What President Trump’s Foreign Policy Will Look Like by David Ignatius, Washington Post
Donald Trump proclaimed “America First” on his way to his head-spinning victory in Tuesday’s presidential election, and the success of that message will rock many foreign capitals where leaders have feared that Trump would alter the basics of U.S. foreign policy.
Making predictions about Trump’s foreign policy is difficult, given his lack of experience. But the most likely bet is that as president he will seek to do what he promised during the campaign in breaking from current U.S. approaches to Russia, the Middle East, Europe and Asia…
A Trump foreign policy, based on his statements, will bring an intense “realist” focus on U.S. national interests and a rejection of costly U.S. engagements abroad. It will likely bring these changes:
A move to improve relations with a combative, assertive Russia…
A joint military effort with Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Islamic State…
A new push for European allies to pay more for their own defense…
An attempt to alter the terms of trade in Asia by renegotiating trade pacts and forcing China to revalue its currency…
Comments
Donald Trump is fighting for his trademark in China, home of Trump toilets and Trump condoms
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-president-elect-i…
Here is the core problem that will haunt any Trump FP...his tweets...he actually believes he can use twitter as a substitute for direct dialogue...last time I checked Twitter does not stop nuclear attacks....
He is always deflecting any coming and or potential critique...right now his own transition team is running s late he will become President without a team in place....meaning SoS...SecDef and the economic cabinet positions still have to go through the nomination process and none have fulfilled the basic DE confliction of interests....
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!
He assumes that the outgoing President is suppose to sit in a room and do nothing before he leaves office.....ALLOWING the incoming one to do everything even though the new President has not been sworn in as of yet....
Maybe he is concerned about his best friend Putin ......Obama administration is close to announcing measures to punish Russia for election interference
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 2h
2 hours ago
We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but.......
BUT WAIT under Obama Israel received 38B USD in defense assistance....
AND Israel suddenly held up on their Jerusalem illegal construction....after the UNSC vote
US Conservatives are launching an attack on the concept of reality itself, writes @digby56 for @Salon
http://bit.ly/2i5mZdP
Gerashchenko: While Trump is forming his team, Moscow tries to discredit Ukraine
http://www.unian.info/politics/1701092-gerashchenko-while-trump-is-form…
Crimea belongs Ukraine to Henry Kissinger has 'advised Donald Trump to accept' Crimea as part of Russia | The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/henry-kissinger-russia-trump-c…
HAS Kissinger also received large amounts of lobbying money from Russia?...Yes he has over the years....
In CNN exclusive, @Grahamblog tells me @realDonaldTrump disagrees with entire US Senate on #Russia hacking
http://cnn.it/2hKLPfZ
This confirms exactly what Germans see and read about the right wing Trump supporters called the "alt right"...in the US that they view to be neo Nazi's if they said in Germany what they state in the US.....much of it is even forbidden under hate speech in Germany....so with this in the background just how is Trump to conduct any form of responsible US FP towards just Germany??????
QUOTE:
Donald Trump will disappoint and disillusion his far-right supporters by eschewing white supremacy, according to some of the movement’s own intellectual leaders.
Activists who recently gave Nazi salutes and shouted “hail Trump” at a gathering in Washington will revolt when the new US president fails to meet their expectations, the leaders told the Guardian.
The prospect of such disillusion and internecine squabbling may console liberals who fear a White House tinged with racism and quasi-fascism. All the more reassuring because it comes from far-right influencers and analysts, not wishful progressives.
Instead of enjoying proximity to power, according to this analysis, vocal parts of the loose coalition known as the “alt-right” could remain on the political fringe, wondering what happened to their triumph.
“Their hearts are bigger than their brains,” said Mark Weber, who runs the Institute for Historical Review, an organisation dedicated to exposing “Jewish-Zionist” power. “Saying they want to be the intellectual head of the Trump presidency is delusional.”
Jared Taylor, a white supremacist who runs the self-termed “race-realist” magazine American Renaissance, said the president-elect had already backpedalled on several pledges that had fired up the far-right. “At first he promised to send back every illegal immigrant. Now he is waffling on that.”
