Trump’s Foreign Policy Philosophy Hard to Pin Down
Masood Farivar, Voice of America
Is President-elect Donald Trump a foreign policy realist or idealist? Is he bringing Richard Nixon’s hard-edged realpolitik to his foreign policy or following in the footsteps of the more idealistic Ronald Reagan?
The question has become a parlor game among Washington's policy pundits.
Trump’s frequent invocation of Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra and campaign pledge to rebuild America’s “depleted” military has invited comparisons to the Republican icon credited with winning the Cold War.
His advocacy of a foreign policy based on America’s national interests has led some to liken it to Nixonian realism, while his aversion to foreign interventions has won him the label of a non-interventionist and even isolationist.
Don’t Fence Trump In
Trump has professed no great power doctrine and his advisers discourage applying labels to his vision of the world.
“I’m not going to be put into the little academic, graduate school box because I think it doesn’t suit, and it doesn’t apply in a rapidly changing world,” said K.T. McFarland, Trump’s incoming deputy national security adviser, when asked to describe the Trump doctrine.
While Trump’s call for “peace through strength” reflects Reagan’s view of deterrence, “there are parts of Nixon and (Henry) Kissinger that Donald Trump has also advocated,” McFarland said at the U.S. Institute of Peace, alluding to Trump’s interest-based approach to world affairs.
Trump’s Speeches
A foreign policy neophyte, Trump has shied away from declaring any grand foreign strategy during the campaign, though he did give two major speeches devoted to foreign policy and national security.
In the first speech, delivered at the realist-leaning Center for the National Interest in Washington in April, Trump outlined what he called a “coherent foreign policy based on American interests” and called for “getting out of nation building,” creating stability and quashing “radical Islam.”
“Containing the spread of radical Islam must be a major foreign policy goal of the United States and indeed the world,” Trump said. “Events may require the use of military force, but it’s also a philosophical struggle, like our long struggle in the Cold War.”
In the second speech, at Youngstown University in Ohio in August, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric about terror, warning countries around the world that they’d be judged based on their commitment to the U.S. goal of fighting terrorism.
“All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally,” Trump told a rally of supporters.
‘Strategic Surprise’
It was a theme that Trump would repeat, in one iteration or another, throughout the campaign, but his advisers say Trump’s pre- and post-election pronouncements on foreign policy, often delivered off the cuff, should not be read as policy prescriptions.
“Actually, he didn’t say a lot about foreign policy and national security on the campaign trail, and what he did say really doesn’t add up to a policy,” said James Carafano, director of foreign policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation who advises the Trump transition team on foreign affairs. “That’s very frustrating because the people want to know what’s this guy going to do.”
With the new administration yet to take office, McFarland, too, cautioned that Trump’s foreign policy is in an early stage of development.
“That’s what a new administration does: It takes time to rethink things and to come up with policies,” she said.
If history is any guide, Trump could quickly find himself facing a set of foreign policy crises different from the issues he campaigned on. Political scientists have a term for an unexpected world event that drives a new president into uncharted territory: “strategic surprise.”
For former President George W. Bush, who campaigned on pursuing a “humble foreign policy,” the strategic surprise came September 11, 2001.
For President Barack Obama, who vowed to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the “Arab Spring” protests in North Africa and the Middle East marked a strategic surprise, leaving his administration more deeply mired in the region than he’d hoped.
What international crisis might alter the trajectory of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda has become a guessing game, with the number of scenarios exceeded only by the variety of foreign policy labels attributed to Trump.
A game-changing terrorist attack on American interests is one possible candidate. Another contender: an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch by North Korea.
“I think the world is not necessarily going to allow President Trump to do everything he’s planned on,” said Blaise Misztal, director of the national security program at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “I think you’re going to see a triangulation between what he’s said, what he’s advised to do, and what is actually feasible on the world stage.”
Flip Flopping on Issues
While Trump has flip flopped on some issues, NATO and torturing terrorists, for example, he’s held steady on others. Among them: terrorism, trade, China and Russia.
In the weeks since his election, he’s reiterated his pledge to make terrorism a focus of his foreign policy, talked tough on trade, challenged the “One China” policy, and iterated again a desire to reset relations with Russia even as he embraced intelligence findings that Moscow interfered in last year’s presidential election.
Brian Katulis of Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, said the “most radical shift” Trump will likely undertake will be “engagement and involvement” with Russia, something Obama unsuccessfully attempted during his first term in office.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden said Trump is likely to reconsider his approach to Russia once he learns from intelligence agencies and allies that Russia and Syria are not committed to fighting IS.
“I’m personally very, very skeptical of any convergence between American and Russian interests in this part of the world,” Hayden said. “In fact, I’d offer the view that American and Russian interests are actually heading in different directions.”
Another major change: downplaying a postwar American foreign policy tradition of promoting democracy and freedom around the world.
“Trump has signaled as a candidate and in the transition a proclivity to appreciate authoritarian and repressive leaders around the world,” Katulis said. “And this may be the biggest departure that is historic, that there really won’t be as much of a values-based approach that focuses on human rights democracy and freedom in other countries. And that I think puts the United States itself on shaky territory.”
But McFarland played down those concerns, saying “the three bedrocks of (postwar) American foreign policy” — American leadership, American values and international alliances — will remain under the Trump administration.
Unpredictability
There is usually some continuity between administrations on foreign policy, but “that rule actually may not apply under Trump,” Katulis said.
“We’re dealing with something here that is just fundamentally different and off the charts,” Katulis explained.
That 'something' is Trump’s well-known unpredictability. Trump has criticized President Obama for telegraphing his policy moves and has vowed to remain unpredictable. But experts say unpredictability can be dangerous in the international arena where both allies and adversaries expect a certain degree of predictability from the United States.
"Predictability is the cornerstone of deterrence," said Clarke. "You need to be predictable if you’re the United states, both in what your allies know you’ll do and in what your adversaries know you’ll do and how you’ll respond."
