RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/orbn_at_the_white_house.html

“Hungarians, Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians, Czechs, and others correctly think of themselves as twice occupied — once by Hitler and once by the USSR.  Now they are free to be Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, etc.  This has, for many of us, both positive and negative ramifications — none of which is equivalent to the Iranian practice of hanging homosexuals or stoning adulterers.”

Despite the fact that the Trump administration has spent two years communicating its concerns with Hungary regarding academic freedom, anti-Semitism, and other illiberal positions of the Hungarian government, the visit of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump has set off alarm bells — primarily among those already inclined to disapprove of the president’s guest list.

A former Obama staffer summed up the concern, saying, “It still remains rightly shocking to see Trump cozy up to authoritarian leaders. The American President should be supporting democratic allies with shared values rather than autocrats who are actively undermining U.S. interests.” (This from an administration that believed that the Islamic Republic of Iran should be legitimized and concluded diplomatic, trade, and travel agreements with Raúl Castro’s Cuba.)

Hungary and other Central European countries are complicated, and shunning them is likely to create more problems. These are NATO members, former Warsaw Pact members, E.U. members, bound to the West in ways that make their future a key interest of the United States and the rest of Europe. And, on the other side, Russia.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/acting-out-in-tehran-11557961728

When the U.S. withdraws its diplomats from a foreign country amid a security threat, the domestic reaction in a previous age would have been to show solidarity against an adversary. But this is Washington in 2019, so the loyal opposition is reacting to the threat from Iran by blaming—President Trump.

“Either the Trump administration is trying to goad Iran into war or a war could come by accident because of the administration’s reckless policies,” declared former Obama official Wendy Sherman Wednesday, after the State Department withdrew personnel from Iraq.

Ms. Sherman is sore that Mr. Trump withdrew from the failed nuclear deal that she helped negotiate with Iran, but even she must realize that Shiite militias in Iraq often act as proxies for Iran. Does she want another Benghazi? Yet she blames Mr. Trump for a “march to war with Iran” and wants Congress, Europe and business leaders to “stand in [national security adviser] John Bolton’s way.” Senator Bernie Sanders says he’s also worried about “provocations on the part of the United States against Iran.”
***

Who does Ms. Sherman want to stand in the way of Gen. Qassem Soleimani? He’s the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), that used the windfall from Ms. Sherman’s nuclear deal to finance terror and instability throughout the Middle East.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/13/pompeo-america-first-foreign-policy-is-inspired-by-the-founders/

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo gave the following remarks at the Claremont Institute’s 40th Anniversary Gala on May 11.

‘President Trump believes it is right – indeed more than right – for America to unashamedly advance policy that serves our interests and reflects American ideals.’

There is literally, as I travel the world, there is nothing more distinctive about the United States than our politics, and wonderfully so. We are the truly greatest experiment in human freedom that the world has ever seen, and I, as America’s senior diplomat, benefit from that every day.

I want to do a little bit of the history, because the foreign policy of the early republic reflected the attitude of a free nation which has thrown off an imperial power, which, frankly, I just left. And look, I think there’s three words that characterize that. They would be realism, restraint, and respect, and I’ll talk about each of them just for a moment.

First, realism. The Founders were keen students of human nature and history. They saw that conflict is the normative experience for nations. Hamilton put this Federalist 34. He said, “To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and [beneficial] sentiments of peace.”

I’ll simplify: The Founders knew peace wasn’t the norm. And in response to this reality, the Founders knew the first duty of the federal government was to provide for the safety of its citizens. Madison said, “[Security] is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.” You all know that.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/14/the-u-s-doesnt-need-china-to-prosper/

The latest numbers on U.S. economic growth are astonishingly good. The land of the free enjoyed 3.2 percent annual real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2019. It would have been even higher—3.5 percent—without the government shutdown.

The numbers vindicate President Trump’s position on trade. The dealmaker-in-chief has been saying for decades that a trade deficit is a drag on growth. And we now learn that almost 1 percent of our GDP growth was a result of a reduction in imports.