David Cole, a self-proclaimed Holocaust revisionist and Taki magazine columnist, envisaged the movement sliding into bickering and in-fighting, stuck in “rabbit warrens” of online trolling rather than policy shaping.
“In January Trump will start governing and will have to make compromises.
Even small ones will trigger squabbles between the ‘alt-right’. ‘Trump betrayed us.’ ‘No, you’re betraying us for saying Trump betrayed us.’ And so on. The alt-right’s appearance of influence will diminish more and more as they start to fight amongst themselves.”
In an email interview Peter Brimelow, founder of the webzine Vdare.com, which alleges Mexican plots to remake the US, said Trump’s failure to deliver “important bones” could trigger a backlash. “I think the right of the right is absolutely prepared to revolt. It’s what they do.”
There is, however, a catch: Weber,Taylor and Brimelow – all classified as “extremists” by the Southern Poverty Law Center – said Trump’s victory energised the far-right and that the movement can grow with or without White House help.
The young crowd that roared “Hail Trump” at last month’s gathering in Washington will fight for its beliefs no matter what, Brimelow said. “None of them were looking for jobs in the Trump administration. These are not party loyalists. They know they’re entirely outside the establishment consensus. And they’re used to guerrilla warfare.”
Trump’s relationship with the far-right – an unruly grouping which includes opponents to illegal immigration, free trade, police reform, political correctness, miscegenation and mainstream Holocaust scholarship – will partly define his administration.
The casino mogul turned Republican insurgent electrified this group during the election by calling undocumented Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals.
He vowed to deport 11 million undocumented people, ban Muslims from entering the US and build a wall on the southern border. He was slow to disavow an endorsement from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader.
He put Steve Bannon, who turned Breitbart News into a platform for the far right, in charge of his campaign and rewarded him with a senior White House post.
A few weeks after Trump’s victory the innocuously named National Policy Institute, which espouses an “ethno-state” for Americans of European descent, held its annual conference in the Ronald Reagan Building a few blocks from the White House.
Its leader, Richard Spencer, concluded the event by shouting “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and “Hail victory!”, an English translation of the Nazi exhortation “Sieg heil”. Some audience members gave the Nazi salute.
Some observers saw their worst fears realised: unbound, exuberant fascism.
But some of the far-right’s intellectuals saw something else: self-sabotage and delusion.
It was an “idiot conclusion” to a conference packed with other speeches and panel discussions, said Brimelow, who addressed the gathering.
Taylor, another speaker, agreed. “It was going very well until (then). Richard Spencer has said that the way he closed the talk was meant as pure irony, and I hope that’s the case, that it was all ironic and over-exuberance.
I don’t think that anything that has any whiff of Nazism is a particularly effective way to bring Americans or even Europeans to an effective understanding of race.”
Cole said Spencer, a rising star of the far-right movement, overreached. “He blew a lot of goodwill ... and became an embarrassment to some of his own people.”
Spencer and his supporters will pay for hubris, Cole predicted. “They’ll burn out. After Trump’s victory they had a belief they were behind it, or had a lot of clout.
All they can hope for is to get something on the immigration reform/restrictions. Otherwise they’re enjoying the bragging rights, saying they won it, even though they didn’t.”
Spencer, unabashed, has continued touring university campuses and is considering a congressional run in his native Montana. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If the critiques are correct he and his supporters will, to co-opt a favoured “alt-right” term, have a rude awakening. “In the eagerness for hope many have latched on to Trump. They’re trying to get a step on the escalator.
I’m convinced they’ll be disappointed,” said Weber. Far-right youths are “on fire” but Trump, he said, will not be able to turn the clock back to the 1950s, a perceived golden age for white America.
Taylor said some on the far-right fell, as did liberals, for what he termed media distortions. “Donald Trump was never a racial dissident of the sort that I am. He was never one of us. He’s an American nationalist. The left was wrong to think that he was dancing to the tune of people like myself.”
Taylor said the far right would need patience. “Racial nationalism has not triumphed in America. It will some day. But to think it has done so (already) is delusive.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/alt-right-groups-will-revolt-if-…
If there is conflict of interest at this level just how is Trump going conduct FP without any of his ongoing businesses in 29 major countries....