Comments
And all of Trump current actions do not go to the heart of a total lack of a stated...clear...FP...? If the Trump intent is to make the US look like a sudden "crazy that does not know what it wants like a 5yr old throwing a tantrum "...he is succeeding nicely...
https://www.bi/2jAC0o9
A lot of people have been appalled by Donald Trump’s behavior during the transition, at his inauguration, and in his first week in office. You can count me among them.
QUOTE:
But I also find his actions baffling from the perspective of Trump’s own self-interest. People who opposed his administration’s policies should take heart, because his conduct so far will make it harder to proceed as he seems to want.
For starters, Trump made zero effort to exploit the honeymoon period traditionally accorded a new president by the press, didn’t try to drive a wedge or two in the large coalition that opposes him, and declined to appeal to a broader sense of national unity. Thus far he has played entirely to his base, painting a dark portrait of a crumbling America where everybody except Trump himself is untrustworthy, corrupt, deceitful, and not to be heeded at all. The result: a president who lost the popular vote by 2.5 million people is even less popular now, and he enters office with the lowest approval ratings of any new president in history.
Never mind the irony of such a deeply corrupt and dishonest person accusing others of corruption; the odd thing is that he has been doing just about everything he can to unite key institutions against him. This may not matter if he and his lackeys can disseminate a squid-ink cloud of “alternative facts” and convince their many followers that down is up, black is white, 2+2=5, and what the president said on camera last week really never took place. As I’ve warned before, Trump & Co. seems to be operating straight from the Erdogan-Berlusconi-Putin playbook, and it remains an open question whether this approach will work in a country with many independent sources of information, some of which are still committed to facts.
The same goes for the agencies of the government that he is now supposedly leading. Government bureaucrats have been held in low regard for a long time, which makes them an easy target. But you also can’t do anything in public policy without their assistance, and my guess is that Americans will be mighty unhappy when budget cuts, firings, resignations, and the like reduce government performance even more.
Get ready for a steady drip, drip, drip of leaks and stories emanating from dedicated civil servants who are committed to advancing the public interest and aren’t going to like being treated with contempt and disdain by a bunch of hedge fund managers, wealthy Wall Streeters, or empty suits like Energy Secretary Rick Perry, all led by President Pinocchio.
Then there’s Trump’s delicate relationship with the national security establishment. Having picked a fight with the intelligence community during the campaign and transition, Trump had a golden opportunity to mend fences during his visit to the CIA last week. No one expected him to offer a lengthy mea culpa; all he had to do was tell his audience he understood their work was important, he believed them to be patriots, he recognized that some of them had made sacrifices for the country that dwarf any he has ever made, and that he was counting on them to do outstanding work henceforth.
He started off OK, but proceeded to make a weird and narcissistic detour into the size of his electoral victory, his uncle who taught at MIT, and his complaints about media coverage of the crowd size at his inauguration and whether or not it rained during his speech. Read this transcript, and see if you can find a statesman anywhere in this incoherent and self-centered performance. An even more relevant question: Did he think this sort of behavior would advance his cause?
There’s also the broader question of his overall approach to foreign policy. As I’ve noted repeatedly, a few elements of Trump’s worldview make sense, such as his aversion to nation-building in the greater Middle East. But as Jessica Mathews points out in an important essay in the New York Review of Books, Trump and key advisors like Michael Flynn also believe Islamic extremism is a mortal danger and have promised to get rid of the Islamic State right away. But how do you do that, and how do you make sure the Islamic State doesn’t come back, if you aren’t busy invading, occupying, and nation-building in the areas where it and other extremist movements live and recruit? In fact, Islamic extremism is a problem but not an existential threat, which is why the United States does not need to try to transform the whole region. But Trump doesn’t seem to see things this way.
Even more important, Trump seems to be blithely unaware that the United States is engaged in a serious geopolitical competition with China, and that this rivalry isn’t just about jobs, trade balances, currency values, or the other issues on which he’s fixated. Instead, it is mostly about trying to keep China from establishing a hegemonic position in Asia, from which it could eventually project power around the world and possibly even into the Western hemisphere itself.
It’s easier to favor “America First” when no other great power is active near our shores, but that fortunate position may not last if China establishes a position in its neighborhood akin to the one the United States has long enjoyed in its backyard. With its surroundings secured, China could forge alliances around the world and interfere in distant regions — much as the United States has done since World War II — including areas close to U.S. soil. This development would force Americans to worry a whole lot more about defending our territory, something we haven’t had to worry about for more than a century.
Here’s a news flash, Mr. President: The United States is not located in the Western Pacific. As a result, its ability to prevent China from becoming a hegemonic power there requires close cooperation with Asian partners. The United States should not try to shoulder this burden by ourselves, but we sure ain’t gonna do it alone. That is why Trump’s hasty decision to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership is so short-sighted. It is even dumber if he plans to pick lots of fights with Beijing on economic issues and the South China Sea while launching bare-knuckle bilateral trade talks with the rest of Asia. Forget about Russia: Thus far, Trump’s nonstrategic behavior toward China makes me wonder if there is a Chinese word for “kompromat.”
But by far the most baffling lapse in the post-election period has been Trump’s near-silence on his strategy for dealing with Russia. And the truly weird part is that there is a perfectly sensible geo-strategic case for mending fences with Moscow, and it’s not hard to explain or understand at all. Suppose Trump met with a sympathetic journalist and said something along these lines:
“There are some losers who think I’m too fond of President Putin, and who believe he’s got something on me. That’s dumb, absurd, a crazy conspiracy theory that’s being promoted by the dishonest media. What these people don’t understand is that a better relationship with Russia is in our national interest. Russia is a major European and Asian power. It has thousands of nuclear weapons. Putin is a tough guy who really hates terrorists, and he doesn’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Putin also helped the world get rid of Assad’s chemical weapons. As my really good friend Henry Kissinger told me, a bad relationship with Russia makes it harder to solve problems in lots of places.
