. Pompeo has also apparently been spared the occasional dressing-down that former Trump aides say are a regular feature of working in this administration.

“I argue with everyone,” Mr. Trump told New York Magazine in a 2018 interview. “Except Pompeo. I don’t think I’ve had an argument with Pompeo.”

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