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
NOW Trump's FP which BTW he does in fact have and has been stating it for at least the last 18 months....TAKES the US FP from worse to a complete disaster...
QUOTE:
Trump signs executive order stripping non-citizens of privacy rights
The six month-old Data Shield agreement between the US and EU is now in jeopardy.
UNQUOTE:
NOTE...it took years for this agreement to be finalized......
EU statement pointed at the heart of Trump and his so called FP....this is critical as it has been the key agreement basically allowing US companies to operate inside the EU...ALL US companies that handle customer data.
TRUMP has effectively now killed their abilities to operate inside the EU and thus hammering their earnings THUS hammering their abilities to pay US taxes and shareholders and hire Americans...
EU RESPONSE TO TRUMP'S EXECUTIVE ORDER:
QUOTE
With a stroke of his pen, the president just potentially invalidated a transcontinental data flow agreement between the US and EU which took years to negotiate.
The US-EU Data Shield agreement is an authorization framework which enables companies to transfer the personal data of Europeans to the US while ensuring that the companies operate within compliance of Europe's more stringent privacy laws.
It effectively ensured that a European's personal data -- that is, any personal data originating from the EU, not just that of EU citizens -- would be protected to the standards that the EU demands whether the data is sitting on a server in Paris, France or Paris, Texas.
More than 1,500 companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft had agreed to abide by the Data Shield agreement, which requires the US Department of Commerce to ensure that American companies are operating in compliance. It took the place of the earlier Safe Harbor agreement, which the European Court of Justice ruled ineffective and invalid after the Snowden leaks came to light in 2013.
This agreement -- as well as the legal ability for US companies to serve European customers -- in now in very real danger of unravelling. And it's all thanks to an Executive Order that Trump signed earlier this week. Specifically, it's Section 14, which reads:
Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.
Enforcing privacy policies that specifically "exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents," while aimed at enhancing domestic immigration laws, effectively invalidates America's part of the Data Shield agreement, opens the current administration up to sanctions by the EU and could lead our allies across the Atlantic to suspend the agreement outright.
.@EU_Commission : If adequacy is no longer guaranteed, we will have to suspend the #PrivacyShield #cpdp2017
— Laura Kayali (@LauKaya) January 25, 2017
If that happens, things are going to get really uncomfortable for US companies trying to do digital business in the EU. Without that authorization framework in place, these companies will be forced to operate in a legal grey zone making it far more difficult for them to serve their European clients.
AND EVEN MORE SERIOUSLY FOR US COMPANIES IT OPENS THEM TO BEING SUED BY EU CITIZENS AS WELL AS US CITIZENS RESIDING IN EUROPE FOR VIOLATING EU PRIVACY LAWS....
Some 16% US exports go to Mexico; some 80% of Mexico's to US. A trade war triggered by a US tariff would leave both immeasurably worse off.
WHAT is extremely interesting is that Trump did not realize that this 80% is largely designed to fit into other US manufacturing processes..THUS automatically driving up US prices....
The 16% going into Mexica is exactly the same thing...US semi finished products designed for further production and export...thus cutting demand for US jobs and products....
WHAT Trump does not realize....as a key to FP...it is a two way street....simple as that
QUOTE
After Mr. Peña Nieto called off the meeting in a Twitter post, Mr. Trump fired back, accusing Mexico of burdening the United States with illegal immigrants, criminals and a trade deficit.
UNQUOTE
NOTICE Trump does nothing to offer US assistance to stop the flow of US weapons into the cartels and to stop the cash flow of drug sales back into the cartels in Mexico.....
NOTICE the world of IR...is two way....
QUOTE:
In some respects, Mexico has become a trial run for Mr. Trump’s promise to place America first on the global stage.
In his dealings with Mr. Trump, Mr. Peña Nieto has found himself in a bind: trapped between his own people, who have demanded a vehement response to Mr. Trump’s taunts about Mexico, and a foreign leader who controls much of his country’s destiny.
“Peña Nieto has made a superhuman effort,” said Jesus Silva-Herzog, a professor at the School of Government at Tecnológico de Monterrey. “He has gone above and beyond to preserve the friendship with America and has done everything possible, while risking all of his prestige and popularity, to try to find a common ground of trust with Mr. Trump.”