“But for the past 25 years, the traditional foreign-policy establishment here in Washington kept ignoring Russia’s geopolitical concerns and pushing NATO eastward. How dumb was that? And they kept talking all the time about spreading democracy and criticizing Moscow for not being just like us. I can’t believe how stupid this was: All it did was alarm the Russians and eventually lead them to seize Crimea. That wasn’t good, but can you blame them? No, you should blame Obama and all those liberals in the EU. Even worse, this dumb policy just pushed Moscow closer to Beijing. Is that what we want?
“Look, I love this country — and why not? The American people chose me to be president! I’m no fan of the Russian political system. But my job is to advance the national interest. I’m going to show the American people that I can get a better deal from Russia working with them than working against them. Trust me, it’s gonna be TREMENDOUS.”
Reasonable people can still disagree about a statement like that, but explaining the underlying balance-of-power logic behind Trump’s desire for better relations with Russia would help dilute the suspicion that he’s acting this way because he owes the Russian oligarchs billions, or because the Russians have some embarrassing kompromat on him. It would also diminish concerns that he and Rex Tillerson just want to lift sanctions so that Exxon can start drilling in Russian oil and gas fields.
Which raises the obvious question: Why hasn’t he offered such an obvious explanation? I don’t have the slightest idea. It’s possible nobody in his inner circle understands geopolitics in a serious way (and his scuttling of the TPP supports that point), so maybe it just hasn’t occurred to them. Or it’s possible that some of the rumors are in fact correct, and there really is some dirty laundry lurking behind the scenes.
But there’s a third possibility, one that offers a unified, coherent explanation for some of the apparent contradictions in Trump’s foreign-policy views. Trump and some of his advisors (most notably Stephen Bannon) may be operating from a broad, Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations” framework that informs both their aversion to multiculturalism at home and their identification of friends and foes abroad.
In this essentially cultural, borderline racialist worldview, the (mostly white) Judeo-Christian world is under siege from various “other” forces, especially Muslims. From this perspective, the ideal allies are not liberals who prize tolerance, diversity, and an open society, but rather hard-core blood-and-soil nationalists who like walls, borders, strong leaders, the suppression or marginalization of anyone who’s different (including atheists and gay people, of course) and the promotion of a narrow and fairly traditional set of cultural values.
For people who see the world this way, Putin is a natural ally. He declares Mother Russia to be the main defender of Christianity and he likes to stress the dangers from Islam. European leaders like Marine Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage of Great Britain, and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands are Trump’s kind of people, too, and on this dimension so are the right-wingers in the Israeli government. And if Islam is the real source of danger, and we are in the middle of a decades-long clash of civilizations, who cares about the balance of power in Asia?
The problem with this way of thinking, as I wrote back when The Clash of Civilizations first appeared, is that it rests on a fundamental misreading of world politics. “Civilizations” are not political entities; they do not have agency and do not in fact act.
For good or ill, states still drive most of world politics, and clashes within Huntington’s various “civilizations” are still more frequent and intense than clashes between them. Moreover, seeing the future as a vast contest between abstract cultural groupings is a self-fulfilling prophecy: If we assume the adherents of different religions or cultural groups are our sworn enemies, we are likely to act in ways that will make that a reality.
So where does this leave us? Way too soon to tell, but I’ll hazard two guesses. First, foreign and defense policies are going to be a train wreck, because they don’t have enough good people in place, the people they have appointed don’t agree on some pretty big issues (e.g., NATO), the foreign-policy “blob” will undercut them at every turn, and Trump himself lacks the discipline or strategic vision to manage this process and may not care to try. Even if you agree with his broad approach, his team is going to make a lot more rookie mistakes before they figure out what they are doing.
Second, get ready for a lot of unexpected developments and unintended consequences. If the United States is giving up its self-appointed role as the “indispensable nation” and opting instead for “America First,” a lot of other countries will have to rethink their policies, alignments, and commitments.
Unraveling a long-standing order is rarely a pretty process, especially when it happens quickly and is driven not by optimism but by anger, fear, and resentment. I’ve long favored a more restrained U.S. grand strategy, but I also believed that that process had to be done carefully and above all strategically. That doesn’t appear to be President Trump’s approach to anything, which means we are in for a very bumpy ride to an unknown destination.
In two days this Trump and Bannon have clearly been able to instigate a full blown FP diplomatic war with Mexico and now Iran....and they are not even trying hard BUT WAIT claiming to be the greatest and smartest people around....
If Trump and Bannon were hoping that Iran would do a "Gang to Canossa"...their were totally mistaken....
QUOTE:
Iran MFA: Iran, while respecting American ppl & distinguishing them from govmnt's hostile policies, will apply reciprocal measure.
NOW the Trump is on the sliding slope to a ME war with Iran and we are not prepared for one...
APPEARS even Iran fully understands that this Trump Muslim ban clearly assists IS and AQ.....even they get it......
So Trump is in fact assisting IS and AQ BUT WAIT he claims he is fighting to eradicate them from the face of the earth.....
Iran MFA on #VisaBan:
The decision, despite its claim of fight against terrorism & preserving security of #US, is a big gift to extremists.
What the hell is now gong on inside the US...valid issued legal US documents that have been the basis of US immigration for countless years are now thrown completely out the window?
Green Card holders....are legally allowed to live in the US...they pay taxes and SS taxes...they own homes...they have business...kids...grandchildren and send their kids to US universities.....
NOW they are treated by the US that is you and me as Trump is supposedly acting in our names...as if they are dirt....
Sad day for the Statue of Liberty and all those so called US morals and values that we claimed we all support OR have we been lying to the entire world......
QUOTE:
Green card holders included in Trump ban: Homeland Security
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-greencard-idUSK…
People holding so-called green cards, making them legal permanent U.S. residents, are included in President Donald Trump's executive action temporarily barring people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, a Department of Homeland security spokeswoman said on Saturday.
"It will bar green card holders," Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email.
UNQUOTE
Now the US has formally entered the "zone of smiling fascism".....
EU beefs up @EUvsDisinfo Task Force to fight Russian information war
http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/01/28/eu-beefs-up-task-force-to-fight-r…
REMEMBER Trump does not believe the Russians conduct such operations nor do they hack...
