Tag: Trump foreign policy

Pompeo faces GOP grilling on Russia, North Korea

The following article by Alexander Bolton was posted on the Hill website July 24, 2018:

© Greg Nash

Republican and Democratic lawmakers concerned over the uncertainty swirling around President Trump’s foreign and trade policies will press Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for answers Wednesday, but there are doubts about how much he can answer.

Pompeo is scheduled to testify at 3 p.m. before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an eagerly awaited appearance for lawmakers hungry to know more about Trump’s two-hour private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in Helsinki.

There are also questions about the status of diplomatic talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and what the administration’s next moves are after pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in May.

Senators want Pompeo to explain Trump’s persistent criticism of European allies, something they fear has eroded trust within NATO.

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The White House admits its trade war is hurting farmers — with a $12 billion bailout

The following article by Aaron Blake was posed on the Washington Post website July 24, 2018:

Back in April, President Trump shrugged off the pain his tariffs could cause American farmers. “We’ll make it up to them,” he said. “The farmers will be better off than they ever were. It will take a little while to get there, but it could be very quick, actually.”

Not quick enough, apparently.

The White House is set to announce what is essentially a $12 billion bailout for farmers who have been hurt by his escalating trade war, The Washington Post’s Damian Paletta reports:

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Trump administration to propose “temporary relief” to farmers

The following article by Jonathan Swan and Alayna Treene was posted on the Axios website July 24, 2018:

Farmer John Duffy loads soybeans from his grain bin onto a truck in Illinois. Credit: Scott Olson, Getty Images

The Trump administration will propose a “temporary relief” plan this afternoon to farmers who have been hit hard by retaliatory tariffs, a source with direct knowledge told Axios.

Why it matters: This an idea that conservatives will hate. The proposal — put forth by the Department of Agriculture, not the White House — is the very opposite of free market economics. Earlier this year, Axios reported that Trump floated a similar idea of creating subsidy payments for farmers, but it was shot down by Republican lawmakers.

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Trump’s dangerous obsession with Iran

The following article by Ishaan Tharoor was posted on the Washington Post website July 24, 2018:

Credit: Washington Post

In America’s fevered political landscape, supporters of President Trump often cast criticism of him as a symptom of a condition: “Trump derangement syndrome.” Trump’s opponents are so possessed by their contempt for him, the diagnosis goes, that they embrace positions and pursue policy goals they would never consider in any other context. Supposed examples of this include the newfound Russophobia among some American liberals and the knee-jerk rejection to Trump’s overtures to North Korea — signs of partisan tribalism supposedly displacing political logic.

But Trump and his lieutenants are guilty of their own derangement syndromes, most conspicuously when it comes to Iran. Even as Trump has gone out of his way to cozy up to an autocrat in Moscow, embraced human-rights-abusing Arab monarchs and celebrated his friendliness with the world’s most isolated dictator, he sees in Tehran an implacable, irreconcilable enemy.

On Sunday night, the White House ratcheted up tensions with the Islamic republic. Trump issued a dramatic tweet, addressing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in all caps: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”

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In private, Trump vents frustration over lack of progress on North Korea

The following article by John Hudson, Josh Dawsey and Carol D. Leonnig was posted on the Washington Post website July 22, 2018:

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed an agreement on June 12. But Trump’s claims about what has happened since then lack evidence. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

When he emerged from his summit with Kim Jong Un last month, President Trump tri­umphantly declared that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat and that one of the world’s most intractable geopolitical crises had been “largely solved.”

But in the days and weeks since then, U.S. negotiators have faced stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation.

Diplomats say the North Koreans have canceled follow-up meetings, demanded more money and failed to maintain basic communications, even as the once-isolated regime’s engagements with China and South Korea flourish.

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Trump’s Putin fallout: Inside the White House’s tumultuous week of walk-backs

The following article by Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Carol D. Leonnig was posted on the Washington Post website July 21, 2018:

Over the course of three days, President Trump commented on Russian election interference in ways that repeatedly contradicted his own intelligence officials. Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Executive time began early on Thursday, just after sunrise.

