Posted on 02/10/2017 10:05:26 PM PST by Pinkbell
WASHINGTON — When President Trump took a phone call from the leader of Taiwan in December and asserted that the United States might no longer be bound by the “One China” policy, his defenders hailed it as a show of strength — the latest delicate issue on which Mr. Trump was willing to challenge decades of diplomatic orthodoxy.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump fell back into line. In a call with President Xi Jinping of China, he pledged fealty to One China, a 44-year-old policy under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Mr. Trump has also tacked to the center on Israel. After presenting himself as a stalwart defender of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who would buck the pressure campaign against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Mr. Trump warned Israelis this week that he did not believe that “going ahead with these settlements is a good thing for peace.”
And on Iran, where Mr. Trump threatened as a candidate to rip up the nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama, advisers to the new president told the European Union’s top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini, that the United States would fully carry out the agreement.
As Mr. Trump begins to shape his foreign policy, he is proving to be less of a radical than either his campaign statements or his tempestuous early phone calls with foreign leaders would suggest. On Friday, as he welcomed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to the White House, Mr. Trump characterized America’s alliance with Japan as a “cornerstone of peace and stability.” Those time-tested words bore little resemblance to his threats during the campaign to mothball the partnership.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
“The left isn’t going to stop short of a civil war.”
That is CLEARLY where they’re going - they don’t really have a choice as they’re FINISHED with Trump, when one considers the following:
1) Voting gets cleaned up
2) Illegals are sent packing
3) Courts become conservative
4) The left offers NOTHING
The left has 2 choices: jettison their radicals, regroup, and then try to fight for American votes - OR - start a war.
The second options is going to be what they do, as they get to keep their radicals, and Democrat Party is NOTHING without its radicals - there just aren’t enough people left for them to be a national party, without the radicals.
Yep. I think you’ve got two factors here. One is liberal Jared and Ivanka, with Jared’s portfolio involving foreign affairs. The Chinese worked both of them before Trump started with the one-sided concessions to them.
The other is Tillerson, given that he was promoted by Condi Rice and the rest of the Bush foreign affairs establishment.
I am not for Trump gratuitously insulting allies and my top priorities are illegals, the courts, Obamacare and tax cuts. But still this switch on China, etc., does raise questions.
Has he made mistakes? Maybe, time will tell. Will he make more mistakes? Yes. If we wanted to perpetuate the Obama status quo policies, we should have voted for The Beast.
Can anyone deny that Trump is trying to protect this country?
Regardless, as some famous general said, "The best thought out battle plans change after the first bullet is fired."
Worse. The switch on China will show the rest of the world that Trump is pliable if only his associates can be played including his daughter and son-in-law. We saw how the directive to relieve businesses of the burdens of complying with gay rights demands was pulled back at the purported behest of Ivanka and Jared. Not good.
Riots. Berkeley was a tame preview.
Then there is this: Trump finally had to veto Tillerson’s effort to bring in the neocon/Bush holdover Elliott Abrams:
http://nypost.com/2017/02/10/rex-tillerson-and-trump-clash-over-state-department-deputy/
Abrams had trashed Trump during the campaign:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/elliott-abrams-trump-state-department-tillerson/
Yep. Trump should not have had to do that because Tillerson should not have tried to bring him in. I would have ran the other way from anyone endorsed by Condi, Bob Gates, and Cheney. After all, wasn’t Trump critical of foreign policy under both Bush and Obama?
I still don’t understand why he didn’t take Rudy - a man who fully supported his vision, campaigned for it, and is a true, loyal friend.
Agreed. The reported concern was Rudy’s “stamina”, given his age and health. I wonder if it is possible Trump didn’t think he could control Rudy’s messaging through the press.
But Tillerson IMO is a dud. My guess is he’ll be gone in 18 months, but we’ll see.
Rumor is that Priebus has been found to be a leaker, including with the report of Trump being like a child in a meeting, and so is already on his way out. We can only hope. It took some shuffling for Trump to get the right team in place for his campaign, and I take it he’ll do the same in office. Then, when he finds the right people, he often keeps them for a very long time—such as in his business and personal staff.
Why do you believe anything pushed by the NYTimes?
Meanwhile, FWIW, there is this, from the (liberal) NY Daily News:
I am so totally in the Bannon camp.
I am starting to think that triggering the rage of the left could play into our hands.
For example, Berkeley makes them look BAD, so why not get conservative speakers to schedule lectures more frequently. Rush and Hannity to speek at Berkeley next, and let it blow up in a firestorm.
Not only will the left’s sanctuaries start to look like inner city war zone slums of Chicago and Baltimore and Detroit, but it will keep them busy.
Within two years, just in time for the midterm elections, every independent and moderate blue collar democrat will be vacating the Democrat party.
En Anglais, s'il vous plais?
With Iran, Ryan and McConnell seem to be balking at doing the right thing - fighting them openly at this stage and with everything else going on would be stupid and give the Dims some winning feelings.
It would be nice to have the full verbiage and context of his statements in that Israeli paper interview, but I say he is still extremely pro-Israel and talks of 'moderating" may be part of a plan to demonstrate that the Palis will never accept peace (one more time) before telling them to pound sand and manage w/o any US funds. If I'm mistaken, please show me so I can get back on track.
President Trump is going to speak to anyone who speaks to
him (as Taiwan’s President did). - Rudeness is ill-mannered.
I had enough ill manners with Ex-President Hussein Obama.
All correct. The odd thing is the anglo-left has always had the good sense to pull back and let the right fix the system a bit when they’ve gone too far. They’ve unwisely chosen to fight instead of adjusting to losing.
“The odd thing is the anglo-left has always had the good sense to pull back and let the right fix the system a bit when they’ve gone too far.”
Let daddy fix their mess - I agree. But this time they are so deep into their mess, by being so left-wing, that once daddy fixes it, there won’t be anything left for them.
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