Imports are down because Trump’s tariffs are driving down the trade deficit with China. Now that he’s increased tariffs on $200 billion more of Chinese goods, expect the U.S. economy to grow even faster.

Even investors, who have long been wary of tariffs, are now beginning to understand this. Despite the uncertainty surrounding trade with China, the stock market has experienced only modest losses, reflecting the overall strength of the U.S. economy.

The latest numbers on U.S. economic growth are astonishingly good. The land of the free enjoyed 3.2 percent annual real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2019. It would have been even higher—3.5 percent—without the government shutdown.

The numbers vindicate President Trump’s position on trade. The dealmaker-in-chief has been saying for decades that a trade deficit is a drag on growth. And we now learn that almost 1 percent of our GDP growth was a result of a reduction in imports.

Imports are down because Trump’s tariffs are driving down the trade deficit with China. Now that he’s increased tariffs on $200 billion more of Chinese goods, expect the U.S. economy to grow even faster.

Even investors, who have long been wary of tariffs, are now beginning to understand this. Despite the uncertainty surrounding trade with China, the stock market has experienced only modest losses, reflecting the overall strength of the U.S. economy.

The United States has put up with Chinese economic aggression for far too long, under both Democrat and Republican presidents. The Trump Administration has taken a decidedly different tack, pursuing an economic nationalist agenda that insists:

We must defend ourselves against China’s relentless cyberattacks on American businesses, and its theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property each year.
We must stop China’s state-owned, state-subsidized and state-controlled enterprises from the wholesale dumping of products. Flooding foreign markets with steel and aluminum, not to mention autos and robotics, is only the first step. The end game is the destruction of free-market capitalism altogether.
We must stop China from forcing America companies to hand over their cutting-edge technology as a condition of doing business there. Forced technology transfer is theft, pure and simply.
We must stop China from manipulating its currency to gain an unfair advantage in trade.
Finally, we must defend Americans from the flood of fentanyl and other dangerous opioids that are killing them by the tens of thousands. The first two Opium Wars were waged by Great Britain against China. The Third is being waged by China against the United States and its people, and it must stop.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/trumps_china_tariffs_will_succeed.html

Free trade with China is like “free trade” with the thief who stole your car.

For the last four decades, the United States has often engaged in trading away its future by running up debt and selling assets instead of products. This brought about the stagnant living standards and incomes experienced by the U.S. middle class during the presidencies preceding Trump.

The countries with which the U.S. had the largest trade deficits (goods and services) in 2018 were:

China – $379 billion
Mexico – $78 billion
Germany – $67 billion
Japan – $58 billion.

These countries accounted for 93% of the total, with China, by itself, accounting for 61% of the U.S. trade deficit. Donald Trump was elected by the people who have borne the brunt of this policy failure, with a mandate to fix it.

On Friday, President Donald Trump took a huge step toward doing just that. He raised the U.S. tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $200 billion per year worth of Chinese goods that were being imported into the United States. Back in July, when Trump had initially imposed the 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, China responded by imposing tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. exports to China.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-america-first-means-to-pompeo-11557788496

The U.S. faces a series of intractable crises and standoffs around the world. Trade talks with China have reached an impasse; North Korea has returned to threats and missile launches; the chaos on America’s southern border shows no sign of abating; relations with Germany reached new lows after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel so he could visit Iraq; Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro continues to defy U.S. pressure to stand down; and an apparent act of sabotage against ships in the Persian Gulf Monday ratcheted tensions another notch higher in the Middle East.

Against this background, Secretary Pompeo delivered his most comprehensive attempt yet to expound the core themes informing the Trump administration’s foreign policy. His speech—delivered Saturday to the Claremont Institute in Southern California—deserves careful study. Whether or not President Trump’s foreign policy is successful, the ideas laid out by Mr. Pompeo are likely to shape the Republican Party’s approach to statecraft for years to come.