Feeling exasperated and feisty as he awoke in the White House residence, President Trump fired off his grievances on Twitter about how the media had been covering his Helsinki summit. And, refusing to be cowed, Trump gave national security adviser John Bolton an order: to schedule a second summit and officially invite Russian President Vladi­mir Putin to visit Washington.

The two presidents had already discussed the likelihood of a follow-up meeting, but at Trump’s direction Thursday morning, Bolton sprang into action to make it official, making an overture to the Kremlin. By ­midafternoon the White House announced that planning was underway for a fall summit in Washington.

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Russia continues to shape narrative of Helsinki summit

The following article by Karen DeYoung was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2018:

President Trump and Russian President Putin arrive Monday for a press conference in Helsinki, Finland. Credit: Chris McGrath, Getty Images

Russia provided additional details Friday of what it said were agreements made at the presidential summit in Helsinki this week, shaping a narrative of the meeting with no confirmation or alternative account from the Trump administration.

Not surprisingly, the Russian story line tended to favor the Kremlin’s own policy prescriptions, at times contradicting stated administration strategy.

Russia already has sent formal proposals to Washington for joint U.S.-Russia efforts to fund reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria and facilitate the return home of millions of Syrians who fled the country, following “agreements reached” by President Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, the three-star head of the Russian National Defense Management Center, said Friday.

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Trump Doubles Down on Russia. The Spies Shake Their Heads in Disbelief. Image

The following article by Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Katie Benner was posted on the New York Times website July 20, 2018:

Pres. Trump’s pursuit of warmer relations with Russia is increasingly at odds with his administration’s policies of isolating Moscow. Credit: Al Drago for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — When President Trump directed aides to ask President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to the White House this fall, the invitation was his latest attempt to use personal diplomacy in the pursuit of better relations with the Kremlin.

But it was also at odds with moves by the rest of the Trump administration that served as blunt reminders that the national security establishment appears to be following a radically different Russia policy than the commander in chief.

The Pentagon declared on Friday that it would provide $200 million in assistance to Ukraine to help fight the Russian-controlled separatists in the country’s east. “Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its illegal occupation of Ukraine,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement.

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Trump official dismisses US farmers facing huge losses from trade war

The following article by Eric Boehlert was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 19, 2018:

‘It’s a little bit like weight loss,’ a Trump official said of the huge hits coming to U.S. farmers.

Credit: Oliver Doullery, Pool, Getty Images

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue belittled American farmers on Wednesday.

“It’s a little bit like weight loss,” Perdue said of the tariffs that are damaging the bottom line for lots of red state, U.S. farmers. “It’s going to be good to get there but it is a little painful in the meantime.”

Perdue referred to Trump’s reckless tariffs as “trade disruptions we’re experiencing,” as if they weren’t specifically manufactured and imposed by the Trump administration. His remarks echoed Trump’s dismissive rhetoric about how trade wars are “easy to win.”

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Trump faces growing storm on car import tariffs at Commerce hearing

The following article by Andrew Mayeda and Ryan Beene was posted on the Los Angeles Times website July 19, 2018:

SUVs from Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are lined up at the port of Bremerhaven in northern Germany. President Trump is threatening a 20% tariff on cars imported from Europe. Credit: EPA, Shutterstock

The procession of industry groups and foreign governments lining up to oppose President Trump’s car tariffs is starting to look like a rush-hour traffic jam.

“The importation of motor-vehicle parts is not a risk to our national security,” Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs of the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Assn., told a public hearing Thursday on the auto industry. “However, the imposition of tariffs is a risk to our economic security that jeopardizes supplier jobs and investments in the United States.”

The Commerce Department is holding the hearing as it probes whether imports of passenger vehicles imperil U.S. national security. The administration has received extremely limited support for the idea that foreign cars undermine America’s ability to defend itself.

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