During the campaign and now as president, Mr. Trump has taken aim at perhaps the most prized possession of Mexico: its image. Throughout his presidency, the Mexican leader has tried to portray his country as a place of economic opportunity, a cultural capital and a nation rising on the world stage. Mr. Trump has sought to show the opposite, characterizing Mexico as a bastion of crime, illegal immigration and unfair trade.
Mr. Peña Nieto has faced a dilemma: to defend Mexico’s honor, or to defend its national interests by preserving ties with the United States at all costs.
For months, Mr. Peña Nieto made his choice clear. To the growing anger of many Mexicans, he avoided responding rashly to Mr. Trump. Calls for the building of a wall, promises to deport millions and threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement have been met with measured, understated responses. Adding to his vulnerability are the millions of Mexican citizens living in the United States, whom Mr. Trump appeared to target in his executive orders on Wednesday.
For Mr. Peña Nieto, the economics were particularly difficult. Having begun his presidency with a focus on the economy, the idea of canceling Nafta or leaving Mexico a less desirable place for foreign investment was an existential crisis waiting to happen.
Dialogue, Mr. Peña Nieto said, was the only way forward. It was in keeping with the start of his administration, when he negotiated the passage of several major economic reforms with two rival political parties, paving the way for needed changes to the nation’s antiquated systems of telecommunications, energy and education.
Soon after that, his administration began to face headwinds. The disappearance of 43 teaching students, a scandal involving his wife’s purchase of a house, and a moribund economy began to gnaw at his popularity, and the slide in approval ratings continued from there.
By the time Mr. Peña Nieto invited Mr. Trump to Mexico for a visit during the American presidential campaign, his own image was as tarnished as the one Mr. Trump had painted of Mexico. The Mexican leader was trying to find common ground and engage in dialogue with the candidate, but at home, it was a political miscalculation. His reputation in Mexico sank even further.
But once Mr. Trump took office and pushed to make good on his campaign pledge to build a wall, the pressure on Mr. Peña Nieto became too great. Across the Mexican political and intellectual class, calls for him to cancel the meeting reached a fever pitch this week. Officials and experts said Mr. Trump’s Twitter post Thursday morning, suggesting he might cancel the meeting, made the decision less controversial: Mr. Peña Nieto could not let Mr. Trump be the one to cancel.
“It would have been like a cousin inviting us to dinner and then uninviting us, or worse, said we were only allowed to come if we paid for dinner,” Mr. Silva-Herzog said, referring to Mr. Trump’s repeated promises to make Mexico pay for the wall.
Now, despite the tensions with the United States and the problems they may cause, there is a silver lining, especially for the perception of Mr. Peña Nieto at home.
“These are ugly times, and things will get uglier. I don’t really see a way out it, but in this context, our great advantage will be that Mexicans are united,” Javier Solórzano, a prominent journalist, said in a video posted online. The country, he added, “is now united around the president.”
UNQUOTE
RESULT of this Trump tweet barrage is now a unified country behind their President....
Trump urgently needs as a 71 year old man....to just grown up and accept his responsibility for his own failures....even older people are capable of learning new tricks....
A nation state cannot have a FP that is built on egoism...narcissism and sociopathic urges to lie....it must be defined and based on the security, economic and political needs of the entire nation state....
We have a now a President that is basically driven by vengeance ....he starts a verbal war with one of the two nation states bordering the US not fully and completely realizing the global logistical supply chain that he is fighting "for the common worker"....
Mexico is a center of this global supply chain that 1) produced finished products for export and or produces half finished products to final assembly in the US....
A Detroit auto worker is paid 58 USDs per hour one in Mexico 8 USD per hour...allowing US based manufacturers to increase their bottom line margins IE profits for their shareholder values...
NOW Trump gets flatly slammed in the face with his FP tweeting in dealing with Mexico AS he wants them to pay for a wall that Trump promised his base of voters.....not one decided in negotiations between nation states and he is now basically negating a legal nation state negotiated free trade agreement without offering a replacement that benefits the other partners....
Trump repeatedly states Mexico will pay for the Wall...Mexico repeats it will not thus no need for a meeting that would enhance the image of Trump and that was all the meeting was to be....seen after his side trip to MC during the campaigning....
Trump ABOSULTELY does not understand international trade...the global just in time supply chains NOR IR...NOR negotiations between nation states...WHICH is not the same thing as getting the best concrete price..