The biggest contribution ever made to the Trump foundation came from World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) for $4 million in 2007. The WWE also gave the Trump Foundation its second-biggest contribution -- for $1 million -- in 2009.
The WWE was co-founded by Linda McMahon, who was announced this month as Trump's pick to head the Small Business Administration (SBA).
So exactly just how is the above not "draining the swamp" or a true perceived "conflict of interest"...meaning pay to play....
Alleged to be coming from former Czechoslovakian State Security Service (StB)Cold War archive files
Interesting if the actual documents are confirmed as valid not fakes....
More on Trump's actions in 1987/1988: Czech documents say he had tax evasion scheme, was groomed for presidency
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/15/cz… …
More info on monitoring of Ivana. Father Milos died at 63 in 1990, year of Trump divorce and Czechoslovakia freedom
http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/czechoslovak-secret-police-fil… …
1988 WaPo article: Trump was sought out by Soviets in 1986, invited to USSR in Jan 1987, flew to USSR in July 1987
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1988/12/03/trump-and-t… …
Bonus: The Soviets fly Trump in on July 4. House him in Lenin's suite. Trump writes he's impressed with Soviet ambition to make him a deal.
Shortly after his visit to Moscow in July 1987, Trump took out full page newspaper ads harshly condemning US policy cost him 100,000 USDs for the ad against Reagan
After visiting the USSR in 1987, Trump began proclaiming that Russia and the US use their nuke threat together
http://qz.com/871436/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-putin-and-trump-relea… …
After his trip to USSR and announcement he wants to have Russia nuke partnership, Trump flirts with presidential bid
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/donald-trump-first-campa… …
Copies of late 1980s files from the Czech Stasi on Trump's tax evasion and coordination with foreign intelligence
http://m.bild.de/news/ausland/donald-trump/czech-stasi-spied-on-the-tru… …
AND the former KGB has nothing on Trump for the late 80s and the FSB/SVR/GRU has nothing on Trump and company from their hacks of the RNC and his recent visits into Moscow????
Come on we cannot be that naïve.....or can we????
In some aspects...the coming Trump FP is really easy to understand and why we seem to not want to do that is strange..what you see...read and hear spoken/written by Trump the last eight years is what we are going to get....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/opinion/and-the-trade-war-came.html?a…
Donald Trump got within striking distance of the White House — or, more precisely, Comey-and-Putin range — thanks to overwhelming support from white working-class voters. These voters trusted his promise to bring back good manufacturing jobs while disbelieving his much more credible promise to take away their health care. They have a rude shock coming.
But white workers aren’t alone in their gullibility: Corporate America is still in denial about the prospects for a global trade war, even though protectionism was a central theme of the Trump campaign. In fact, the only two causes about which Mr.
Trump seems truly passionate are supposedly unfair trade deals and admiration for authoritarian regimes. It’s naïve to assume that he’ll let his signature policy issue slide.
Let’s talk means, motive and consequences.
You might imagine that a drastic change in U.S. trade policy would require congressional approval, and that Republicans — who claim to believe in free markets — would put on the brakes. But given G.O.P. spinelessness, that’s unlikely.
In any case, the relevant legislation gives the occupant of the White House remarkable leeway should he choose to go protectionist. He can restrict imports if such imports “threaten to impair the national security”; he can impose tariffs “to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits”; he can modify tariff rates when foreign governments engage in “unjustifiable” policies. Who determines whether such conditions apply? The executive himself.
Now, these provisions weren’t intended to empower a president to reverse decades of U.S. trade policy, or engage in personal vendettas. You can guess, however, how much such niceties are likely to bother the incoming administration, which is already talking about using its powers. Which brings us to the question of motive.
Why would a Trump administration impose restrictions on imports? One answer is those working-class voters, whose supposed champion is set to pursue a radically antiworker domestic agenda. There’s an obvious incentive for Mr. Trump to make a big show of doing something to fulfill campaign promises.
And if this creates international conflict, that’s actually a plus when it comes to diverting attention from collapsing health care and so on.
Beyond this, it’s clear that the incoming commander-in-chief really believes that international trade is a game in which nice guys finish last, and that America has been taken advantage of. Furthermore, he’s picking advisers who will confirm him in these beliefs.