DECEMBER 8 2015
Governor Mike Pence
Verified account
@GovPenceIN
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
So was he then......actually lying.....good question...
NO wonder people say that politicians have sold their souls for power and money...and basically all are lying and dishonest...
GREAT PR for the US....and Statue of Liberty in NYC harbor...shown against lines of immigrants with valid and the emphasis is valid US visa.....
Trump executive order could block 500,000 legal U.S. residents from returning to America from trips abroad
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump
NOT addressed in his EO THUS Immigration is simply turning ALL back....
Attorneys start warning immigrants in U.S. not to leave the country for funerals, weddings, etc…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-order-immigrants-travel_us_58…
As Trump bars Syrian refugees, we visited the camps in Lebanon where they sleep in tents in the winter cold:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/as-trump-bars-syrian-r…
Final draft of exec order banning Syrian refugees makes no mention of safe zones, as Trump claimed it would days ago.....
Another Trump lie....
BUT WAIT...now comes the legal challenges against Trump.....
EVEN the US Border Patrol cannot figure out from his poorly written Executive Orders what their are to do....absolutely no guidance from the Bannon circle....or from the Flynn natsec....
This is exactly how Trump repays those that help the US in the fight against AQ and IS....clear warning to those that think helping the US is a great position......
Iraqi interpreter for US Army Ahmed Nashmi+wife/baby were heading to USA on visa. Risked life for 6 years. Visa just cancelled.
"Call Mr. Trump" said customs agent detaining Iraqi at the airport who had worked for the US govt
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airpor…
THIS is how the US repays those that risk their lives helping US troops.....
BUT WAIT....to Trump and Bannon and company all Muslim's are "radical Muslim terrorists"...
So will this individual now turn to IS...AQ....as he is now possibly radicalized by Trump?
Another short lived highly failed Trump FP move.....
Trump and the Bannon team decided to punish Mexico after Mexico failed to make their Trump demanded "Gang nach Canossa:....BY levering a 20% border tax on Mexican exports to the US........
THEN initially walked it back but not backing away in the future........
I have repeatedly stated Trump has absolutely not knowledge of the current global logistics supply chain..largely just in time...AND his statements on the 20% further proved he knows absolutely nothing.....
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trump%e2%80%99s-mexico-tax-wou…
QUOTE
Trump's Mexico Tax Would Hammer Firms in $580 Billion Market
(Bloomberg) -- When White House press secretary Sean Spicer floated the idea of paying for a border wall with a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports, beer went flat.
Shares of Victor, New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. began falling Thursday: The company generates about 70 percent of its profit from importing Mexican brands like Corona and Modelo, and investors feared it would get hammered by the new tax. Constellation is far from alone in facing a reckoning if taxes or tariffs are imposed. U.S. companies that would suffer range from automakers like General Motors Co. to retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kroger Co. and even medical-device producers like Medtronic Plc.
Hostilities between President Donald Trump and his counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico, could derail $584 billion in trade between the border nations. The relationship has made supply chains densely interconnected. American-made materials and parts make up 40 percent of the products Mexico exports to the U.S. Meanwhile, Mexico is America’s second-largest export market and third-largest supplier of imported goods.
“Because the economies are so far integrated, the industries that would be impacted are extremely broad,” said Caitlin Webber, a trade analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. “It’s hard to think of a U.S. sector that wouldn’t be touched if there was a full-scale trade war with Mexico. It would really wreak havoc on the economy.”
Tax Balloon
The Mexican president scrapped his trip to Washington after Trump said he’d follow through on pledges to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement and charge Mexico to build a border wall. Spicer then responded by saying the U.S. could impose a 20 percent tax on all Mexican imports -- a notion he later said was just one idea to finance the wall. Separately, congressional Republicans have been pushing a tax on all U.S. imports as part of their efforts at rewriting the corporate code.
Trump could likely impose a temporary tariff on his own authority, but would need Congress to impose what is known as an adjustable border tax on imported goods, according to Webber. Mexico would undoubtedly retaliate with its own tariffs and could revoke Nafta benefits for U.S. exporters, she said.
Mexican Weekend
An estimated one-third of goods imported from Mexico last year were sold at U.S. retailers, according to the Trade Partnership consulting firm in Washington.
The pain of a trade war would spread to many facets of American life. Imagine sitting in a deck chair on the patio you built over the weekend, drinking a nice margarita. You’re wearing Bermuda shorts. Mexico helped at every turn:
Home Depot Inc., which sells pavers and landscaping gear, has sourcing operations in Mexico, and in 2015, the U.S. imported $10.7 billion in furniture.
The price of your tequila would likely be higher. From 2010 to 2015, consumption of the spirit rose 30 percent by volume in the U.S., more than any other alcohol category except cognac, according to Euromonitor International. That spurred the world’s largest distillers, Diageo and Pernod Ricard, to increase investment in Mexico.
Those fashionable shorts? The nation in 2015 imported $3.7 billion worth of apparel and accessories from Mexico.
But the relationship goes much further than this. Mexican imports also include oil, cars and lots of medical equipment. Medtronic alone has almost 1 million square feet of manufacturing space in the country for making products to treat cardiovascular disease. Spokesman Fernando Vivanco said the company was monitoring the dispute.
Trump has said America’s southern neighbor has taken advantage by not addressing trade deficits and border security, and sending undocumented immigrants who commit crimes and dilute the labor markets. Only a physical barrier -- paid for by Mexico -- can solve the problem, he has said. But U.S. shoppers would ultimately foot the bill for the wall, according to the National Retail Federation, an industry lobbying group.
Won’t Pay?
“The notion that Mexico is going to pay for this is wrong,” said David French, a senior vice president for the group. “This is going to be paid for by American consumers. A tariff is a just a tax on consumers. Americans are already paying billions of dollars in tariffs, and this is just going to result in one more price increase.”
Retailers’ exposure to increased import taxes is now being considered by investors, said Mike Balkin, an investor in small-cap stocks at William Blair Investment Management LLC.
