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Trump Foreign Policy


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11 minutes ago, knapplc said:

What the actual what.

 

 

 

1) Kim called Trump a few other things, which Trump didn't care to object to....

2) Trump would NEVER call Kim Jong-un fat, while he's regularly delighted in dishing derogatory comments about other people's physical appearance. Interesting choice of deference, wouldn't you say?

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1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

It's hard to believe anything the creators of the TPP claim since they did the negotiations in secret without Congress or the American people involved, but 500+ corporations were involved from the start. However, that doesn't mean bilateral trade or isolationism are good ideas either. The TPP could have been a better agreement with it had been an open agreement between governments with workers and corporations involved.

 

Trump is a disaster for foreign policy and relations. Yea or nay on the TPP won't change that. Also, there's speculation that a lot of the more heinous parts of the TPP are being floated by the Trump admin as part of the renegotiation of NAFTA. So it's possible we could get the bad parts of the TPP and lose out in the Pacific region for a nice double negative that fits well with the Trump presidency so far.

 

Personally I don't think he'll wind up renegotiating NAFTA. I know he came in with a lot of bluster on the matter (as could be said about most things), but last I heard they had reached an impasse in negotiations. The problem, IMO, is that the deal so disproportionately favors Canada & in particular Mexico that they don't really have any serious reason to renegotiate since it would only yield worse returns. 

 

I've no doubt that whomever Trump picks to actually negotiate (I think it might be this Lighthizer guy) is going to be very aggressive in the demands they make, I just don't think the other countries have anything to gain by capitulating. If anything I think he just tries to back out if like he did the Paris Climate Accord. I'd hope the smarter people in his orbit would try to shut that down. It would hurt U.S. farmers tremendously. Nebraska would be pretty severely damaged by that move.

 

But who knows. Just a hunch. Maybe you're right and some monstrosity does pass instead. The Trump era has a habit of finding new ways to disappoint.

Edited by dudeguyy
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Tillerson leaves certain countries off of child soldier list so that we can supply those countries wt arms.

An ethics issue at the least IMHO or law breaking according to this article.   It seems another example of

'skirting the rules' for the benefit of policy. 

 

https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/tillerson-state-department-accuse-child-soldiers/2017/11/21/id/827358/

 

A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers.

 

“Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government's primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

Reuters reported in June that Tillerson had disregarded internal recommendations on Iraq, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The new documents reveal the scale of the opposition in the State Department, including the rare use of what is known as the “dissent channel,” which allows officials to object to policies without fear of reprisals.

The views expressed by the U.S. officials illustrate ongoing tensions between career diplomats and the former chief of Exxon Mobil Corp appointed by President Donald Trump to pursue an “America First” approach to diplomacy.

 
 
Edited by TGHusker
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11 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

ISIS just killed 300+ in a mosque in Egypt. 

 

I thought Trump single handedly defeated them????

I thought they just hated America and Christianity and white people??? This doesn't fit my narrative.

 

A really sad story out of Egypt, that type of coordinated attack is so scary to think about. Terrorism is not an Islamic thing, it's a terrorist thing and they do not discriminate. Anyone who doesn't subscribe to ISIS and their radical beliefs is an enemy. They attack and kill more people in their region supposedly having similar beliefs than any other group of people. Think about that before you link Islam with terrorism in the future. 

 

Edit: second paragraph was not directed at you BRB! Just a general statement on the matter. 

Edited by Nebfanatic
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On 11/18/2017 at 7:39 PM, dudeguyy said:

Gotta admit, I had imagined Trump's first war a lot differently...
 

 

This is horrible timing, too. The launch of the annual War on Christmas is right around the corner.

 

Jesus, there's war in Afghanistan, war on Christmas, war on Men...remember when we simply engaged in "Police Actions"?

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I know I post on here quite a bit - probably a bit too much - and there's a tendency to get hyperbolic about news stories as if they're all equally groundbreaking.

 

I feel I can safely say, without hyperbole, that this is the most f$#*ing insane story I've read in a long while. This is completely nutso.

 

 

Just look at the first paragraph:

 

Quote

The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency.

 

The CIA director is actively encouraging a program to form an extra-legal network of spies to circumvent... his own agency, whom he apparently doesn't trust.

They're enlisting Ollie North (yes, THAT Ollie North) to "lend credibility" to the project.

 

Covert ops, privatized - meaning they report only to Pompeo and Trump & share nothing with the rest of the CIA or any other intel agency.

 

And Prince's partner, John MaGuire? Apparently ex-CIA, but here's this gem he's pitched to Trump donor's looking for funding (pre-CIA involvement):

 

Quote

“[Maguire] said there were people inside the CIA who joined in the previous eight years [under Obama] and inside the government and they were failing to give the president the intelligence he needed,” said a person who was pitched by Maguire and other Amyntor personnel. To support his claim, Maguire told at least two people that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, in coordination with a top official at the National Security Agency, authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Adding to these unsubstantiated claims, Maguire told the potential donors he also had evidence H.R. McMaster used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.

 

Seems like a stable guy.

 

There's just so dang much to unpack. What the heck is even going on with this story? I feel like I'm reading the Onion. But the Intercept is legit.

I know I throw out this comparison a lot, but designing a parallel, off-the-books spy network to subvert the CIA & try to snuff out "deep state enemies" is some Nixon-level paranoia.

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