Tag: Trump foreign policy

Trump fires national security adviser Bolton

The Hill logoPresident Trump announced he had fired national security adviser John Bolton in a pair of tweets on Tuesday, ousting the high-profile officials just days after he canceled a planned meeting with Taliban representatives at Camp David.

Trump said in a series of tweets that he told Bolton on Monday night “that his services are no longer needed at the White House,” citing disagreements with many of Bolton’s suggestions, though he didn’t provide specific details.

The president also said that “others in the administration” disagreed with Bolton’s suggestions, a wording that hinted at the level of acrimony in the split.

View the complete September 10 article by Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

As billions flow to farmers, Trump administration faces internal concerns over unprecedented bailout

Washington Post logoSenior government officials, including some in the White House, privately expressed concern that the Trump administration’s nearly $30 billion bailout for farmers needed stronger legal backing, according to multiple people who participated in the planning.

The bailout was created by the Trump administration as a way to try to calm outrage from farmers who complained they were caught in the middle of the White House’s trade war with China. In an attempt to pacify farmers, the Agriculture Department created an expansive new program without precedent.

As part of the program, the USDA authorized $12 billion in bailout funds last year and another $16 billion this year, and Trump has said more money could be on the way.

View the complete September 9 article by Jeff Stein on The Washington Post website here.

While Trump continues to tout North Korea talks as success, signs of any progress are hard to find

Washington Post logoTwo months after President Trump shook hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Korean demilitarized zone, his administration remains stymied in its efforts to coax Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, leading to mounting frustrations that time is running out while Kim has strengthened his position.

In a new letter to Trump on Friday, leading Senate Democrats are calling the North’s recent short-range-missile tests “a significant step backwards” and demanding that the United States hold Kim’s regime accountable for actions that “clearly contravene” U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.

A leading Washington think tank concluded in a public assessment published Friday that an undisclosed North Korean operating base in Kumchon-ni houses medium-range ballistic missiles capable of striking southern Japan as well as the outskirts of Tokyo.

View the complete September 6 article by David Nakamura, John Hudson and Anne Gearan on The Washington Post website here.

Pence’s security detail raises eyebrows in peaceful Iceland

Washington Post logoLocals were reportedly urged to show “patience and understanding” for the visit.

Vice President Pence and his extensive security detail raised eyebrows on Wednesday as they traveled through the capital city of Iceland, a famously peaceful country where its president travels alone on private errands.

Pence was the first U.S. vice president to visit Iceland since George H.W. Bush went to Reykjavik in 1983, similarly causing a stir with his “attendant paraphernalia of Air Force Two, bulletproof limousines and White House telecommunication equipment,” The Washington Post reported at the time.

Weeks before Pence’s visit, Secret Service personnel were seen in the city scouting out locations, the Associated Press reported. Bomb-sniffing dogs were given special clearance to enter the country, and police officers from outside the capital were sent in to help the Reykjavik police meet security standards set by the United States. During the visit Wednesday, U.S. security personnel — who had to be given special permission to bear arms — trailed the vice president through the city. When Pence met with Icelandic officials, snipers were seen perched on the rooftops of nearby buildings, the AP wrote.

View the complete September 5 article by Rebecca Tan on The Washington Post website here.

Trump plays to evangelical base with hard-line support for Israel

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s recent push to win over Jewish voters faces an uphill battle, but his hard-line support for Israel may be aimed at a different audience altogether: evangelical Christians.

Trump last month embraced the moniker “King of Israel” after a conservative conspiracy theorist argued that he is “the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world.”

But instead of galvanizing the support of American Jewish voters, Trump’s self-designation as a champion of Jewish causes — including charges that those who don’t support him are being “disloyal” to Israel — prompted backlash from the same Jewish Democrats he’s seeking to attract to the GOP tent in 2020.

View the complete September 1 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Bolton sidelined from Afghanistan policy as his standing with Trump falters

Washington Post logoAs the president’s top aides prepared for a high-stakes meeting on the future of Afghanistan earlier this month, one senior official was not on the original invite list: national security adviser John Bolton.

The attendance of the top security aide would normally be critical, but the omission was no mistake, senior U.S. officials said. Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace deal aimed at ending America’s longest war, the officials said.