“There are so many things companies are trying to deal with, and it’s just one more,” Balkin said.
“It’s bad news,” said Trevor Stirling, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “It’ll slow down growth.”
This is another lie.
The Times and Post never apologized to their readers for Trump coverage.
REMEMBER when Trump tweeted these lies....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Jan 12
James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts.Too bad!
NOTE: Clapper never said this and confirmed he did not say this...
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Jan 11
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
NOTE: then he calimed he had a "love fest" at CIA HQs....
HERE we go again on a Saturday Trump tweet rant....remember these just tend to support the European and growing US view that Trump is a totally "loose cannon" sociopathic narcissist.....
WHAT it utterly amazing is Trump does not get the simple fact that the NYTs readership both print and online is up and really up...and Trump is driving those numbers himself
SO I will stop posting here on this thread if a "normal human being" can convince me in a valid argument Trump is not emotional unstable.....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 43m
43 minutes ago
The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS!
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 46m
46 minutes ago
Thr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its.....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 39m
39 minutes ago
...dwindling subscribers and readers.They got me wrong right from the beginning and still have not changed course, and never will. DISHONEST
NOW seriously tell me we have someone in the US that is not out for the destruction globally of anything not American First!!!!!
So just how close is Putin's geo political goals for Europe actually matching Trump's same goals...VERY close actually....
The Man Tipped To Be Trump’s Ambassador To The EU Compared It To The Soviet Union
Ted Malloch said: “Maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming".
https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/the-man-tipped-to-be-trumps-am…
QUOTE:
The man tipped to be Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union has compared the EU to the Soviet Union, and hinted that he wants to help bring it down just like the USSR.
Asked on Thursday during the BBC’s political talk show This Week why he wanted to be the US ambassador to the EU when he was clearly not a fan, Ted Malloch said: “I had in a previous career a diplomatic post where I helped to bring down the Soviet Union, so maybe there’s another union that needs a little taming.”
video-cdn.buzzfeed.com
During the course of the programme, Malloch, who is currently a professor at Henley Business School, said Trump was pro-Brexit and had no enthusiasm for EU integration: “He doesn’t like an organisation that is supranational, that is unelected, where the bureaucrats run amok, and is not frankly a proper democracy,” the would-be ambassador said.
America’s likely next ambassador to Brussels also criticised the European Commission president, Jean-Claude Junker, describing him as “a very adequate mayor of some city in Luxembourg”. Junker was the country’s prime minister for 18 years.
Malloch’s views would mark a stark change from those of the departing US ambassador to the EU, Anthony Gardner, who earlier this month said it would be folly for the US to support further fragmentation of the EU.
Gardner also told reporters the Trump team inquired about which countries might leave the EU next, a sign, he believed, of the influence that Nigel Farage has had on the new administration. “This is reflective of the general perception of the EU and it’s a misperception,” Gardner said. “It’s a perception that Nigel Farage is presumably, you know, disseminating in Washington. And it’s a caricature.”
In the interview Malloch predicted that if there was chemistry between Trump and Theresa May (who is currently in the US to meet the new president), a trade deal could “aid a swift, hard Brexit for Britain on more favourable terms with the EU”.
He also echoed another point Trump has made on a number of occasions about the future of NATO. Malloch told This Week that NATO will have “to step up and modify in order to meet new threats” and said countries like France, Germany, and Luxembourg would have to up their financial contributions and could no longer continue to free-ride on the US defence budget.
Malloch also suggested that German chancellor Angela Merkel was anxious to see Trump, and that the president had so far played it cool: “He said some things about Germany that have caused concern in those circles … and has said some things both about the euro and the way the European Union is tilted towards Germany,” he said, referring to comments the president made during an interview this month.
Malloch said Trump’s attitude to the UK compared to Barack Obama’s was like the difference between “night and day”, adding: “Donald Trump loves Great Britain.”
Since the Steele report was leaked and in fact part of the classified Russian hacking intel report....STRANGLEY an unusual number of Russians mentioned in those reports are "dying of heart attacks"...being shot by unknown individuals...or arrested as "traitors from within the FSB"....
NOW tell me the dossier was not valid????
As more and more information is bubbling up on more and more ties of Trump and his inner advisor circle to Russia and Russian money ...and have you noticed as the circle is getting tighter Trump is going all over the place creating virtually a circle of defection...distortion ALL designed to distract from it....
QUOTE:
Putin murdered two of his #RussiaInvadedUkraine henchmen today: Sergei Tretyakov and Valery Bolotov. The MI6 dossier on Trump is now confirmed.
QUOTE:
Curioser and creepier.
http://www.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/mystery-death-ex-kgb-chief-linked-mi6-spys-dossier-donald-trump/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw
…
Zuckerberg taking more of a stand than the whole Republican Party over refugees.
https://www.ft.com/content/c01043fc-e4ea-11e6-8405-9e5580d6e5fb
Appears now that Trump and his merry band of white nationalists around Bannon are really not Christians...
If you claim to be a Christian and you're not outraged over America's treatment of immigrants, you're a hypocrite.
Source: THE BIBLE
Maybe they read the bible more often than they probably have never read in their entire lives....
LEVITICUS 19:33-34
AMAZINGLY...there is in fact an equal passage in the Koran almost to the same wording....
So we have two of the three great religions agreeing BUT Trump is doing what and he and his supporters claim to be Christians....they do not even know their own claimed religion....
Trump has just handed IS...AQ...JFS one of the greatest recruiting tools since the very same 9/11 claims he is defending....
The core IS...AQ...JFS narrative and the Muslim Brotherhood narrative has been "the US is waging an anti Muslim war....AND yet he talks about eradicating IS from the earth...well that job just got harder by a factor of 5000%.....
NOW Trump hands them proof of that war and on TV.......
AND at the same time Trump is undermining US values that have guided the US for years....BUT WAIT.....he simply does not care....does he???
QUOTE:
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in an Huffington Post op-ed that "Trump has now handed ISIS a path to rebirth."