Oh, and don’t expect attempts by experts to point out the holes in this view — to point out, in particular, that the image of a predatory China, running huge surpluses by keeping its currency undervalued, is years out of date — to make any impression.
Members of the Trump team believe that all criticism of their economic ideas reflects a conspiracy among think tanks that are out to undermine them. Because of course they do.
So what will happen when the Trump tariffs come?
There will be retaliation, big time. When it comes to trade, America is not that much of a superpower — China is also a huge player, and the European Union is bigger still. They will respond in kind, targeting vulnerable U.S. sectors like aircraft and agriculture.
And retaliation isn’t the whole story; there’s also emulation. Once America decides that the rules don’t apply, world trade will become a free-for-all.
Will this cause a global recession? Probably not — those risks are, I think, exaggerated. No, protectionism didn’t cause the Great Depression.
What the coming trade war will do, however, is cause a lot of disruption.
Today’s world economy is built around “value chains” that spread across borders: your car or your smartphone contain components manufactured in many countries, then assembled or modified in many more. A trade war would force a drastic shortening of those chains, and quite a few U.S. manufacturing operations would end up being big losers, just as happened when global trade surged in the past.
An old joke tells of a motorist who runs over a pedestrian, then tries to fix the damage by backing up — and runs over the victim a second time. Well, the effects of the Trumpist trade war on U.S. workers will be a lot like that.
Given these prospects, you might think that someone will persuade the incoming administration to rethink its commercial belligerence. That is, you might think that if you have paid no attention to the record and character of the protectionist in chief. Someone who won’t take briefings on national security because he’s “like, a smart person” and doesn’t need them isn’t likely to sit still for lessons on international economics.
No, the best bet is that the trade war is coming. Buckle your seatbelts.
Trump has yet to completely and fully place his businesses into a true blind trust as is required to avoid any conflict of interests...WHICH he himself stated as President he does not fall under the laws concerning "conflict of interests"...but maybe his own political party needs to revisit the idea of "conflict of interest"...
For Trump, a clash of deals, policy in China
President-elect Donald Trump has called China an “enemy” of the United States, but for at least eight years his hotel chain has been trying to do business in the country. While negotiations for the luxury hotels have yet to bear fruit, the efforts could hugely complicate one of the most important foreign policy relationships Trump will have to navigate during his presidency.
Here is the inherent danger in Trump tweets...historically he is claiming now that the world is a far better place since he was elected.....and that his election has given us hope and we all went out and spent like crazy....
He is taking credit then for a much improved economy 3.5% growth rate under another President and much improved job market and a much improved take home salary....under another President
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 9h
9 hours ago
The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!
He is not noticing that the markets are expecting a massive spending binge and not factoring then the resulting massive increase in inflation nor major increases in the US deficits.....
He urgently needs to come to Berlin....and face the reality that he is not being viewed globally as this "great white hope" that he tweets about in this specific tweet....
When I walked into my company the day after the election you could have heard a pin drop and see the faces of 67 shocked Germans/swedes who could not believe he had won...as they view Trump as a threat to world peace....just based alone on his many statements...all they did was question me the lone American all day long as to what I thought about the election and the impact it will have in Europe as a whole..and Germany specifically as they sense he openly does not like Merkel...
European Twitter commenter.....
Santa Trump hard at work delivering goodies he did not make but wants us to believe he did...
HERE we go again....US FP via twitter.......
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 10h
10 hours ago
The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!
APPEARS Trump does not know the history behind who drove the creation of the UN and why is sits historically in NYC....how strange is that when he himself is a so called New Yorker...
BUT WAIT he best friend Putin is the one who has repeatedly blocked any major UNSC decision on anything....SO maybe Trump should call his best friend and ask why is that?????
Ever notice just how Trump avoids a direct face to face news conference...that has not been one for over 170 days now since the last "failed one".....
How can a US President drive US FP without engaging the US general population in that conversation.....??
Twitter isn't enough: #Trump should face a press conference
http://cnn.it/2hgHU9s
Controlling the flow of information and slating that information via Twitter does not substitute for a open dialogue with the American people.....