NOW he threatens a 20% border tax on imports to punish Mexico and supply the money he really does need for his wall WHICH is "selling us" will cost 15B not the true cost truly estimated at 24-30B WHICH he is not telling us...
THEN he is literally forced to backtrack out of his vengeance aggression when his surrogates realize he has no Congressional support for a border tax AND suddenly he realizes that the 20% tax will just be added to US products thus forcing his voting base to pay far more for their products AND this is critical restricting US exports thus cutting jobs in the end...
Just how stupid can a so called great businessman be these days....and lying constantly on top of all of the above....
QUOTE:
WASHINGTON — President Trump's plan for a wall along the Mexican border could be financed through a 20% border tax on all imports from the United States' third largest trading partner, the White House said Thursday.
“It clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that the American taxpayer is wholly respected," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said. “We are probably the only major country that doesn’t treat imports this way.”
But shortly after he announced the proposal in an unscheduled "gaggle" with reporters on Air Force One, Spicer clarified to a separate group of reporters in the West Wing that it was just one proposal. "There are clearly a bunch of ways it can be done," he said. "The point is American taxpayers are not going to fund it."
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus added that it was part of a "buffet of options."
© REYNOLDS/EPA/REX/Shutterstock US President Donald Trump, Washington, USA - 26 Jan 2017
The unexpected proposal and subsequent backtracking underscored just how quickly the Trump White House is churning out policy proposals in a hectic first week in office, with a crowded calendar of meetings, speeches and executive actions.
The border tax plan would need congressional approval, and Spicer described it as the beginning of a process that would be part of overall tax reform. The tax proposal would have the benefit of dovetailing two of his signature policies: Curtailing illegal immigration and enacting more protectionist trade regulations.
But the proposal could face resistance even among Republicans.
"Border security yes, tariffs no," Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., wrote on Twitter. "Simply put, any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad."
The U.S. trade deficit with Mexico is was $49.2 billion in 2015, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. Though Spicer didn't explain how the tax would work, the principle is similar to a border adjustment tax currently being discussed in Congress, which would heavily tax imports but give a tax credit on exports.
“Right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous," Spicer said.
Spicer ran through the math by applying 20% to the difference, coming up with nearly $10 billion a year.
The United States could "easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding,” he said.
Actual imports from Mexico totaled $316.4 billion in 2015.
UNQUOTE:
AND on top of all this ...this will in fact trigger a true global trade war with the US being the target....
Can Trump actually even stop lying....a deep characteristic of a sociopathic narcissist....
Trump speaking at GOP Retreat just claimed that murders in Philly were on the rise. They declined last year
https://news.vice.com/story/the-white-house-is-already-skewing-crime-st…
Based on Trump's own definition of what voter fraud is....has another criminal on his hands.....
It turns out Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is also registered to vote in two states
BUT since Trump wants voter fraud investigated are we going to see his own family questioned by the FBI....along with his advisor Bannon and his Sec of Treasury.....
Why is it that Team Trump advisors all seem to pendel between Russian clients...white nationalists and back to Russia....
Lewandowski, POTUS' ex campaign manager, first major post-elxn gig: advising Serb nationalists in #Bosnia, #Serbia.
http://www.kurir.rs/vesti/politika/kesic-hoce-da-nam-podmetne-lazova-tr…
Lewandowski is rumored to be tied into Russian connections as well as Page...Manafort and Flynn......
Donald Trump used a Gmail address to secure @POTUS - The Verge
https://apple.news/ATaougvUeTt61BsHbWSukfQ
Trump FP via Twitter failed him badly today when the Mexican President said hell no to the paying of the trump WALL...and refused to attend the scheduled meeting with Trump....after Trump broke agreements stating he would no longer mention "the WALL"....
JUST IN: U.S. looking to reschedule meeting with Mexican President Pena Nieto - White House.
http://reut.rs/2jBRqWG
BUT WAIT......
CORRECTED: Trump says agreed to cancel Pena Nieto meeting; says would be fruitless if Mexico doesn't treat U.S. fairly (not pay for wall)
BUT WAIT..now the WH just cannot lose the US/Mexican twitter war....
JUST IN: Trump says he has made it clear to Mexico that American people will not pay for border wall.
http://reut.rs/2kxHQV6
WELL Trump has a distinct legal problem...any wall will be built on US soil..THUS the US pays for it after the Mexican President has repeatedly stated they will not pay for a Trump monument....