On Twitter, he shared a widely spread photo of a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned as his family attempted to migrate to Europe, along with the message:
"To my colleagues: don't ever again lecture me on American moral leadership if you chose to be silent today."
This President will end up getting Americans killed...
WHAT should not be forgotten is that this Muslim ban and it is a Muslim ban....walks hundreds of new fighters into the arms of IS...AQ....and JFS in Syria.....
AND this is a smart move?????
His constant lying on virtually everything single thing is a major problem...and yes even his surrogates are causing problems....
He could not even remember the correct date he landed in Ireland on during the May PC yesterday.....
Conway telling the press that women should not be wearing leggings and or yoga pants...what the heck is this....extremely modern in Europe and the rest of the world ....???
NOW the ban on Iranians......if he thinks that the Iranians will cave to his demands they are totally and absolutely wrong in their thinking and they simply do not understand the current Iranian authoritarianism via IRGC that is in place.
Iran is on a roll in the ME in their expansion and influence and a Trump is just a speed bump.......
Check the last sentence as the key indicator of their coming lack of response to Trump OR we will now see far more naval activity than he have seen in the last few months...believe me Trump has basically overreached on this decision...
QUOTE:
The visa ban will provide an early indication of where relations between Tehran and the Trump administration are headed, one analyst said.
“Trump will regard the Iranian reaction as a test,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, who is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. “If Iran doesn’t comply, they won’t do so either on other issues. We will see in 30 days.”
Another analyst doubted the government would comply with the order.
“We are not obliged to give information about our citizens to the Trump administration,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, considered a hard-liner. “Such a move would be unjustifiable.”
Amazing Trump agreed to in this conversation to do exactly what he agreed to in his first direct meeting with the Mexican President...not talk about his ego Wall......
Let's just see how long he holds to his word.....again.....
Mexico: Trump and Pena Nieto have 'agreed at this point not to speak publicly' about the wall
http://read.bi/2k11hGx
BUT WAIT...this is definitely not a Trump "win" because Mexico is still not paying for the wall and Trump pulled back from his threatened 20% tariff.....
First major FP failures.....
The core problem here is ...Trump still is in love with torture..."overridden"....no CinC is "overridden" by his SecDef....UNLESS the CinC is trying to walk back the image of being a torturer he clearly gave in a public interview...
BTW..he never did name those intelligence officers who told him torture works did he....????
TRUMP: Sec. of Defense James Mattis authorized to 'override' me on torture
http://read.bi/2jFHnQx
Team Trump is running the US down the path of authoritarianism....and "smiling fascism"......
Bills targeting protests in U.S. states fuel free speech fears
http://reut.rs/2jxQvJv
So Trump bashes EU....NATO....Germany...AND now we will take your name if you do not support what we do in the UN.....
The same exact UN that Team Trump has been cutting funding for and Congress now wants the US to leave....
New U.S. ambassador to U.N. Nikki Haley warns allies: back us or we'll take names.
http://reut.rs/2kBxUtt
Stop citing our work’: Virginia professor says Trump’s twisting his research on non-citizen voting
http://ow.ly/Lhf3308pwvQ
Carl Bernstein exposes Steve Bannon: He’s concerned the story is moving to ‘Trump’s emotional stability’
http://ow.ly/XuPU308pxET
Trump-approved ‘voter fraud’ conspiracy theorist goes down in flames during trainwreck CNN interview
http://ow.ly/en0W308pSZU
Trump is getting the US into some very difficult EU/NATO corners that will damage the US for years to come if this happens.....
Russians are celebrating. #ТрампНаш - Trump is Ours! Putin-Trump regime may lift sanctions in a 'deal' where Russia keeps attacking Ukraine.
Putin, Trump likely to discuss Ukraine sanctions in call: White House aide
http://trib.al/Cunh6sm
Mexico is America's third biggest trading partner. #Russia isn't even in the top 25. @realDonaldTrump is deluded.
Here we go again...potential war with China also caused by Trump tweets...
Chinese military official warns war with US under Trump is becoming a 'practical reality'
http://read.bi/2jEWMRn
THIS President has absolutely no idea of what trade deals entail when figuring out all aspects...most of the average US trade deals has taken from 4-12 years to work through...
.@POTUS Trump says he will handle trade deal with @theresa_may himself because he doesn't have a commerce secretary
Superb demolition of "Trump’s Little Mexican War". Foreign affairs are not like running an electoral campaign
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-little-mexican-war-1485477900
Trump called for the hiring of another 5,000 border patrol officers today.
On Monday he signed a freeze on government hiring.
He's clueless.
Avocados (and lots of other stuff) could get pricey if Trump imposes tariffs
http://wapo.st/2jc74Mw
Susan Rice
Verified account
@AmbassadorRice
Messing with Mexico is stupid and dangerous. Mexico has been key to limiting the flow of Central American migrants to the US.
Currently hundreds are waiting to cross over and the Mexican government has largely keep them back from crossing...that could change if Trump keeps up his bashing....
APPEARS something that Team Trump has not told this voters.....
Pew Research found that since 2009 more Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico than have migrated to the U.S.
President of the United States is embracing a debunked conspiracy theorist to hold on to lie of 3m illegal votes.
https://nyti.ms/2jE80pc
BUT WAIT...his close advisor Bannon is one of the greatest conspiracy theorists.....especially when he was at Breitbart.com....
REMEMBER when the Trump surrogate Conway indicated that Trump wanted his own security and intelligence sections....
Flynn is building the NSC into a mirror image of DIA...that is not a good thing....as one can then simply ignore those that are paid to actually collect and analyze......
Derek Harvey, fmr senior DIA analyst, named NSC senior director for the Middle East
Are we now going to see a lifting of US sanctions on Russia without discussions with European who old the majority of the sanctions....
BUT WAIT a number of these sanctions effect some Russian oligarchs who have done business with Trump up to the sanctions...
So in fact are the lifting of sanctions payback for the Russian hacking support during the elections....
Strangely now in the US a very valid question......
