Category Archives: Foreign
Trumped up One China Policy
Donald Trump’s phone conversation with the president of Taiwan was a diplomatic blunder. According to diplomats. They say it upsets the One China Policy. That’s the policy where everybody pretends Mainland China exits and Taiwan doesn’t.
The U.S. sold the nonexistent regime $1.83 billion in weapons last year. And China is Taiwan’s biggest trading partner.
One China Policy
Henry Kissinger helped invent the One China policy in 1971. This week he took a ride up the golden elevator to meet Trump. He was impressed. He says Trump is a unique president-elect because he has “no baggage.”
I don’t think The Donald cares who calls him on the phone. William Murchison of the Dallas Morning News definitely doesn’t care. You can read his column here.
Castro’s Long Reign
Fidel Castro finally got term limited. He died at age 90. Not a bad run considering he took power in 1959. Castro’s long reign outlasted 10 U.S. presidents. He retired in 2008.
Ben Domenech at The Federalist thinks Castro’s big mistake was joining the wrong team – the Soviet Union. Another mistake may have been stealing U.S. owned businesses in Cuba. That led to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the U.S. embargo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and oddball assassination attempts.
Castro’s Long Reign
Many world leaders treated Castro as a normal public official. MaClean’s thinks Justin Trudeau went from being the most interesting man in the world to “international laughingstock” with his Castro eulogy. Just for laughs, here it is:
“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President. “Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation. “While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”. “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba. “On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”
Prisoners of History Narrative
John Kerry thinks the U.S. and Cuba were ‘”prisoners of history.” Maybe he had a mind meld with White House narrative boy Ben Rhodes. Rhodes told The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, “America sometimes makes itself a prisoner of our own history. We have a very complicated history with Cuba.”
For its part, The Wall Street Journal editorial board reports that the average monthly wage in Cuba is $20.
Hard to figure how the guy got re-elected.
Stand Up Guy
In 2009 President Obama tried a “reset” with Russia.
During a 2012 campaign debate, Mitt Romney called Russia the “biggest threat” to The United States. To which Obama cracked wise, “the 1980s are calling, they want their foreign policy back“. He tutored Romney that the cold war was over.
Stand Up
Also in 2012, Obama whispered to Russian President Medvedev that he could be more flexible after the election. Medvedev promised to transmit the message to Vladimir.
Now, after the 2016 election, he’s lecturing the world that Trump needs to “stand up to Putin.”
“I don’t expect that the President-elect will follow exactly our approach,” Mr Obama said.
“But my hope is he does not simply take a realpolitik approach and suggest that … if we just cut some deals with Russia, even if it hurts people or even if it violates international norms or even if it leaves smaller countries vulnerable, or creates long-term problems in regions like Syria, that we just do whatever’s convenient at the time.”
Obama Turns Over National Security Apparatus Keys
The Daily Beast is alarmed by the massive national security apparatus The President is turning over to The Donald. It kills by drone and fights wars without congressional approval.
Whenever George W. Bush started a war he made sure to to pack a Congressional resolution. President Obama, not so much.
Obama ended “torture” of enemy combatants. Instead he blows them up by drone. Even American citizens make the hit list.
He also engineered a nuke treaty with Iran without Senate approval. He simply deemed it not a treaty.
Now all that power is in the tiny hands of President-elect Trump.
National Security Apparatus
Here’s Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:
“Many Americans were willing to invest broad power in the presidency because they trusted the president. But obviously the powers that we invest outlast any particular president, and now those powers are available to Trump.”
Oh.
Global Elite and USA Brexit
The year hasn’t been kind to the global elite.
Curiously, that made many Americans ashamed of their country. They’re resorting to violence because they don’t accept Tuesday’s election results. The same election they feared Donald Trump wouldn’t honor if the results were reversed.
To their credit, President Obama and Hillary Clinton gracefully accepted the voter mandate.
Others, however, are embarrassed because people are laughing at us. Many of whom live under the undemocratic rule of progressive experts. The European Union for example. The EU features strangling regulation, low growth, high unemployment, and negative interest rates.
The Brits had enough of that and voted to exit the E.U. – Brexit. Those voters too were laughed at by their enlightened betters who were embarrassed for their country.
Global Elite
The Obama agenda gave America eight years of increasing regulation, low growth, high unemployment (90 million outside the workforce), and near zero percent interest rates. Hillary Clinton promised to make us even more like France.
So American voters pulled a Brexit and elected Trump. The major media and pollsters missed both the U.K. and U.S.A. revolts entirely.
And that left the global elite shocked and dismayed.