FIRST Trump FP total failure...all via twitter...
White nationalists/supremacists in the WH.....who would have thought that after Bannon made it into WH.....
Alex Jones of infowars says he's been offered WH press credentials.
The WH says that's not true.
What's now sad is that I have no true idea which one is lying.
BUT WAIT..they both are lying.....
Now @novaya_gazeta says top FSB cyber agent was arrested for passing info on Russia elex hacks to US intelligence.
NOW the five agency investigation into Russian ties to the Team Trump are backed up by hard core intel....
Reference the Russian influence operation and the leaked emails and the FBI October surprise....which damaged the Clinton campaign......
Lara Trump, Eric's wife on Oct. 24 then bragging after Comey letter. Good indication of how sloppy they were.
This is important and ties Donald Trump himself and his family directly to the FBI NY Field Office and apparently they knew in advance of the Comey Clinton announcement concerning the new so called discovered emails on a new computer...which turned out to be absolutely nothing
Gates: I warned Trump about Putin
http://thehill.com/policy/international/315810-gates-i-warned-trump-abo…
If you wonder whether the Moscow spy arrests show Putin exposing a rogue hacking operation, you better read this.
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/americas-alleged-spy-in-the-heart-of-ru…
A top cybersecurity specialist in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was arrested on Wednesday reportedly on suspicion of leaking information to the U.S. intelligence community — a bombshell accusation that, if true, would mean Washington had a spy in the heart of Russia’s national defense infrastructure.
According to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the FSB believes Sergei Mikhailov tipped off U.S. officials to information about Vladimir Fomenko and his server rental company “King Servers,” which the American cybersecurity company ThreatConnect identified last September as “an information nexus” that was used by hackers suspected of working for Russian state security in cyberattacks.
Top Russian Cyber-Security Agent to Face Treason Charges
According to the RBC news agency, a total of four individuals have been arrested in connection with the treason case against Mikhailov, including charges against Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs, and Dmitry Dokuchaev, who worked in the same FSB unit as Mikhailov.
The name of the fourth treason suspect is still unknown.
Trump and his entire team including the Republican Party beat up on Clinton for her bathroom server which was relatively secure as severs go...it took major Russian hackers to beat it....
THEN the Trump team sets of their own RNC server inside the WH.....
THEN it appears they tweeted to the entire internet the username and password for that server....
JΞSTΞR ✪ ΔCTUAL³³º¹ @th3j35t3r
#FLASH - Trumps White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, tweets out password, not once, but twice in 2 days. Just amazing.
BUT WAIT....did not Trump actually state in public...the following....
"I only hire the best people".
Is Trump seriously interested in raising the actual oil price for the Russian state budget....
The Russian government needs an oil price of 65 USDs and it is only at 55 USD.....
Trump’s border tax is going to increase the oil price
http://read.bi/2jBjSYX
BUT WAIT...this oil price increase actually effects the entire US living costs for the so called common man that Trump says he is working for...
Russian watchers and social media who carefully monitor anything that moves in Russia are no saying the following and it does not bode well for Trump longevity in his office....
Christopher Steele's report is true & first fruits of labor are felt in Russia in form of purge from informants.
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/01/26/71296-troyanskiy-kod
Example....
Putin crony, friend to money launderers, head of 2nd largest lender in Russia, VTB Bank, to Trump:
He stated I an interview with Trump...Lift sanctions-need to "compensate" us
At 2013 Moscow Miss U contest, Trump gets private meeting with CEO of Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank, which finances Russian intel ops
Before moving to Moscow, Carter Page used to work at the Pentagon-was he groomed by Russian intelligence?
After impressing with his ties to a Ukranian oligarch, Page is moved to Moscow in 2004, right when Manafort also began working in Ukraine
Russian watching a long lost art since the Cold War ended is in full swing and driven largely via social media who has the language and knowledge of Russian events and affairs and whose who.....
The last true DoD Russian exert resigned after Obama failed to listen to her warnings on Russia...
IMPORTANT Example
Katehon's media outlet Tzargrad run a story claiming the detained FSB cyber security general had connection to Shaltay-Boltay hackers.
Tzargrad removed the article after it went viral in #Russia. Luckily it's archived.
http://archive.is/zcyAh <-
It just keeps getting worse ...................
