RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/16/what-critics-missed-about-the

When Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin ended their joint press conference in Helsinki, the punditocracy predictably swarmed all over it like ants around a pile of crumbs. Was Trump winking at Putin? Did he really say he believes Putin more than he believes Robert Mueller about whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election? Former Gus Hall enthusiast John Brennan, off his meds again, tweeted that the presser was “treasonous.” Professional chatterer Anderson Cooper said it was “perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit.”

Every phrase, every gesture of the event will be picked apart and second-guessed to death in the next few days. I’ll leave them to the carrion.

Would You Rather Fight?
To my mind, the chief point was enunciated by Winston Churchill in 1954: “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.”

As President Trump repeatedly put it during his 2016 campaign, it would be a good thing, not a bad thing, to get along better with Russia. Let me stipulate that I think that Vladimir Putin is a murderous thug. He has demonstrated time and again that while you can take the lout out of the KGB, it’s much more difficult to take the KGB out of the lout.

That said, Russia is a world power that commands an enormous nuclear arsenal. Which means we cannot—or at least we should not—simply take our marbles out of the game and go home in a snit because they do things of which we do not approve.

As Trump and Putin both frankly acknowledged, there are issues on which they diverge—the fate of Crimea may lead the list—but there are also many areas in which our national interests intersect. It is a mark of the realistic and far-seeing diplomat to seize and build upon the latter while trying to find common ground about the former. This is what both men are trying to do.

Big If’s
I think there are essentially two takeaways from this historic event in Helsinki. The first is that Donald Trump is a bold, risk-taking statesman whose demotic style of delivery prevents many from appreciating the beneficently radical nature of his diplomacy. Maybe he will wind up being played by Kim Jong-un. But maybe his astonishing meeting with the tubby tyrant in Singapore is the beginning of the normalization of North Korea. If that happens—and I acknowledge that history suggests it is a big “if”—then President Trump will have achieved a world-historical diplomatic victory. His willingness to meet “jaw to jaw” would then be seen as a gambit of genius.

Maybe Putin is running circles around a gullible Trump. But maybe it is a real, as distinct from an Obama-Clinton merely rhetorical, reset. Then that, too, will be seen as a masterly and peace-enhancing initiative.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/16/trumps-meeting-putin-major-missed-opportunity-american-interests/

President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and joint press conference have left many of his supporters scratching their heads. His opponents have been desperate for something to pounce on because they can’t get the collusion narrative to bear the fruit they need to neuter him, so they now alternate between condemnation and ridicule.

But observers who have applauded Trump’s tough words and actions regarding both U.S. allies and foes are having a hard time understanding why he did not choose to treat Putin as he has all others: with both carrots and sticks. Why all carrots for Putin in public?

Trump has been able to use words and deeds to get the kind of action he wants out of whomever he is negotiating with. So far it has been working fairly well, and certainly better than his predecessor’s approach. But today the president created a problem for himself that only strong action can mitigate. In short, he let Putin save too much face and that may well delay improvement in U.S.-Russia relations.
What Putin Wants from the United States

Putin is not interested only in the removal of sanctions and an end to U.S. strikes against his allies. He certainly wants that. But above all Putin wants to stay in power. It is a matter of survival for him. Unlike Western leaders, who win and hold power by elections, Putin holds and wields power by appearing strong and in charge. He needs to appear strong to the Russian people, and to his gang of elites, who regularly have to consider if Putin in power is good for their interests.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-first-doctrine-1531781061

Donald Trump left for Europe a week ago with his reputation enhanced by a strong Supreme Court nomination. He returned Monday with that reputation diminished after a tumultuous week of indulging what amounts to the Trump First Doctrine.

Mr. Trump marched through Europe with more swagger than strategy. His diplomacy is personal, rooted in instinct and impulse, and he treats other leaders above all on how much they praise Donald J. Trump. He says what pops into his head to shock but then disavows it if there’s a backlash. He criticizes institutions and policies to grab headlines but then claims victory no matter the outcome.

The world hasn’t seen a U.S. President like this in modern times, and as ever in Trump World everyone else will have to adapt. Let’s navigate between the critics who predict the end of world order and the cheerleaders who see only genius, and try to offer a realistic assessment of the fallout from a troubling week.

• NATO. The result here seems better than many feared. Mr. Trump bullied the allies with rhetoric and insulted Germany by claiming it is “totally controlled” by Russia. But his charges about inadequate military spending and Russia’s gas pipeline had the advantage of being true, as most leaders acknowledged.