REMEMBER while Trump won the Electoral College he lost the general election vote thus does not have a full mandate to speak in the name of the American people without engaging those that fully voted for the other party by almost 3M more votes than Trump received...which is massive for a general election vote tally...
For Fact-Checking Website Snopes, a Bigger Role Brings More Internet Attacks Against Them
http://nyti.ms/2iuNW7B
In the current "Post Truth Era"..it appears that certain groups of Americans and others seem to not want to read the "truth nor "hear" the "truth"...
Predicting a major increase in employment opportunities for "fact checkers research positions".....
Notice when Trump critiques NBC he distracts at the same time from then this....still waiting for the "fact checker response".......
Eric Trump Foundation Caught Funneling Cancer Research Cash Directly To His Father -
http://www.trumpdaily.com/trump-family/eric-trump-foundation-caught-fun…
BTW...his charity is under massive NY State investigation and he himself stated it would be shut down.....AND his charity has paid repeatedly IRS fines for violation of the charity tax laws....
Russian propaganda is driven on the 6Ds principle....Distort..Deflect..Dismiss...Dismay..... ALL designed to create Doubt and distrust.....
Which of the 6Ds do these Trump tweets follow????
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
I gave millions of dollars to DJT Foundation, raised or recieved millions more, ALL of which is given to charity, and media won't report!
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
The DJT Foundation, unlike most foundations, never paid fees, rent, salaries or any expenses. 100% of money goes to wonderful charities!
So now we have had a period of time since the election to observe Trump hard at work....so can any sane person explain to me just how Trump envisions driving his FP using Twitter.....and his private cell phone...BUT WAIT he constantly bashed Clinton for security violations using a private email server and he is more secure????
Everything he pushes a FP concept/idea/rant he ends up lying that he tweeted it in the first place which naturally in the current modern world all tweets are archived.....
@realDonaldTrump claims NBC 'purposely' misquoted nuclear comments...
http://politi.co/2hnqFIQ
BUT WAIT NBC just repeated what Trump himself tweeted to the entire world....and that is "purposely misquoting"...???
THERE was and is a serious challenge to the US democracy by the huge amount of social media trolling and extremely high number of "fake news"....
BUT right now it appears that when even US MSM quotes Trump and or his transition team comments...real live comments verbatim word for word...suddenly then that MSM is "lying/misquoting" and or putting out "fake news"..
THIS is I am sorry to say is exactly how an authoritarian ruler works....BUT WAIT the US is supposedly a "democracy"....????
APPEARS some do in fact believe what Trump tweets.........
Gingrich endorses Trump's nuclear arms buildup.........
http://politi.co/2hoMUOd
The far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen promises that she will take out #France both from #EU & #NATO:
http://goo.gl/LX7pY6
Trump Team Seeks Names of Officials Working to Counter Violent Extremism by Warren Strobel and Arshad Mohammed, Reuters
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has asked two Cabinet departments for the names of government officials working on programs to counter violent extremism, according to a document seen by Reuters and U.S. officials.
The requests to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security involve a set of programs that seek to prevent violence by extremists of any stripe, including recruitment by militant Islamist groups within the United States and abroad.
Reuters could not determine why the Trump team asked for these names. The Trump team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has frequently criticized President Barack Obama for not doing enough to battle Islamic militants and for his refusal to use the term "radical Islam" to describe Islamic State and other militant groups.
Some career officials said they feared the incoming administration may be looking to undo the work that the Obama administration has done on countering violent extremism.
"They're picking a few issues to ask for people's names," said one government official who spoke on condition of anonymity, reflecting wider fears that those who worked on such issues could be marginalized by the new administration…
Trump's own NatSec advisor who was a three star intel officer should not be lying .............
The Onion of #Trump's circle keeps on blooming.
Flynn partnered w/ KGB-linked businessman to sell mind-reading gear
https://thinkprogress.org/michael-flynn-kgb-mind-reading-equipment-us-g…
Putin amazingly did not deny that Russia hacked the DNC. Instead, argued not important who was hacker:
http://wpo.st/vfIO2
BUT WAIT Trump denies Russians hacked anything....