Exclusive: The State Department’s entire senior management team just resigned
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/01/26/the-state-…
QUOTE
“You don’t run foreign policy by making statements, you run it with thousands of people working to implement programs every day,” Boucher said. “To undercut that is to undercut the institution.”
By itself, the sudden departure of the State Department’s entire senior management team is disruptive enough. But in the context of a president who railed against the U.S. foreign policy establishment during his campaign and secretary of state with no government experience, the vacancies are much more concerning.
UNQUOTE
BUT WAIT...appears Team Trump fired them all...replacing them with what again?????
The current President of the German Automobile Industry which all German manufacturers belong to...issued the following comment to the Trump threat of 35% tariffs on imports of automobiles and car parts...
"Trump should realize that US car makers Ford and GM have 14% market share in Germany...7% each that would in fact "suffer" if the tariffs were placed on German products---
Meaning they would be hit also with 35% tariffs on cars and parts and they push SUVs in Germany their best margin makers....
He went on to mention that the German manufacturers employ 100K plus and an equal number in supply chain positions...
If need be they could move all operations to Mexico and continue exporting cars.....
Number of actual days that Trump has not embarrassed the US......
ZERO.......
Trump speaking about illegal votes: "Of those votes cast, none of them come to me"
Only 4 proven. At least 3 of them went to Trump.
ONLY FOUR proven via actual evidence currently of voters who voted twice and it was always a mistake on the election boards' part for allowing them.....
AND in four different states THUS not organized...rather simple randomness....
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
Iraqis Are Pissed That Trump Said The US Might Try To Seize Their Oil, AGAIN
WATCH: Iraqi PM Vowes Trump Will Not Take Iraq's Oil as He Promised
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iraq/1.767442
Russia hacked UK TV channel for a year, as well as Brit journalists covering #Ukraine. Time to contact @SecureWorks
https://www.channel4.com/news/russian-hackers-target-uk
BUT WAIT...Trump does not believe Russian hacking ever occurs.....
Mexico's president cancels U.S. visit after Trump's wall comments:
http://reut.rs/2j8LAzS
Mexico pushes back on Trump. Of course, what did you expect? Foreigners have agency too. Someone needs to inform Don before he causes worse.
DJT thinks negotiating with foreign govts is like negotiating with dry wall contractors. He is in for a surprise
BUT WAIT.....in the end I'm rooting for the rule of law, actually.
Some guys in Hanoi want to explain to you the USA does not always win.
BUT WAIT Trump was a four time VN draft dodger thus never got the message....
And it just gets worse on the US FP front....
Mexican President Considers Canceling Trip to U.S.
By AZAM AHMED
Mexicans called Mr. Trump’s push to build a wall “an offense to Mexico,” a “slap in the face” and a “monument to lies.”
NOW Mexico is demanding US stop the flow of illegal weapons and drug cash back to Mexico which would help them fight the drug cartels AND that occurs on US territory....and the US Border Patrol has been largely unable to do that in the last 10 years even with more officers....
MAYBE Trump has got his wall thing a tad wrong...should be pointed at the US side....
BUT WAIT...Trump is still telling a complete lie that the Mexican government will pay for this wall..."sometime in the future"...date TBD...........
Oh GREAT now under Trump we are a "flawed democracy"....how nice for our FP to dig itself out from under that stigma....
.@TheEconomist just downgraded the US on democracy scale: Now rated a “flawed democracy”
pic.twitter.com/cNvAcr80KJ
http://usa.liveuamap.com/en/2017/26-jan
uary-theeconomist-just-downgraded-the-us-on-the-democracy
https://usaman.linkenonline…
https://usaman.linkenonline.nl/
https://forum.contentos.io/user/okcupid
https://chaturbate.com/external_link/?url=https://www.loveawake.com
https://ams.ceu.edu/optimal/optimal.php?url=https://bit.ly/3qAqaeW
https://www.justjaredjr.com/flagcomment.php?cl=10842755&el=https://bit.ly/3HeHhd0
European social media comments to the Trump alleged voter fraud....
What you are witnessing here is young American democracy failing to set voting audit procedures and or afraid to do them.
NOTE...this audit comment is actually quite valid....
Will be excuse to institute more voter suppression laws.
Appears all are running away from Trump every time he talks.....
Trump got his voter fraud info from his 'famous golfer friend,' a German national who says Trump is not his friend.
https://nyti.ms/2k5hm0n
AND the Trump statement was false....