The 23-page communique that Mr. Trump endorsed is a solid document that improves NATO’s capabilities to deter and resist a threat from Russia. Mr. Trump’s last-minute demand that countries raise military spending to 4% of GDP was weird, but he is right that more countries are likely to meet the 2% target.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-president-turns-the-tables-on-china-1531778651

An overlooked irony of the American trade dispute with China is that Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to fight back using Chinese tactics. This time, it’s the Chinese officials who are frustrated over the lack of clarity in demands, the sudden changes in negotiating positions, and the unpredictable escalation of tensions.

Usually it’s the other way around, as U.S. negotiators in government and business can attest. Chinese officials often blame the foreign counterpart for any number of problems. The foreigners then have a duty, according to the Chinese, to make things right. An old proverb often cited is that a man who drops a stone on his own foot must take responsibility for picking it up.

But instead of specifying the terms for a resolution, the Chinese officials wait for foreign concessions. When the proposal arrives, the Chinese reject it as inadequate, forcing the foreigners to negotiate against themselves, offering more in each successive round. In the end, the foreigners are relieved when the struggle concludes, but they regret settling on terms much less favorable than they had planned. A 1995 Rand Corp. study traced these techniques to 1971, when Premier Zhou Enlai reportedly blamed tensions over Taiwan on the U.S. as he pressed Henry Kissinger for favorable terms normalizing U.S.-China relations. CONTINUE AT SITE

As sure as sunshine in Southern California, the media was just waiting for President Trump to meet with Russia’s Putin to begin shouting, “Traitor.”

Here’s the voice of the Amazon resistance, the Washington Post, taking up the clamor.

Greg Sargent / Washington Post: – Trump is now repaying Putin for helping him win the presidency

And here’s the New York Times.

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:- Trump, Treasonous Traitor

Journalism.

Oddly enough the media had no problem with Obama running on a reset with Russia. The reset blamed the bad relationship on Bush and the Iraq War. That wasn’t treason.

And here’s what happened when Obama met with Putin.

“I’m aware of not only the extraordinary work that you’ve done on behalf of the Russian people … as president, but in your current role as prime minister,” Obama said during a breakfast meeting at Putin’s country home on the outskirts of Moscow. “We think there’s an excellent opportunity to put U.S.-Russian relations on a much stronger footing.”

Where were the same media trolls shrieking now about praising dictators? Or a failure to defend America?

Obama met with Medvedev at the Kremlin, while Putin received him at Novo-Ogaryovo, where a sumptuous breakfast with caviar was laid out. Trying to make conversation, Obama began by asking rhetorically, “How did we get into this mess [in U.S.-Russian relations]?” In response, Putin gave him an hourlong lecture as to how precisely it had happened. Obama listened without interrupting.

What did Putin get from Obama?

1. A free hand in Georgia

2. A free hand in Syria

3. The betrayal of Poland vis a vis the missile shield

4. The betrayal of Ukraine by refusing to provide its governor with useful weapons

5. A whole bunch of our uranium via Uranium One

6. A deal allowing Russia’s Iranian allies to go nuclear

7. Failure to do anything about the same Russian actions that the media is now blaming Trump for. Instead his administration actually issued a stand down order.

What has Trump given to Putin? Nothing. He’s come to the defense of Poland and Ukraine when Obama wouldn’t.

If this is the media’s metric for treason, then Obama is a traitor. He not only praised Putin, he promised to make a sweetheart deal with Russia after the election was over.

That’s number 8.

President Obama was running for re-election in March 2012, when a live microphone picked up his whispered conversation with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama told Medvedev it was important for incoming President Vladimir Putin to “give me space” on missile defense and other difficult issues and that after the 2012 presidential election he would have “more flexibility.” Medvedev said he would “transmit” the message to Putin.

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/trump-rules-trumps-rules/

Dislike Trump all you will and as many do, but it’s a fantasy to see the sackful of squabbling ferrets which passes for Europe’s leadership challenging or replacing the US on anything, let alone the defence of the liberal democratic world.

As I write, Donald Trump is enjoying something of a triumph at the US–North Korea summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. It looks as if he has obtained the agreement of the Hermit Kingdom to complete de-nuclearisation in return for quite modest American concessions. There are qualifications, of course, and the media report this success through gritted teeth, adding the kind of “warnings” of Pyongyang perfidy that used to be the currency of despised hard-liners. But if President Obama had achieved the same kind of breakthrough the world would be cheering him and declaring that, see, he really did deserve that Nobel Prize.

That’s not to dismiss reasonable criticisms of the agreement from, for example, my colleagues at National Review. In an initial checklist of arguments for and against it, Jonah Goldberg makes what I think are three especially serious ones: (1) The North Koreans have reneged on promises of de-nuclearisation before; (2) Maintaining pressure on the Pyongyang regime was a correct policy; (3) An American president heaping praise on an evil dictator in exchange for worthless promises is grotesque.