QUOTE
.@KellyannePolls on President Trump's call with Putin tomorrow: Removing sanctions is under consideration
It cannot be possible that the total Trump FP will be nothing but trade wars..which in the end the US worker will end up paying the bills not the Trump WH.....
The US manufacturing sector that Trump so pushes and praises is itself so tied into the global manufacturing of product and services it will suffer as well...
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 40m
40 minutes ago
Mexico has taken advantage of the U.S. for long enough. Massive trade deficits & little help on the very weak border must change, NOW!
WHAT is amazing is that it was not Mexico taking advantage of NFTA but in fact US companies...used to benefit their bottom lines and shareholder value and gaining a price advantage in global trading.....
Appears that many have forgotten this on page 30 of the Steele reports on Russian Trump connections.....
Carter Page & Trump associates stand to get 11 Billion Dollars or 19,5 % of Stock in Rosneft.
When Trumps lifts the Sanctions on Russia
BUT WAIT...an actual Rosneft sale share package equalling strangely enough 19.5% is currently sitting in a Russian portion of a Russian multiple company owned in an off shore shell account being held in Singapore...
WHY is that when supposedly Rosneft is in fact Russian????
AND as many on the Team Trump stated the Steele report is all lies...but strangely that 19.5% report is in fact very accurate and is worth over 12B right now and if Trump lifts sanctions where will the 19.5% end up?????
The Steele report BTW was written before the closing of the Rosneft deal....so how could Steele have known other than from someone on the inside of Rosneft????
Appears that many have forgotten this on page 30 of the Steele reports on Russian Trump connections.....
Carter Page & Trump associates stand to get 11 Billion Dollars or 19,5 % of Stock in Rosneft.
When Trumps lifts the Sanctions on Russia
BUT WAIT...an actual Rosneft sale share package equalling strangely enough 19.5% is currently sitting in a Russian portion of a Russian multiple company owned in an off shore shell account being held in Singapore...
WHY is that when supposedly Rosneft is in fact Russian????
AND as many on the Team Trump stated the Steele report is all lies...but strangely that 19.5% report is in fact very accurate and is worth over 12B right now and if Trump lifts sanctions where will the 19.5% end up?????
The Steele report BTW was written before the closing of the Rosneft deal....so how could Steele have known other than from someone on the inside of Rosneft????
An egoistic sociopathic narcissist coupled with white supremacists/nationalists one claiming to be Lenin who wants to destroy "the establishment" does not bode well for US FP..... with the results already being clearly seen......
https://www.axios.com/the-bannon-coup-2218491076.html
QUOTE:
The Bannon coup
White House and Hill GOP leaders are astonished by the unambiguous, far-reaching power of Steve Bannon and policy guru Stephen Miller over, well, just about everything.
1. They wrote the Inaugural speech and set in fast motion a series of moves to cement Trump as an America-first Nationalist.
2. They maneuvered to get more key allies inside the White House and positioned for top agency jobs.
3. They wrote many of the executive orders, sometimes with little input from others helping with the transition.
4. They egged on Trump to take a combative approach with the media, China, Mexico and critics.
And Bannon punctuated the week with a full-throated, Trump-pleasing bashing of the media.
Bannon, in a phone interview with NYT's Mike Grynbaum, who covers media, TV, and politics (story is on A1): "The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while … I want you to quote this … The media here is the opposition party. They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States. … The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong … The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign … Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: They were outright activists of the Clinton campaign …
That's why you have no power … You were humiliated."
Pre-conventional wisdom: A conservative leader told Axios' Jonathan Swan that Reince Priebus' people were feeling like they "won November and December," having filled the White House with so many loyalists. The spin was that Reince was outmaneuvering Bannon and would be the real power source.
But now it's dawning on them, as Trump makes his early moves, that maybe they spoke too soon.
White House Security Adviser and Former Breitbart editor Sebastian Gorka Facing Gun Charge in Virginia
http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-security-adviser-facing-gun-cha… …
JUST how many former Breitbart.com people are working for this WH....
Now can anyone not disprove that our new President is not a sociopathic narcissist....he is so bogged down wit this issue he cannot think straight on what he does and how it impacts directly US FP...the world is starting to seriously think the US has elected a crazy person who does not understand anything about the world around him other than himself.....
QUOTE:
On the morning after Donald Trump’s inauguration, acting National Park Service director Michael T. Reynolds received an extraordinary summons: The new president wanted to talk to him.
In a Saturday phone call, Trump personally ordered Reynolds to produce additional photographs of the previous day’s crowds on the Mall, according to three individuals who have knowledge of the conversation. The president believed that the photos might prove that the media had lied in reporting that attendance had been no better than average.
Trump also expressed anger over a retweet sent from the agency’s account, in which side-by-side photographs showed far fewer people at his swearing-in than had shown up to see Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
According to one account, Reynolds had been contacted by the White House and given a phone number to call. When he dialed it, he was told to hold for the president.
For Trump, who sees himself and his achievements in superlative terms, the inauguration’s crowd size has been a source of grievance that he appears unable to put behind him. It is a measure of his fixation on the issue that he would devote part of his first morning in office to it — and that he would take out his frustrations on an acting Park Service director.
Word rapidly spread through the agency and Washington. The individuals who informed The Washington Post about the call did so on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the conversation.
Neither Reynolds nor the Park Service would talk about it.
“The National Park Service does not comment on internal conversations among administration officials,” agency spokesman Thomas Crosson said.
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the call simply demonstrated that Trump’s management style is to be “so accessible, and constantly in touch.”
“He’s not somebody who sits around and waits. He takes action and gets things done,” Sanders said. “That’s one of the reasons that he is president today, and Hillary Clinton isn’t.”
On Saturday, the same day Trump spoke with Reynolds, the new president used an appearance at CIA headquarters to deliver a blistering attack on the media for reporting that large swaths of the Mall were nearly empty during the event.
“It’s a lie,” Trump said. “We caught [the media]. We caught them in a beauty.”
“It looked like a million, a million and a half people,” Trump said, vastly inflating what the available evidence suggested.
