David Usborne doesn’t think that Xi Jinping will be moved “by the usual golf-and-cocktails Mar-a-Lago treatment,” and in fact believes that it’s a terrible idea for Trump to be meeting with him at this point in time. One main reason for this is that it’s pretty obvious that our president isn’t even remotely prepared.
You almost wish President Xi Jinping had lingered in Helsinki rather than continuing on his way to southern Florida for his two-day sojourn at Mar-a-Lago, the stucco-and-terracotta confection that nowadays, on account of its owner, has been dubbed the Southern White House.
That would be Donald Trump, who seems entirely unprepared for a first face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart. He doesn’t have his ambassador in Beijing yet. His trade negotiator has not been confirmed. Nor are the State Department experts who would normally formulate Asia policy and brief the president on it yet in place. It is possible we are underestimating the homework he has done ahead of it, but on balance that seems unlikely. True, Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, went on a ground-laying trip to Beijing last month, but was assailed for issuing a statement afterwards that read as if it had been written for him by his hosts.
In Tillerson’s case, he has an excuse because he read that statement between naps.
More seriously, it’s a bad time to talk to China because one of the top topics on the agenda will be what to do about North Korea, and to do that properly Trump needs to consult very closely with South Korea. But South Korea is experiencing a change in government at the moment after former president Park Geun-hye was first impeached and then arrested on (among others) charges of “bribery, abuse of power, coercion and leaking government secrets.”
Sending Tillerson there last month was a good idea, but he needs to go back (hopefully with a few packed cases of Red Bull).
The fact that Steve Bannon has been kicked off the National Security Council may indicate that H.R. McMaster is exerting control and that the adults in the intelligence and military communities realize that they need to get their ducks in a row in order to deal with the crisis on the Korean peninsula, as well as (possibly) with any fallout or change of policy vis-a-vis Bashir Assad in the aftermath of yesterday’s chemical attack on Syrian civilians.
Trump mentioned the Syrian atrocity during a joint Rose Garden meeting this afternoon with King Abdullah II of Jordan. What he didn’t mention was Russia, which is shocking I know. It was doubly notable because Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations was simultaneously pressing for a Security Council resolution condemning the attacks which was immediately opposed by Russia on the premise that Assad’s planes had only inadvertedly bombed a rebel chemical weapons barrack. They broke out Trump’s old standby and called the rest of the world’s reporting “fake news.”
To which I say, “that’s probably bullshit but we should make absolutely sure that it’s not.”
On the surface, it makes no sense for the Russians to allow Assad to use chemical weapons right now for precisely the reason that Trump was inclined yesterday to see Assad as more a partner in the fight against ISIS than as war criminal in need of a jail cell. Yet, while speaking in the Rose Garden this afternoon, Trump seemed like a different man:
“It crossed a lot of lines for me,” the president said during a Rose Garden press conference on Wednesday with Jordan’s King Abdullah. “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal that people were shocked to hear what gas it was, that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many many lines.”
Trump doubled down on his criticism of the Obama administration’s approach toward Syria, but said that the attack which has killed at least 72 people “had a big impact on me” and has changed his approach toward the country.
“It’s very, very possible that it’s already happened, that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” Trump said.
I tried to shrug off Trump’s criticism of Obama and the hypocrisy involved since Trump vociferously opposed intervening in Syria back during the debate over the chemical attacks near Damascus in August 2013. If he’s changed his position, that’s his right, and he’s never going to stop trying to ding Obama.
But if he were truly free to challenge Russia and Assad, he might have indicated it by criticizing Russia’s role in helping the Assad regime target their opponents and by criticizing Russia’s obstruction on the Security Council. That he did neither is just one more in a long line of dots that connect to demonstrate that the president is captured by the Kremlin.
Der Trumper is nobody’s idea of an intellectual and he seems never to have had to sit down in the bathroom of Vulgarian Versailles and compose his own Mein Kampf. His “foreign policy” is to wing it, with a grab bag of meaningless prescriptions like “reduce tensions with Russia” and “confront China”. Everything else is pretty much the usual lamebrain rightwing threats of either “Bully Them” or “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb ’em, by Jingo!”
