Trump is still a private citizen. He makes the calls he wants to make. What he just did was to send a very clear message to China — All options are on the table. All of them. He will be president soon. He will be negotiating with China, as president. All options are on the table.
They will understand this man.
They just might underestimate him as well. Don’t be foolish thinkin’ that.
He took the call as the President-elect , otherwise he could get caught in the Logan Act.
Although most of us loved Reagan, he never really showed himself capable of acting proactively,.....Trump is not waiting to respond to a wide range of policy directives coming from Trilateralists & CFR picked advisers.
Spot on. Everything Trump does is part of a negotiation and must be viewed in that light to understand it. The world will be getting a first-class education in the Art of the Deal over the next 8 years, and the US will be so much the better for it.
“All options are on the table.”
Our foreign policy has suffered from failing to keep all options on the table. Trump is a good negotiator and he is appropriately setting the stage letting all of the actors know they can’t expect business as usual. He will negotiate from strength, not the weakness projected for the last 8 years and the conventional globalist thinking of the 20 years previous.
I hope Trump will take time to read George Washington’s farewell address. He would be wise to heed the wisdom of the founding fathers who warned future generations against “foreign entanglements”.
Washington stated, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens,), the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause & confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
Washington went on to encourage commercial relations with other nations but avoid political connections and alliances. He supported strict neutrality in commerce and would have been appalled by modern trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, TPP). He certainly would have opposed the United Nations and NATO.