His opposition to the diplomatic effort in Afghanistan has irritated President Trump, these officials said, and led aides to leave the National Security Council out of sensitive discussions about the agreement.

View the complete August 30 article by John Hudson and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Democrats question Trump’s motives as Hurricane Dorian targets Florida

President’s decision to cancel Poland trip caught some aides off guard as polls turn bleak

President Donald Trump contends he canceled a diplomatic trip to Poland so he could monitor Hurricane Dorian as it churns toward Florida, but Democrats see political motives for the storm tracker in chief. And Trump started Friday clearly focused on other matters.

He claimed he was staying stateside “to ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm,” and White House aides were eager to cast the president as laser-focused on the hurricane — even though his decision, yet again, caught some off guard.

One official earlier Thursday said Trump still planned to leave for Poland on Saturday and return on Monday, noting there is little any chief executive can do until a hurricane has passed. That official later said Trump’s decision came after a briefing with new information.

View the complete August 30 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Sixty-eight minutes in Biarritz: A glimpse into Trump’s unorthodox mind

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

BIARRITZ, France —  For many minutes on Monday, President Trump stood on foreign soil at the close of the Group of Seven summit here and trashed his predecessor. He bragged about his personal properties from the presidential podium and suggested that he will hold next year’s G-7 gathering at his Doral golf course in Florida, which has “incredible” conference rooms and “magnificent” bungalows.

And he defended both Vladi­mir Putin and Kim Jong Un, suggesting that the Russian strongman deserves an invite to future G-7 summits and that the North Korean dictator is an honorable man who will not let Trump down.

The U.S. president’s news conference here was presaged by an aide saying Trump would answer anything if the first two questions stayed on topic. Trump seemed more interested when the questions went off topic — and for 68 minutes in a seaside auditorium, he offered a lens into his un­or­tho­dox mind, a range of false or dubious statements, and the myriad ways he has changed the presidency in 31 months.

View the complete August 26 article by Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

US, Japan move closer to limited trade deal

NOTE:  Trump announced this as a deal at the G-7, but it appears there is no firm deal.

Trump, Abe outline possible deal that could open Japanese markets to $7 billion in U.S. goods

The United States and Japan have reached a tentative agreement that could give President Donald Trump a trade win for his farm constituency and could protect Japan against steep auto tariffs that the administration is threatening to impose on imported vehicles.

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outlined the agreement in principle on agriculture, industrial tariffs and digital trade Sunday during the G-7 summit in France. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the agreement, if finalized, would open Japanese markets to an additional $7 billion in U.S. products.

Abe said negotiators will continue to fine-tune the language. The two leaders said they hoped to sign the agreement in New York in late September when the U.N. General Assembly meets. There was no mention of whether Congress would have a role in approving the agreement.

View the complete August 26 article by Ellyn Ferguson on The Roll Call website here.

Trump’s G-7 achievements: No trade deal, no military deal, no climate deal — and ‘yes’ on helping himself

AlterNet logoAlmost from the moment he stepped into the White House, Donald Trump has been conducting trade negotiations with China. Unsuccessful trade negotiations with China. Trade negotiations with China that have gone so badly that they’ve disintegrated into a trade war in which Trump has slapped on an increasing series of tariffs in order to prove his personal theory—a theory held by no one else anywhere—that tariffs are a good thing and trade wars are beneficial. However, the Trump-shy stock market and recession-worried nation can just relax, because none of that was serious. Now, says Trump, now “serious negotiations can begin.” Well, not actually now. But “soon.”

As the AP reports, Trump claimed during a Monday interview at the G-7 that his team of trade negotiators had received a pair of “very good calls” from their Chinese counterparts over the weekend. Those calls, said Trump, indicated that the two sides finally understood each other and are “dealing on proper terms.” All this means that “we’re finally going to have a deal.”

Which is nice. Except … China says it’s BS. Minutes after Trump spoke, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman joined other officials in saying that there were no calls, that they didn’t know what Trump was talking about, and that China was ready to “protect itself” and continue this trade war to it’s bitter, recessionary end.

View the complete August 26 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.