From the end of the Cold War through the 2016 election, U.S. foreign policy oscillated between the liberal internationalism of the Clinton and Obama presidencies and the neoconservatism ascendant under George W. Bush. It was clear during his campaign for the Republican nomination that Mr. Trump (along with much of the Republican base) rejected key tenets of Bush-era foreign policy, but it was not clear what approach he would implement instead. He was against Mr. Bush’s approach to trade, against the war in Iraq, doubtful of the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and deeply skeptical of democracy promotion in the Middle East. But what was he for?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273716/us-prepares-confront-possible-iranian-attacks-joseph-klein

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a scheduled meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to go to Baghdad on a sudden unannounced visit. His purpose was to warn Iraq’s leaders about a “very specific” threat of Iranian attacks which, he said, “were imminent.” Secretary Pompeo told reporters after his meetings that he wanted assurances that Iraq is “able to adequately protect Americans in their country.” Secretary Pompeo’s warning followed the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East. The Pentagon has also sent nuclear-capable B-52s to the region.

There are approximately 5,200 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, who the Iranian regime has declared are legitimate targets. The regime has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is a vital navigation route for the shipments of global oil. Israel had also reportedly passed on intelligence to the United States within the last couple of weeks of an Iranian plan to attack either U.S. or U.S.-allied interests in the Gulf.

The Trump administration decided, along with the ratcheting up of its sanctions against Iran, that a strong military presence in the region is the best deterrence. The administration is positioning the United States to be fully prepared to protect the interests of the U.S. and its allies in the region against any aggression the Iranians may decide to launch themselves or through their proxies. Secretary Pompeo’s visit to Iraq was meant to convey personally the need for Iraq to do its part in preventing the Iran-backed militias in the country from attacking U.S. forces stationed in Iraq.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mike-pompeo-blasts-jeremy-corbyn-for-standing-by-nicolas-maduro/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday expressed outrage at British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

“It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom, but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro,” Pompeo said at a joint press conference with U.K. foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt in London. “It is not in either of our country’s best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf.”

The U.S. has levied heavy sanctions against Maduro’s regime and recognizes National Assembly president Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful president. The country has been in upheaval since Guaidó and other opposition leaders encouraged crowds of citizens to take to the streets of Caracas, the capital, in an effort to oust Maduro that fizzled out last week as most of the military remained loyal to the government. Meanwhile, Venezuela has continued to face a mushrooming humanitarian crisis as its economy collapses, with food scarce and crime rampant.

Nevertheless, Corbyn hardened his stance against “outside interference” in the conflict after Pompeo’s comments Wednesday.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14181/limiting-nuclear-arms

Nearly 40 years ago, critics of President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” policy used the same template of criticism. This brush-off existed not because Reagan was putting forward unworkable or unrealistic ideas. The real root of the criticism was, and still is, frustration over the fact that their bumper-sticker ideas (such as a “nuclear freeze” or “Global Zero”) have never been accepted by top U.S. national-security officials or approved by Congress.

Reagan did not oppose arms control; he opposed “bad” and unverified arms control that gave huge advantages to Soviet Union, and opened what he famously described as a “window of vulnerability.”

The secret is that the push for a nuclear freeze or “Global Zero” — in 1981 as in 2019 — was not then, and is not now, about strategic stability or eliminating Russian or Chinese nuclear coercion. It is, rather, an effort to curtail U.S. military power.

Such a tethered America cannot be the leader of the Free World, after having jettisoned the twin fantasies of China’s “peaceful rise” or a “reset” with Russia. In a world in which enemies of liberty are on the march, the presence and judicious use of American power is critical.

It comes as no surprise that U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported plan to forge a new nuclear-arms deal with Russia and China — when New START expires in 2021 — is being attacked by American advocates of unilateral disarmament.

Take Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, for example. Echoing Russian complaints, Kimball wrote recently:

“[T]his new grand-deal gambit does not represent a serious attempt to halt and reverse a global arms race. It is more likely that Trump and [National Security Adviser John] Bolton are scheming to walk away from New START by setting conditions they know to be too difficult to achieve.”