Putin Echoes Trump, Saying ‘A Guy on a Couch’ May Have Hacked DNC & Other Highlights from Today's Press Conference
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-december-23-2016/#15814
BUT WAIT Trump stated it was a 400lb guy on a bed....
Lockheed shares sink further on Trump's F-35 threat
http://reut.rs/2hgiPPy
Trump has done more to sink shareholder value for both Boeing and LH than any global economic situation has done....
THIS is just how badly the new President gets his facts mixed up and or totally wrong.....
Interesting budget note: By 2018, F-35s will cost $85m each, down from $102m today. F/A-18s in FY17 will cost $82m. (via Vertical Research)
SO why did this new President think there was a massive overrun cost for each plane????
WHO fed him the wrong information?????
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
AND we complained about the micromanagement of DoD by the Obama WH......
Can someone please explain to him the difference between generations of fighters....and the need for stealth.....noticed the Russians and Chinese have in the meantime matched the F35.....
SO WHAT ex general on his Staff gave him this advice.....it is produced in 45 States and provides hundreds of well paying manufacturing jobs....IS that not what he promised to provide the "Rust Belt"....????????
Putin's support for a powerful military leader in Libya is beginning to undermine the UN-backed government there
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-21/putin-promotes-libya…
Egypt delays U.N. vote on settlements after Trump, Israel urge U.S. veto
http://reut.rs/2ik3Xx0
Trump demanded the Us veto this UN resolution even though he is not the current US President yet he demands the current one do what he says must be done.....
Here comes the US Embassy in Jerusalem......and waves being caused needlessly in the entire Arab World...
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed....cont: https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10158338539250725 …
TRUMP: More nukes
AIDE: He meant less nukes
TRUMP: No, really, more nukes
AIDE: We won’t have more nukes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons_us_585…
Trump questions the US's nuclear arsenal: Here's how the US's nukes compare to Russia's
http://read.bi/2hk9d7T
"Aides to Mr. Trump, asked to clarify what the president-elect meant...responded with a statement that did not address that point."
This president is tap dancing all the way to the WH and yet no one calls out these crazy tweets for what they are crazy....
Trump linking the US MSM press again and they allow it.....
Seems that Trump decided another "Trump likes Putin" news cycle is preferable to a "Trump calls for nuclear arms race" news cycle.
WAIT...Trump did call for a nuclear weapons race and stated in the end both China and Russia would be beaten by the US
Putin yesterday: 'We need to strengthen Russia's nuclear forces.'
Trump today: 'US must greatly strengthen its nuclear capability.'
On the plus side, at least we know what Trump's going to say tomorrow: Whatever Putin says today.
David Patrikarakos
✔
@dpatrikarakos
As someone who wrote a book centered on nuclear issues I can safely say this is neither necessary nor wise.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38410027
…
Trump team asked State Department for info on women’s issues programs, sparking fears of another witch hunt
http://wpo.st/xN8O2
THIS AFTER a 74 page questionnaire concerning scientists working at the Department of Energy.....
Witch hunts starting for all those employees who do not support Trump...or global warming or women's rights....
How is Trump going to handle this critical FP problem....WHEN he claims the Russians are not hacking?????
Cybersecurity firm finds evidence that #Russia|n #military unit was behind #DNC #hack
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world....6c18a07900ab#
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/...ref=world&_r=0
Lithuania Said Found Russian Spyware on Its Government Computers
Now that Russia's propaganda conquered America, Peskov goes all in: Putin's actually a liberal bc sez 'freedom' lots
https://ria.ru/politics/20161221/1484252401.html
Let's see ...we now have a president that still refuses to open his tax records....refuses to believe his businesses are not a conflict and now this.....
Trump weighs 'half-blind' trust option for businesses: Politico
http://reut.rs/2hVmfs5
So exactly just how is he to conduct FP if he is viewed as corrupt????
Rex Tillerson once said there was "no respect for the rule of law in Russia." Then he changed his view.
So the new SoS will show no impartiality towards Russian sanctions that have caused a 1B or more USD loss to Exxon??????
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/world/europe/russia-rex-tillerson-don…
NOW we have problems with Trump's NatSec Advisor.......