US ME FP even before Trump was in shambles...but now under Trump...????
King Abdulla calls #Putin brother and says :'Without #Russia we will not be able to find solutions to Syria and regional problems in ME"
No further need for the US to even by in the ME after this statement from a US ally Jordan....
BUT WAIT...the Trump demanded safe zone plan in 90 days is already causing FP waves with Russia......
Kremlin spokesman says Trump not discussed idea of creating safe zones in Syria w/ Moscow, warns against "aggravating" refugee situation
BUT WAIT...Russia has already "aggravated" the refuge problem by using it as a weapons system against EU...AND by creating even more refugees...
This is the tone coming out of official German government circles now after Trump DAY THREE....
NEWS
@sigmargabriel to become next German Foreign Minister, replacing #Steinmeier.
In HIS words: To face "threats of the new #US govt."
SINCE when did Germany and Germans ever consider the US a threat to them...since Trump....no other US President has evoked such distrust on the US just based alone on Trump words and actions...and he has not even got to a concept of FP.....
Well Trump and company have formally reached the level of fascist censorship you cannot call it anything else...BUT WAIT...his spokesperson said yesterday there is no censorship and government employees are not muzzled...sure...
The Associated Press
Verified account
BREAKING: Trump administration mandating EPA scientific studies, data undergo review by political staff before public release.
RESPONSE from a German social media accounts....
Forget about religious limitations.
#Trump spells the end of independent sciences in the US as we know it.
As a person from East Germany who knows what it means to live behind a wall, I shout out: #FuckingWall.
Brave Americans & Mexicans: Resist!
We did and in the end we won or as Trump tweetsWIN!
Trump is so badly informed it hurts...and yet he believes he is speaking the "truth" as defined by the term "alternative facts"....
Donald Trump told ABC News that "millions of people" from #Syria came as refugees to Europe.
Alternative refugees, I guess.
Figures from the EU easily counter this Trump lie.....and they are accurate as every refugee regardless of what Trump thinks and or states has been registered via biometric data.....as have most of all EU citizens in their ID cards...something the US does not have and urgently needs.....
WHY is the single fact so important in this debate....Syrians actually do want to return to Syria at some point and thus easily comply with whatever requirements they must do in order to get refugee status.
Not since Calvin Coolidge threatened to invade "Soviet Mexico” has US so deeply antagonized Mexican populace.
https://nyti.ms/2ktOi3w
BTW....Trump say absolutely nothing about the massive flow of US weapons into the Mexican drug wars...WHY because Americans are earning a small fortune on this war....
NOW does Trump state just how he is going to stop of the flow of drug money back to the cartels which crosses over and under the US border wall he wants to build...
NOR does Trump the American people and especially his base that 4.6M US worker jobs hang on trade into Mexico...by instituting his so called border tax he is risking actually 4.6M US worker jobs....
Actually since his bashing of Mexico over the Wall the last two days...has actually driven the value of the Peso up not down....as the dollar is weakening and yet Trump says nothing about....
Every move he makes inside the US effects directly the outside US FP and yet he does not see that????
Trump is acting like a sociopathic narcissist should why does that surprise anyone...it was always there for all to see and hear for over 20 years in countless statements...interviews and speeches....
AND for those voters who knew this but argued well he is new and not a politician...is honest, trustful supports the common man and is for true change.... and will moderate himself once in office....get real..this is the real Trump and nothing is about to change....OR moderate.....
In his first major TV interview as president, Trump is endlessly obsessed about his popularity
http://wapo.st/2jsDYqH
Appears that now the Trump steamship has developed a large number of "leakers" and it is only DAY FOUR......
About @PressSec @seanspicer 's claim that the draft executive order on CIA prisons was not a "White House document" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/executive-order-leaked-d… …
APPEARS also that his spokesperson Spicer cannot seem to stop lying when on DAY ONE when asked if he was ever going to lie has in fact violated his own statement of "no"....
Trump WH can not get to anything on FP as everything he is so busy negating Obama and does not realize he is negating US FP at the same time....OR maybe he does and simply does not care which is far more dangerous...for the US....
How's that Trump "drain the swamp thingy going lately".....
Trump's Governmental members Gary Cohn & Rex Tillerson get 500.000.000 $
farewell gifts from #GoldmanSachs & #ExxonMobil
Definitely not on their Office of Government Ethnic forms they filled out...nor talked about in their confirmation hearings was it????
