Posted on 07/04/2017 5:00:15 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
President Donald Trump has injected unpredictability into U.S. foreign policy that has unnerved the establishment — but is now bearing some fruit.
Last week, Reuters reported that NATO members spending on their own defense has grown the fastest it has in three years due to pressure from Trump, who had repeatedly questioned NATO’s value on the campaign trail.
Trump appears to be using that playbook of unpredictability with other parts of the globe, prompting critics to accuse him of going “off script” and undercutting his own top foreign policy surrogates.
When Trump refrained from reaffirming Article 5 in Brussels in May, the foreign policy establishment fretted over the message it was sending to allies. Some said Trump had undercut his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who had told allies that Trump would do so.
However, the next month, Trump unexpectedly — and unequivocally — reaffirmed Article 5 at a Rose Garden press conference with the Romanian president in response to a question by a Romanian journalist.
“I’m committing the United States, and have committed, but I’m committing the United States to Article 5. And certainly, we are there to protect. And that’s one of the reasons that I want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force by paying the kind of money necessary to have that force. But, yes, absolutely, I’d be committed to Article 5,” he said on June 9.
McMaster himself mocked the frenzy over Trump not reaffirming Article 5 in Brussels as a “manufactured sort of controversy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
MAGA!
What a refreshing change from the eight years of feckless apologizing Obama, bowing and scraping and generally presenting himself to the world as a modern day Quisling.
One thing is easy to predict - he’s always negotiating.
He’s also pretty clear on “direction” he wants the negotiations to go though not on how hard he’ll push on any specific issue.
Anyone who thinks he’s an idiot (i.e. CNN) is going to have a hard time making predictions because the bias interferes with seeing patterns and the need to twist every statement rather than detecting a direction.
Anyone who thinks his success in business, entertainment, and politics was more than dumb luck will recognize that he isn’t the unstable danger the media makes him out to be. His tweets come from a purpose, not a mental disorder (unless his dumb luck has followed into politics and saved him from every tweet that experts said would be “the end of him”)
Dems could probably get a lot of what they want from Trump if they had a plan and good negotiators. They’d have to give some also, but that’s how a representative government works. It’s easy to predict their actions:
* anything to get a benevolent dictator in charge of the US so they can control EVERYTHING and EVERYONE without negotiation
Trying to trap Donald Trump is like trying to run down a deer on foot. The deer bolts, and jinks about, making active pursuit impossible for most predators.
Whitetail fawns start to practice their acrobatic survival skills when they are only days old. They will use their flimsy looking fawn legs to suddenly jump straight up in the air, maybe twisting in the air and landing at an angle, then lowering their heads like they have horns and are challenging an opponent...then it might be over, or the fawn might pop around escaping an imaginary predator for quite a while.
Then the time comes, and it doesn’t take long, when the young fawn discovers speed...it will sprint, flat-out, close to the ground, suddenly change direction and run some more.
Sometimes it seems as if the deer is simply badgering its pursuer, teasing the predator to the point of frustration, then when the judgment of the now enraged hunter is thoroughly befuddled, the deer dashes away, bounding over what would be a mere hurdle, but which leaves the following and now nearly exhausted marauder ready to abandon the chase.
And the deer wins again.
But Maxine is worried Japan could tip over...
We have been politically correct wussies for so long, the swamp creatures in DC don't recognize policy with a backbone.
Ronnie smiles
I think Rush doesn’t realize how profound he was this week in summing up Trump and the Media as well as foreign leaders, Dems, Hollywood - they’re the kittens following his laser dots banging their heads into the walls.
Gotta love it!
Foreign governments began turning off money spigots to the scandal-scarred Clinton Foundation; it received millions from dozens of foreign governments including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Ireland.
TO DATE:
<><> French federal comptrollers began following a trail of tens of millions in government money that ended up in Clinton Foundation coffers, according to a document reviewed by The NY Post.
<><> The Australian government announced that it would end its decade-long affiliation with the Clinton Foundation — amounting to as much as $25 million, according to the foundation’s Web site.
<><> Norway is also scaling back; donations reached $25 millionn in 2015.
A source close to Pres-elect Trump's transition team indicated plans to pressure its yet unnamed US ambassadors to suggest foreign governments probe its Clinton Foundation financial dealings.
“Haiti and Colombia will be key diplomatic posts because of all the money involved,” said the source.
Recently leaked e-mails indicate (FOB) “Friends of Bill” Clinton may have been given priority from Hillary's State Department as it prepared to spend some $10 billion in aid after a 2010 devastating earthquake in Haiti.
The State Dept denied any special treatment.
Clinton crony, Canadian mining magnate, Frank Giustra, pledged $100 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2005 and later benefited from the foundation’s philanthropic work in Columbia. Giustra acquired large parcels of Colombian land and set up an oil business, according to watchdog groups. (hat tip NY POST)
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