Later that day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer reiterated Trump’s complaints about media coverage of the crowd in a tongue-lashing from the lectern of the briefing room.
“These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong,” Spicer said.
The Park Service does not release crowd estimates. Experts, however, have estimated that the 2017 turnout was no more than a third the size of Obama’s eight years earlier.
Reynolds was taken aback by Trump’s request, but he did secure some additional aerial photographs and forwarded them to the White House through normal channels in the Interior Department, the people who notified The Post said. The photos, however, did not prove Trump’s contention that the crowd size was upward of 1 million.
Reynolds, who had served as the Park Service’s deputy director of operations for six months before assuming the post of acting director, is a third-generation employee who has worked there for more than 30 years. As deputy director, he oversaw the Park Service’s $2.8 billion budget and more than 22,000 employees.
In the days since Trump’s election, the Park Service has become an unlikely protagonist in a battle between the new president and some career government employees.
The trouble began late Friday, when the agency’s official Twitter account retweeted two messages that could be perceived as critical of the new administration: the one comparing the relative crowd size for Trump’s inauguration to that of Obama’s 2009 swearing-in, and another that noted policy pages that had been removed from the White House’s website.
That prompted an “urgent directive” to Interior employees that they “shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice,” which was lifted early Saturday morning. Crosson then apologized on Twitter for “mistaken RTs from our account.”
On Tuesday, the Badlands National Park’s Twitter account became a social-media sensation when it posted four tweets in a row about rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and the threats posed by climate change.
Those tweets were then deleted. An NPS official later explained that Badlands NPS officials learned they were posted by a former employee who still had access to the account, and decided to remove them.
Spicer told reporters this week that White House officials had not dictated any agency to impose new restrictions on public communications and that some federal officials, such as those at the Park Service, were not in compliance with their own department’s policies.
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to press the argument that the media has given a misleading account of the crowds that attended his inauguration.
“I had a massive amount of people here,” the president told ABC News anchor David Muir in an interview Wednesday. “They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering — from certain angles — that were taken early and lots of other things.”
As he guided Muir through the West Wing, Trump paused at a photo on the wall, taken from behind him as he delivered his inaugural address: “Here’s a picture of the event.
Here’s a picture of the crowd. Now, the audience was the biggest ever, but this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive.”
UNQUOTE
THIS goes to the core of the Trump accusations of voter fraud and Russia hacking of three State voting databases...
The Russian election hacking story is getting firmer and firmer and firmer and Trump and company are in the middle of it....
King Servers owner Fomenko publicly admits he set up the servers according to #GRU specification but denies it.
Fomenko is very well aware what major internet nodes been used by the #GRU and in which country they are located.
This is how #GRU uses in cyber world human shield as cannon fodder bluntly exposing their assets for greater good.
The #GRU never conducts operation on unverified virtual server. This begs the question what companies provided safe place in California & NY
Well worth reading...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/world/europe/russia-hacker-vladimir-…
BUT WAIT...the investigation into the Trump natsec is still ongoing...and that is a serious indicator of impending doom for Flynn....Team Trump tried to head it off by stating he had only called the Russian Embassy...ONCE...
U.S. intelligence officials are investigating the president's national security adviser Mike Flynn.
http://tinyurl.com/gqjfupk
Russian state media providing flanking protection for their man in the WH....using the Stalin terms of the 30/40s......
Some Russian papers today are calling Donald Trump's opponents "reactionaries" & "counter-revolutionaries". The latest #RussianPaperReview.
Who would have thought a US President needs media support from Russian state controlled media?
BUT WAIT...ever seriously notice that yes even US MSM self censors itself and quietly supports Trump....and they wonder why social media is beating them in the area of investigative journalism....
If you turn on CSPAN they're showing what looks like a massive protest outside the GOP retreat. No coverage on the cable networks.
NOTICE Trump did not impact his business dealing where he has investments...and there is no conflict of interest....?????
Trump's proposed list doesn’t include Muslim-majority countries where Trump Organization has done biz or pursued deals
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-immigration-ban-conflict-…
BUT WAIT...jihadists can come from multiple countries not on the Trump Muslim immigrant ban listing
JUST IN: Mexican President Pena Nieto and Trump spoke by phone today for about an hour.
http://reut.rs/2kBuI1k
AN hour later Mexico still says it will not pay for the Trump ego wall....
APPARENTLY THE TRUMP WH did not know that Mexico is the FOURTH largest exporter of oil to the US.....
THUS a 20% tariff would have automatically raised US gas prices and the costs of other goods and products using Mexican oil....
HOW is it that they missed this simple fact and what else are they missing?
We know that Trump cannot spell by a number of spelling mistakes in his very own tweets.......BUT now the WH apparently is intent in copying him...they cannot spell as well....
White House drops its 'h' in misspelling of Theresa May's name
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/27/white-house-drops-its-…
A total bunch of amateurs hard at work....
Quinnipiac Poll analyst: "Stumbling out of blocks, Pres Trump is seen as divider not uniter, flunking on honesty, empathy, level-headedness"
New Quinnipiac national poll on Trump job performance as president so far: 36% approve, 44% disapprove
AND an equall7 large majority of Americas over 70% still want to see his tax records released...including 56% to 64% depending on State of his own voters....
THIS Trump stroke of a pen opens a serious nightmare for non US business people...tourists and family members coming to the US.....OR thousands of global students coming to study in the US or to do touring in their off semesters.....
Privacy rights also mean the right to not be monitored ie cell...letters and or free speech...does that mean their business conversations are open to monitoring......does it mean their business emails are open to review...does it mean anything they say inside the borders of the US can be used against them...UNLESS a FISA warrant is requested.
WHAT happens if they publicly critique Trump is that grounds for being tossed out before their visa expires...on and on and on and on....what if during say an interview on TV and they critique Trump????
Trump has now opened Pandora's box which in fact this action will reciprocated by giving US citizens no equal privacy protections when they leave the US......
Trump has opened a new form of warfare on the entire western world as we know it....or at least knew it before his election.