APPEARS that 14 Federal Agencies now have parallel "resistance twitter accounts" driven by the employees of those agencies...they are designed to driven true information vs what the Trump regime wants you to hear..they will provide research data...reports and other documents offer readers to study and learn from .......
There are now at least 14 "rogue" Twitter accounts from federal science agencies:
https://twitter.com/StollmeyerEU/lists/twistance/members
US Civil Service forbids GS types to get involved in open political parties and campaigns under the Hatch Act but it does not forbid them free speech and use of the internet...for their own opinions...
We have seen similar Russian parody sites pop up in support of Ukraine and Syria....with great effect in their fight against Russian fake news..and propaganda/misinformation....to the point that even Russia took notice and complained to Twitter and FB...
Concerning the Russian FSB arrest of their top cybercrime FSB officer..for treason....
Interesting. Malofeev claims that FSB "treason" arrestee "sponsored" hacker group Anonymous Int (who leaked Dugin's & Girkin's mailboxes) ..
and that he (FSB's Mihailov) was working for CIA. The latter part sounds like rambling but former part may have kernel of truth.
AND Anonymous has declared war on Trump....strange world we are in .....
Although Clapper on Fox News alluded to the potential that the CIA had confirmed information on the Russian hacking and influence operations in the US election....
Putin now fully expects Trump to cede the Balkans back to the old Soviet sphere of influence......
Thanks to Putin, Serbia will soon have the only real air force in the former Yugoslavia. Seems kinda important.
NOT a single FP comment by Team Trump...as he is busy negating anything Obama did....and really does not care about FP....American First...American First.....etc...
If confirmed as accurate....
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/torture-mattis-pompeo-defense-234…
When do "honorable men with morals" stand up and call out Trump on this....????
Mattis and Pompeo "blindsided" by a draft executive order that wld allow CIA to restart torture program
THIS program has earned the US a very black eye in the world of IR and FP...yet Trump just keeps on driving the tank over the cliff in the first four days....
Beside no EU member will support this after the Polish experience...
NOTE: Merkel government is now dropping the German law of that one cannot defame a foreign leader in preparation of the coming four years of Trump ....not well liked in the German general population outside of populists naturally...
AND the Team Trump connections to Russia are starting to get interesting when one analyzes who are the players in this Russian influence operation..one really needs to go back and fully analyze US lobbyists/think tanks and who funds them....
Excellent report @Buzzfeed; too few MSM seem to realize @JeffSessions placed Russian spy Carter Page in Team Trump
https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/this-russian-hacker-could-become…
Question is...is the FBI NYC office already fully compromised and unwilling to chase the dots.....????
What Putin really wants and is Trump helping Putin now? so is that the real Trump FP....
"Russia has a lower GDP than Italy, average wages are lower than in Romania."
http://bit.ly/2k4Eqg2
On top of several thousand proTrump social media trolls now working the French social media in order to influence a Le Pen win we have this.....
EU Mythbusters
✔
@EUvsDisinfo
Pro-Kremlin disinformation focuses on Canada, Germany, UK and Nazis. Read the latest #DisinfoReview:
http://eepurl.com/cy2YZ5
AND we know that BANNON has now three companies of his in Europe...Germany...France and UK...and we have his own comments that he wants to form a unified white nationalist front across Europe tying back into the US....
Team Trump has not really distanced themselves truly from white nationalists...KKK and the American Nazi Party.....only a few mild rebukes and that was it....
BUT REALLY THINK this interview completely through to the end....
There were in fact three verified Russian hackings of three state voting databases..which have been clearly shown and clearly shown they had great interest in those databases.....DID in fact the Russians insert the name of multiple voters not registered in order to support this Trump statement.
A number of serious IT security types could not really say just why the Russians hacked these three states...THAT we now know about...other state databases have not been checked....nor could the FBI state anything....
BUT has in fact Trump known the reason and it ties back to the Russia hacking of the US election....a very valid assumption now with these comments...
ACTUSL FACT that can be truly assumed from the ABC interview:..
What you are witnessing here is @POTUS explaining to you why the #Russia hacked the voter registration systems.
WHAT fantasy is this President living in and at what point does one start to seriously question his mental capacity to lead the US????
