Tag: Donald Trump

This article from CNN sounds like another attempt to create tension between President Trump and John Kelly.  It is pretty clear that there are people in the White House that do not like the order Kelly has brought and accusing him of taking shots at Ivanka Trump could be attempt to get the President to remove him:

The decision to send her to South Korea did not sit well with some senior officials in the West Wing, two people familiar with the situation told CNN. The nuclear threat from North Korea and the tensions already boiling across the Korean Peninsula made any US delegation far more than ceremonial.

Kelly was not initially enthusiastic about her South Korea trip, a person close to President Donald Trump said, largely because the visit to the Korean Peninsula was far more than a typical Olympic closing ceremony.

“This isn’t like going to Italy. The stakes are far higher and more complex,” a person close to the President said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject of the Trump family.

The concerns of Kelly and others about Ms. Trump — who has little experience in government or diplomacy, and hasn’t played a role in discussions about North Korea — were aired in private, according to people familiar with the matter. Kelly was advised by those closest to him that it would be a losing battle to oppose Ivanka as the delegation’s leader.  [CNN]

In my opinion Admiral Harris is a great pick for ambassador to such an important regional security ally as Australia:

Addressing the US Committee on Armed Services on the challenges facing the US military in the region, Adm. Harris, the highest commander of US forces in Asia Pacific region, said the Trump administration must work to counter Beijing’s influence in the region.

“China’s intent is crystal clear. We ignore it at our peril,” he said in public testimony. “I’m concerned China will now work to undermine the international rules-based order.”

Plain-spoken and well-known in the international community for his remarks on US policy in the Asia Pacific, Harris has often provoked a vitriolic reaction from Beijing, in particular for his passionate calls for action in the South China Sea.

His appointment would raise the stakes in the battle for influence in Asia, with experts saying Harris could push the Australian government to tighten military cooperation with its traditional ally.  [CNN]

President Trump is taking credit for GM shutting down one of their factories in Gunsan and relocating to Detroit:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed General Motors Co.’s decision to shut down a plant in South Korea, saying the carmaker will now “move back” to Detroit.

GM announced the same day that it will close one of its four car assembly plants in South Korea by the end of May due to lower demand for its vehicles. The move came as part of the Detroit-based automaker’s broad restructuring program across the world.

“GM Korea company announced today that it will cease production and close its Gunsan plant in May of 2018, and they’re going to move back to Detroit,” Trump said at a trade-related meeting at the White House.

The facility in Gunsan, 270 kilometers south of Seoul, was underutilized and running at 20 percent of its capacity for the past three years.

“You don’t hear these things, except for the fact that Trump became president,” Trump said. “Believe me, you wouldn’t be hearing that. So they’re moving back from Korea to Detroit. They’re moving.”  [Korea Times]

Apparently GM is saying they are closing the plant due to higher labor costs in South Korea.  GM is trying to get the union to renegotiate its labor contract to keep its other three plants in the country open.

If you hate US leaders more than you hate the Kim Jong-un regime, you really need to read up on North Korea.

Amnesty: https://t.co/jXmiEqYjMM

HRW: https://t.co/IPerHJszuV

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea: https://t.co/wSWqutmlFW

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 11, 2018

South Korean TV sees some parallels in the way the Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are sending family members to the Winter Olympics. pic.twitter.com/DfRBUcWC9L

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) February 7, 2018

A professor at Kyunghee University, Emanuel Yi Pastreich believes that President Trump is governing the United States based on the North Korean model:

But there is a mysterious mojo that the elites draw from the ludicrous actions of their dear leader. Now it seems as if Kim Jung-un has found his greatest fan, and imitator, in the corridors of power of Washington D.C.

That is right, for all his bluster about destroying North Korea, Donald Trump is practically modeling his every speech on the craft of the bad boy of Pyongyang. When Trump threatens to “wipe North Korea off the face of the Earth,” he still cannot get the traction of Kim’s eloquent “sea of fire.”

And Trump’s tantrums in which he rages that Kim is “short and fat,” a “sick puppy,” and “a madman” simply lack the erudite simplicity of Kim’s putdown “dotard”

The Trump administration has adopted the “North Korean model” for governance, diplomacy and security and even embraced North Korea’s legendary “military first” economics as its own national strategy.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but comparing President Trump to Kim Jong-un is lazy analysis just like the people who compare him to Hitler.  Until President Trump starts opening concentration camps, executing the political opposition, counterfeiting money, smuggling drugs, etc. that are staples of the North Korean regime then you can claim he is acting like Kim Jong-un.

Trump spares Asians in ‘shithole countries’ tirade https://t.co/D3qUz39H8M pic.twitter.com/fZCnheNTKR

— Asian Correspondent (@AsCorrespondent) January 12, 2018

There has likely been some back channel communications with the Kim regime, but I would be very surprised if President Trump was in direct contact with Kim Jong-un like he appears to be suggesting:

President Donald Trump suggested in an interview Thursday that he has developed a positive relationship with the North Korean leader, but declined to say whether they have spoken.

No sitting U.S. president is known to have spoken with a North Korean leader. The two nations have remained in a state of war and without diplomatic relations since the Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.

“I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal. “I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised.”

Asked if he had spoken with Kim, Trump was evasive: “I’m not saying I have or haven’t. I just don’t want to comment.”  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

Here is what President Trump had to say about the planned talks between North and South Korea in regards to the upcoming Winter Olympics:

Kim “knows I’m not messing around. I’m not messing around, not even a little bit, not even 1 percent. He understands that,” Trump said.

The Washington Post is not happy that the US is not participating in talks with North Korea and the ROK and has thus declared that the President is now irrelevant:

But whatever happens, it does look like U.S. policy on North Korea is rubbing up against the limitations of Trump’s unilateralist view of the world — what Evan Osnos of the New Yorker recently dubbed “retreating from the front.” When Seoul-Pyongyang talks go ahead next week, Trump will be in an unusual position — watching from afar, having capitulated on one key North Korean demand.

The Trump administration had hoped to further isolate North Korea on the world stage. Thanks to Trump’s brash tactics, though, it may be the United States that ends up on the outside.  [Washington Post]

First of all, President Trump did not capitulate on the delay of the Key Resolve exercise.  North Korea wants joint exercises cancelled and so does the Chinese.  The US did not cancel the exercise, they delayed the exercise at the request of the ROK who did not want it to overlap with the Winter Olympics especially if the North Koreans decide to attend.  The exercise is still going to happen just like it does every year and thus there has been no capitulation.

As far as “retreating from the front” and claims of unilateralism, these critics of the President must be living in an alternate reality.  The Trump administration has arguably pursued more multilateral measures than past Presidents.  The Trump administration has aggressively pursued and implemented United Nations sanctions on North Korea.  The Treasury Department has aggressively worked with international partners to target the Kim regimes finances through the global banking system.  They have also worked with other countries to kick out North Korean diplomats often responsible for bringing in foreign currency to the regime.  Unprecedented pressure has also been put on China by the US to faithfully implement sanctions on North Korea.  US intelligence has worked with the ROK to seize ships smuggling oil into North Korea.

Just because the US is not sitting at the table with the ROKs and the North Koreans to discuss a delegation attending the Olympics does not mean US policy is unilateral and the Trump administration has made themselves irrelevant.