Trump doesn’t have the brains to “confront China”, however much he might delude himself. He’s a clownish fool whether he’s “prepared” by experts for half a day or goes in having simply read the executive summary of today’s Breitbart News. He’s not educable. And he’s both awestruck and terrified of his idol Vladimir, the leader of the club. We are sending an honorable mention checkers player in to match wits with Chess Grandmasters.
And while Trumper is now professing tears over the gassed babies of Syria, there didn’t seem much concern over the innocent kids killed in our latest Mosul bombing calamity, or those seeking refuge in America during campaign 2016. If that’s the metric, all the babies are innocent. So whatever happened to the Trumpian concern over infant and 6 year old Syrian “terrorists” that proved the Islamist complicity of Obama and his tremendously dangerous failed refugee vetting?
“It’s very, very possible that it’s already happened, that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.” Well, um, has “it” or hasn’t “it”? Who is to know if you don’t, mein Trumper? And who is this absurd comment even directed towards? Finally, who speaks like this? “crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines.” Trumper may talk, but does anyone listen?
” … Finally, who speaks like this? … “
The repeated adjectives are an indicator of possible senile dementia.
Or someone who has nothing to say or is a very slow thinker and therefore employs repetition to fill up or stall for time.
He can’t lead the US to war against Assad because Putin won’t allow it.
He may step up attacks on ISIL and do some chest-thumping to prove he’s “manlier” than Obama and help his flagging poll numbers. But that won’t stop Assad’s genocide. And he also shat the bed with his Muslim ban, making his life needlessly harder.
So Trump is caught between Putin and the Middle Eastern States. His finances depend on the goodwill of both. And a man cannot serve two masters.
Jared Kushner better hurry up and solve the Middle East.
another dimension to it
he replied to this
It is always just possible- although unlikely – that Trump is beginning to realize that the Korean peninsula and nerve gas in the ME calls for some sane management beyond saying Obama did it. What in the world is a White Nationalist going to do to help either of those scenarios other than get in the way? As a matter of fact, it may be time to tamp down the role of the Prince and Princess in all this and listen to the experts – at least till the crisis passes. Is Rex going to survive this or will he just fall asleep one day only to find himself out.
I don’t see much enlightenment. Jared Kushner and Trump’s bodyguard are the USA’s representatives at a major meeting in Iraq.
If only Trump had ten more s-i-ls like Kushner he wouldn’t have to rely on non-family bottom feeders.
The disconnect between Haley’s speech at the UN and Donald Trump’s comments was enormous.
It’s not the only case of staffers and cabinet heads starting to go off on vectors that have no connection to Trumps campaign statements or the “policy announcements” that he’s made since the inauguration.
It really tells the tale of Trump’s horrendous management skills. He’s not built the teams he needs and he doesn’t have concrete objectives or principles that he believes in. The end result is that various players and departments are starting to freelance. And oddly, nothing much happens because Trump himself issues so many contradictory pronouncements that there’s almost no way for them to know what the “Trump Policies” are anyway.
So far, the only way someone gets fired by Trump is if someone on TV starts saying bad things about someone, and then Trump thinks that someone is a loser and has to go.
Very astute.
I think beneath the phenomena you’re describing is a reservoir of confusion, fear and resentment (expressed as bluster) that’s based on a secret knowledge that he really doesn’t understand what’s going on and is outclassed in every environment. It’s in the Merkel meeting, in the Obama meetings — the shouting guy goes away and is replaced by a meek, grateful acolyte…and then his ego kicks back in and he gets even angrier.
It’s in Spicer’s behavior most of all.
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Great comment.
Then there’s this:
Trump May Have Changed His Syria Policy And The Pentagon Is Confused
From what I can tell, a lot has happened more or less under the radar. For example reversing the EPA recommendation to ban a pesticide that their scientists concluded was dangerous. He signed a reversal in the Oval Office with the head of Dow Chemical, its manufacturer, standing next to him. And then gave him the signing pen as a souvenir!
Orders to EPA staffers to work with “stakeholders” to find regulations that need to be reversed. The world stakeholder comes from gambling–so it’s the ones with money at the table who are of interest, not ordinary citizens like the rest of us.
But there are others. Elimination of passenger rail service to 220 cities. Changing the priorities of the DOJ by undermining the restrictions/action plans that have been put in place to rein in urban police forces.