All these points have force, but they also invite reasonable rejoinders. Let me deal with them in reverse order

3. While it is indeed grotesque that a US president should heap praise on a murderous despot (whether in return for worthless promises or not), it is the standard diplomatic accompaniment to new strategic alliances between old enemies. See Churchill’s comment that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

2. Likewise, what was the purpose of the policy—which I agree was correct—of maintaining pressure on Pyongyang? Surely it had two purposes: either bringing the regime down or persuading it to disarm and reform to stay afloat. The first hasn’t yet happened and is essentially unpredictable (by which I don’t mean very unlikely) until it happens. The second is now being attempted. It may fail, but if it does, we can resume the pressure.

1. The most important criticism, therefore, is that the North Koreans might renege on denuclearisation as they have done before. But as Trump showed them a month ago when he responded to their foot-dragging by cancelling the first summit, he is quite capable of halting the peace process and even putting it into reverse. They must bear that in mind—and also that America’s concessions, including the last-minute offer to cancel US–South Korea military manoeuvres, can be easily reversed.

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21390/when-the-giving-tree-stops-giving: http://goudsmit.pundicity.com

http://lindagoudsmit.com

The United States of America emerged from World War II as the world’s undisputed superpower economically and militarily. The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe that gave over $13 billion (nearly $110 billion in 2016 US dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European communities after the end of the war. The Marshall Plan provided political stability for the world and created a world market for American good.

United States Secretary of State George Marshall delivered an explanatory speech to the graduating class of Harvard on June 5, 1947:

“The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down. … Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health to the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is not directed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Any government that is willing to assist in recovery will find full co-operation on the part of the USA. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270726/trump-frees-europe-angry-socialist-babies-daniel-greenfield

A protester waved a, “Everyone welcome” sign outside Blenheim Palace as President Trump arrived to attend a reception with Prime Minister May.

She didn’t mean Trump. Everyone but Trump was welcome in the United Kingdom.

The angry woman was part of a furious leftist mob that had hounded the President of the United States from his landing at Stansted Airport to his flight to Winfield House to the trip to Blenheim.

A desperate marketing firm had paid the owner of Moat Farm in Stoke Mandeville, who has no opinion on Trump, to allow a 650 foot crop circle reading “F___ Trump” in Russian on his flight path.

And that wasn’t even the most desperate leftist protest stunt by the angry babies of socialism.

Pots and pants were banged outside Winfield House, the United States ambassador’s residence, at Blenheim a sign accused Trump of being the “World’s #1 Racist” and Amnesty International hung up a giant banner calling him a, “Human Rights Nightmare” in an equally nightmarish yellow font.

Momentum, the anti-Semitic left-wing hate group, Stop the War’s Trotskyists, the UK version of the pro-Farrakhan racist Women’s March, and the freeloaders of the Trades Union Congress will be part of a London mob of an estimated 50,000 preparing to protest President Trump’s existence.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/12/reciprocity-is-the-method-to-trump

Critics of Donald Trump claim there is no rhyme or reason to his foreign policy. But if there is a consistency, it might be called reciprocity.

Trump tries to force other countries to treat the United States as it treats them. In “don’t tread on me” style, he also warns enemies that any aggressive act will be replied to in kind.

The underlying principle of Trump commercial reciprocity it that the United States is no longer powerful or wealthy enough to alone underwrite the security of the West. It can no longer assume sole enforcement of the rules and protocols of the postwar global order.

This year there have been none of the usual Iranian provocations—frequent during the Obama Administration—of harassing American ships in the Persian Gulf. Apparently, the Iranians now realize that anything they do to an American ship will be replied to with overwhelming force.

Ditto North Korea. After lots of threats from Kim Jong Un about using his new ballistic missiles against the United States, Trump warned that he would use America’s far greater arsenal to eliminate North Korea’s arsenal for good.

Trump is said to be undermining NATO by questioning its usefulness some 69 years after its founding. Yet unlike 1948, Germany is no longer down. The United States is always in. And Russia is hardly out, but instead cutting energy deals with the Europeans.

More importantly, most NATO countries have failed to keep their promises to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270713/president-trump-confronts-nato-free-riders-joseph-klein

President Trump’s visit to Brussels for the two-day NATO summit got off to an intense start. “It’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” President Trump said at the outset of a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday morning. “We are protecting Germany, we are protecting France, we are protecting all of these countries and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they are paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. I think that is very inappropriate.” The president went on to characterize Germany as “a captive of Russia” because of its dependence on Russia to meet its energy needs.

President Trump also repeated his oft-stated criticism that other NATO members were not paying their fair share for collective defense. “Many countries owe us,” the president said before attending the summit at NATO headquarters. “The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough… This has been going on for decades, for decades, it’s disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.”

German officials did not take President Trump’s barbs lightly.