We are getting awful close to the 25th Amendment right now and it is just DAY FOUR...
ABC News
✔
@ABC
Pres. Trump 'won’t allow' anyone to demean people in Inauguration crowd. "We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches."
HE has been so disproven a number of times with video footage..photos...official police numbers...official internet research numbers....and Nieslen rating numbers
YET he hangs on this narrative...actually much like Iraqi's hung on the believes that the US had brought the "bird flu into Iraq" to destroy their chicken farms.....
Never thought Iraqi's and Trump had much in common but when it comes to "strange and unproven narratives"...they do....
IN that same ABC interview Trump openly and publicly states that there are those that have registered to vote in two or more states and that they voted in two or more states....
BUT WAIT...that included his close advisor....BANNON...his daughter and his Cabinet member for the Treasury.....
SURELY he going to have them locked up now???????
EVEN with more people like these three voting for him multiple times based on his own statements he did lose the general election by 2.8M votes....
Evan McMullin
✔
@Evan_McMullin
Ever notice that Trump attacks everything that makes us strong: our ideals, our democracy, our alliances, our security services, our people?
VALID question now comes to mind....is Trump bound and determined to undermine the US to fit his hard right views and or answer to his Russian masters in order to simply make more money out of being a President for his ongoing reality show????
AND are the voters that voted for him so oblivious to this????
THIS is from the same man that DODGED the draft FOUR times to avoid VN....who has never served a single day in military service...who is a known lair...who has a history of dishonest business dealings and on and on.....
I challenge the President of the US to name those so called "high intelligence officers" who told him that waterboarding as a torture method "works"....
EVIDENTLY Trump does not know that torture is now against federal law punishable by imprisonment...and we have the rule of law in the US...not really now under Trump....
ABC QUOTE
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, President Trump was asked about waterboarding. He said he had asked people at the highest level of intelligence, “ ‘Does it work? Does torture work?’ And the answer was, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ ” Trump went on to say, “Do I feel it works? Absolutely, I feel it works.”
UNQUOTE
I have spent well over 15 years of doing daily 8-10 hours of strategic debriefings in multiple languages and over 4 long years of face to face interrogations with 16 moths of working face to face with jihadists whom Trump has never met...
I probably have as many hours of debriefings and interrogations as Trump has had to sit down and make business decisions and we are the same age so that alone disqualifies him to make such statements...as I could probably run his business empire far better than he has....
Example....in Iraq I even filed a detainee abuse charge on JSOC for their mishandling of a prisoner taken during one of their raids...when I got to talk to him he was literally black and blue and had facial bruising....after JSOC turned him over to us....
After Abu Ghriab all interrogators were instructed with the threat of being implicated in detainee abuse if such cases were not reported immediately...
I then taking my time...having good in depth driven conversations to establish rapport was able to go over the JSOC interrogation reports with him....all 13....all were false and had led to zero results when JSOC actioned against them.....
WHY....because under brute force he gave them whatever they put in front of him. and just pointed to buildings on any map they gave to him.....and he admitted as much over a lot of cups of hot sweet Iraqi tea....the next set of my reports then led to a high success rate leaving JSOC to ask why I was able to get solid actionable intel that they supposedly had in the first place...from the very same detainee.
Torture does not work nor leads to successful actionable intel.....but solid well designed and run interrogations with excellent interrogators who know the culture and or great combat questioners always leads to something successful....
IS Trump just living out his dreams of being some sort of tough soldier...after his draft dodging days???
Some would call this type of personality we are seeing now in front of our TV sets....a sociopathic narcissist.....
I have said in countless comments here about Trump that he is in fact a smiling fascist and has a hard right trend and anything he states must be taken seriously and literally...meaning what you see is what you get....
So I am totally surprised that many debate what is serious and what is literally with Trump....
SO the discussion about is FP is a mute point..just go back to what he has said at his rallies...his speeches...his debates and his interviews and you have his FP...
Russian pundits know what Trump cutting U.N. “commitments” actually means, as they celebrate his plans to diminish U.S. “influence” in U.N.
NOW in fact the UN will become the power game for both China and Russia....
EXAMPLE of a common day of Trump comments...
"My CIA speech was a home run, like Fox said…I feel waterboarding works…only fools say we shouldn't take the oil"
WOW...a US President preaching torture and imperialism....just how much more crazy can we as a nation get...worse IMHO....