I need to keep a running list, but every day several more come to light.
I don’t disagree with your overall point but he’s probably using stakeholder in the business sense. Which means basically anyone who interacts with the company or in this case the EPA.
Most of the time when businesses talk about stakeholders they include the company, but also shareholders, employees, customers, vendors, suppliers, their local community and possible other localities.
I would guess that Trump would leave out any that are part of the general public given his sensibilities but like everyone on anything he does we’re guessing.
In my experience as an environmental activist, stakeholder is taken to mean developer or property owner. The agency/government personnel care about the rest of us, with the exception of those who are political appointees. As with anything else, money talks. And big money has a loud voice.
In my experience with my state’s utilities regulatory department, stakeholders include affected towns, environmental and customer (both business and residential) groups, anti-poverty organizations, and they play an important part in regulatory hearings on proposed rate changes, plant sitings, etc. — but then, I live in Massachusetts. I’m sure it’s not necessarily the same in other states.
you are both right, each situation has different stakeholders even within the same company
I’m just pretty sure that Trump was talking in a business sense and not a casino sense
These topics are taught at business schools and most companies at least pay some lip service to all their stakeholders even if often times it’s BS
with the atrocities spewing from the firehose.
did not see this in the Times itself, if correct – someone has a sense of humor
certainly seems to be there -hard to believe
It is obvious by this point that Trump has shunted aside the career foreign relations and intelligence professionals and their chains of command.
It is also obvious that if the players in Trump’s foreign policy team have been given instructions, those instructions are very general and the players are feeling their way around their new situations. Nikki Haley’s behavior at the UN is symptomatic publicly of what the stories about Rex Tillerson have hinted occurred privately.
If there is a foreign policy mess yet (it still is too early for the foreign policy operations to lose all momentum from the Obama administration), it will come from how Trump gets information about foreign governments and leaders.
Sheldon Adelson weighed in heavily in Trump’s campaign. Sheldon Adelson first appeared in media in connection with Wikileaks and Cablegate; the Hong Kong US consulate reported:
Reported here.
This story makes one wonder what Trump will say to Xi Jinping about Sheldon Adelson and Adelson’s Center for US-Chinese Enterprise.
Xi Jinping has already signalled that China is making nice on this visit by coming to the United State and to Trumps location of choice, Mar-el-Lago. China could have insisted that the first visit be in Beijing. Guess what Rex Tillerson’s main job in setting up this visit was?
Trump says that the main issues are North Korea’s nuclear programme and trade with China. That speaks to two different sets of people who will meet and greet Xi Jinping. The first will be the foreign policy team; the second will be US business CEOs and a few US trade officials. No doubt Trump will try to make the first part like Reagan’s celebrated Reykjavík meeting with Gorbachev with substantive moves on the North Korean issue. And the second will likely look like a trade mission with the US CEOs scrambling for pieces of work on Xi Jinping’s One-Belt-One-Road infrastructure projects and Xi’s possible use of contracts with US business as a way of smoothing relations. Xi and Putin might have worked out a three-way pipeline deal to allow US companies some business building pipelines between Russian oil and the Chinese economy.
Will the business of America be business or threats of war? That likely will be how to tell what sort of foreign policy mess Trump will create. How will business interests and military strategic issues play out in the Trump administration?
The second question is how eagerly China is to talk North Korea back from the brink and how easily can it be done from China’s perspective of not wanting to be seen abandoning an ally. China was tolerant if not enthusiastic of the Korea Sunshine Policy; it was after all George W. Bush’s including North Korea in the Axis of Evil that both ended the Sunshine Policy and set North Korea free of IAEA inspection to develop its nuclear weapons and accelerate its missile program. Will China be open to supporting another new era of detente between North Korea and South Korea? Will Trump?
The third question is how exactly will China ensure that Trump has something to brag about as a success no matter how rough the Trump negotiating technique gets.
From the perspective of an American citizen and not a partisan, the sign of failure would be for this to be same-old, same-old. Or to be an absolute disaster, one which we suspect Trump is fully capable of. The practical consequences of either of those would put Trump in charge of major military activities.
And now Trump has:
(especially re: #6 & 7) now, doesn’t it?