LtGen Flynn, OPSEC violator...again. Maybe the chant should've been "Lock HIM up!"
http://buff.ly/2hrtuEC
So just how is he to give impartial advise for a President that misspells tweets?????
Pressured by @Trump staffers, the Kuwaiti embassy abruptly shifted a celebration to a Trump hotel. Kleptocracy and personal enrichment....at the expense of the US voters.....who voted to drain the swamp....
The new US FP...all meetings to be held worldwide not in US Embassies BUT in Trump hotels....
Casey Michel
✔
@cjcmichel
For @TheDailyBeast, I looked at the role Richard Spencer's wife plays in linking Moscow with US white nationalists:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/20/meet-the-moscow-mouthp…
Presidential Transition
ExxonMobil helped defeat Russia sanctions bill
The company’s formidable lobbying operation cleared the way for outgoing CEO Rex Tillerson to help restore a program worth billions of dollars as secretary of state.
By Isaac Arnsdorf and Elana Schor 12/18/16 07:11 AM EST
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/exxon-mobile-russia-sanctions-rex…
That Drone Skirmish With China? It Was Over Before Donald Trump’s First Mean Tweet.
The president-elect would have known this if he’d taken his presidential briefing that morning before tweeting.
WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump launched his Twitter campaign against China’s seizure of a U.S. Navy research submersible last week to great fanfare ― and, as it turns out, hours after the crisis had already been defused.
It’s unclear whether the president-elect or his aides knew that fact ― it would have been included in the intelligence briefing available to him each morning ― before he sent out his misspelled missive of outrage at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters ― rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Trump wrote. He deleted that version and replaced it with “unprecedented” spelled correctly at 8:57 a.m.
But even his first version came four hours after U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus was informed that the Chinese navy had agreed to return the “underwater unmanned vehicle,” The Huffington Post has learned.
That information would have been known to Trump had he taken the “Presidential Daily Brief” prior to posting his first tweet. Whether he did that Saturday, or whether he or his staff even bothered to check with the State Department or the Pentagon about the status of the matter before weighing in, is unknown. Officials in Trump’s transition office did not respond to queries from The Huffington Post.
Trump has said that he finds the brief repetitive and that he does not need a daily briefing because he is smart. His staff has said Trump is receiving the briefing about three times a week.
In any case, Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller was quick to take credit for his boss when news broke that China had agreed to return the device. At 11:54 a.m., he tweeted: “@realdonaldtrump gets it done,” and attached a link to an article in The Hill about the resolution of the incident. At 6:52 p.m., Miller tweeted a link to another story in The Hill, this one about his earlier tweet taking credit for Trump’s initial tweet.
And Trump himself capped off the day with a final tweet sent during the short motorcade from Palm Beach International Airport back across the Intracoastal Waterway to his Mar-a-Lago resort following a rally in Alabama: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.― let them keep it!”
The encounter’s resolution, though, resulted not from Trump’s 140-character snippets of anger, but days of traditional diplomacy. The Chinese vessel had taken the submersible on Thursday just as the USNS Bowditch was preparing to retrieve it about 60 miles northwest of the Philippines’ Subic Bay in the South China Sea.
Baucus, a former Democratic senator from Montana, lodged his first protest that day, as did U.S. military representatives to their Chinese counterparts. Late Saturday afternoon Beijing time ― pre-dawn 3:30 a.m. in Washington ― Baucus relayed word that China had agreed to return the device, according to the State Department. That handover took place Tuesday, near the same location as the original incident.
The department referred HuffPost to the Trump transition team regarding questions about whether and to what extent the Trump team reached out to diplomats.
The South China Sea has been the source of raised tensions between the United States and China in recent years, with the Chinese building artificial islands on shoals and coral reefs for use as military bases. China has, since the end of World War II, claimed nearly the entire region as its own, while the United States and other nations insist that the area constitutes international water belonging to no country and open to navigation by all.
Trump had already angered China within weeks of his election with a phone conversation with the president of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan a renegade province, which the United States has implicitly accepted for decades under the “One China” policy. But Trump has said he sees no reason to continue that policy and could instead use it as a bargaining chip over negotiations on other issues.
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