Monthly Archives: July 2017

Don't expect him to apologize, though.

The lonely US role at the G20 summit, a forum of the world's most powerful economies that Washington once dominated, is exactly consistent with what Trump sees as his mandate for a nationalistic, "America first" foreign policy.

As Trump boarded Air Force One in Germany for the long flight across the Atlantic, some G20 leaders were left to reflect that their fears that he would be a disruptive force on the world stage have unarguably come true.

By now, most US allies had expected to be settling into the Hillary Clinton era, forging progress based on a shared vision of Western civilization, pursuing familiar multilateral approaches to saving the planet and to globalization.

Instead, they are learning to live with a sometimes capricious American President keen to redefine the West in his own nationalist image, who goes against the consensus of centrist, multilateral international politics, and who is not afraid to pull at the divisions existing within the European Union.

The United States' step back has left other nations, especially Germany under veteran Chancellor Angela Merkel, to take up the banner of traditional Western leadership -- a stunning scenario given Washington's decades-long role as the most prominent player in global diplomacy.

At the end of Saturday's meeting in Hamburg, Trump declined to give a traditional end-of-summit press conference, leaving it to leaders like Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron to give their take on developments with no push-back from the US side.

But it didn't need a rare presidential press conference to make clear that the President's second trip abroad showed just how much he has reshaped America's role in the world since taking office six months ago.

The President appeared increasingly at ease on the international stage, mixing with foreign leaders, holding a flurry of bilateral meetings and sitting through long summit sessions -- even if his daughter Ivanka caused a stir by briefly sitting in him for him in one meeting Saturday.

The broad language appeared to be an attempt to keep Washington in the big G20 tent in terms of trade policy, even though leaders recognize there are broad differences of approach. The President won the White House partly by arguing that large multilateral trade deals had shattered the American economy, and he also has cast doubt on the existence of global warming and said the Paris accord would kill US jobs.

Merkel used the word "deplore" to describe her reaction to the US withdrawal from the Paris pact that Trump's predecessor Barack Obama played a prominent role in negotiating. The German leader pointedly noted that the other 19 of the group's 20 nation's agreed the climate change agreement was "irreversible."

The most significant moment of Trump's trip was his more than two-hour meeting with Putin, in which he raised the issue of alleged Russian election meddling. But there were conflicting accounts from each side over whether the President had accepted Putin's insistence that he had done nothing wrong.

A senior Trump administration official told CNN on Friday, however, that Trump did not accept Putin's claim of noninterference.

The meeting will be interpreted by many of Trump's critics as a sign that Russia will pay no real price for an alleged attempt to help defeat Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

But in geopolitical terms, it was also significant. Trump effectively welcomed Putin back to the international stage as an equal, validating the Russian leader's core goal of reestablishing Russia's lost influence. Just last month, the US and European Union respectively tightened and extended sanctions on Russia over its alleged incursion in Ukraine. European leaders hope the meeting between Trump and Putin does not mean a weakening of the US position on the Ukraine question, more than three years after Russia's takeover of Crimea.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained that the relationship between the world's two top nuclear powers was too important to let the estrangement between Moscow and Washington linger any longer.

"How do we start making this work? How do we live with one another? How do we work with one another?" he said.

Trump did go some way to living up to his claims to being a master deal-maker presiding, along with Russia and Jordan, over a renewal of a ceasefire deal in southwestern Syria. The deal could lead to more US-Russia cooperation in the looming post-ISIS future in the shattered nation, but critics will see it as Washington acquiescing in Russia's geopolitical influence in the region.

It is also clear that there are sharp differences emerging on what exactly the West, the block of liberal, democratic, globalized nations, that have dominated global politics since World War II, should stand for.

Trump's speech in Warsaw on Thursday -- already one of the seminal moments of his presidency -- set out a strikingly different world view than his predecessors.

"The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive," Trump said. "Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?"

Those words, coming from a President who has tried to impose a ban on travel by residents of six predominantly Muslim nations to the US, and halted refugee admittances, appeared to be a clear critique of European leaders who have permitted Muslim immigration which critics say threatens Western values.

"Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?" he said in a remark that may have been aimed at Merkel herself, who let hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany -- a move harshly criticized by Trump during his campaign.

While Trump's remarks could be popular in Poland and its right-wing government, they might have set him on a collision course with other allied leaders who view his actions and rhetoric as a far greater threat to Western values than immigration.

There is also frustration in Germany, and in Europe more generally, at the President's repeated criticisms of the trade imbalance between Washington and Berlin, a sentiment that has come through in Merkel's rhetoric as she campaigns for a fourth term in office ahead of September's election.

While Trump was isolated from most of America's allies at the G20, he smartly offered a valuable political gift to one leader, weakened British Prime Minister Theresa May.

The President said that he expected a trade deal that would bolster Britain after its exit from the EU could be agreed to "very, very quickly."

The move stored up a favor, should he need May to return it, in the months to come.

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Donald Trump puts US in a club of one - CNN

President Trumps trip to Poland and the Group of 20 summit in Germany is yet another reminder that his presidency has the qualities of a three-ring circus, with activity coming from a variety of directions all at the same time and with no easy way in the moment to decide what is most important or credible.

Two events dominated the presidents European visit: his eagerly anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday and his tone-setting speech about the future of the West a day earlier in Warsaw. Each rightly drew worldwide attention. Both could prove to be potential foundational moments in the Trump presidency.

But there were other discordant moments that distracted from the big set pieces. They were a reminder of how difficult it is to find consistency or predictability in Trumps presidency. They included the presidents public equivocation about Russian interference in the 2016 election and his dissing of U.S. intelligence capabilities during a news conference in Poland, and then a bizarre and inaccurate tweet on Friday morning about John Podesta and Russian hacking hours before Trump was to see Putin.

[Podesta calls Trump our whack job president in response to error-filled tweet]

No recent meeting between world leaders came with such advance hype as the session between Trump and Putin. Thats because no relationship has been more fraught for Trump, because of Russias efforts to meddle in his behalf during the election backdropped by Trumps regular expressions of admiration for Putin.

This was more than an opportunity for Trump and Putin to get acquainted and to take a measure of each other, more than a moment for photo ops and handshakes and other trappings that often signify little. Dangers from North Koreas nuclear pursuits, the war in Syria (where the two agreed to try to enforce a cease-fire in the southwestern part of the country) and the overall fight against the Islamic State demanded serious and presumably frank discussions.

That their meeting lasted far longer than scheduled at two hours and 15 minutes, it was more than twice as long as planned was not a surprise. The leaders of the nations with the worlds biggest nuclear arsenals and with clear differences about many issues had a potential agenda that could have kept them together hours longer. The lengthy meeting was a constructive sign, given the state of the relationship.

What isnt known is what Trump, who is quick to judge the strengths and weaknesses of people, made of Putin. Did he emerge from their two hours of talks and sparring with a different impression of the Russian leader? Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the two had good chemistry. Trump is susceptible to flattery. Did he leave with a feeling that Putin was more trustworthy or less trustworthy than when he entered the room?

Then, of course, there was the elephant in the room, which was Russias role in the U.S. election. Pregame speculation questioned whether Trump would even address it face to face. He did, but there were conflicting accounts of what was said on that topic.

Tillerson said Trump had started the meeting by raising the issue of Russian interference and that Putin had offered what is his standard denial that the Russians did anything nefarious during the 2016 campaign.

Just how forcefully Trump pressed the issue Tillerson said the president brought it up more than once is so far unknown. There was no immediate indication of any softening of the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in retaliation to the hacking, which has been a Russian goal. But the readouts suggested that Trump had no appetite for a sustained argument about Russias behavior.

As he has signaled in other interactions with other world leaders, Trump is transactional and therefore willing to look past such things as human rights abuses and other transgressions that have drawn rebukes from previous U.S. administrations as he pursues other goals. Whether that approach will produce desired results hasnt been given a full test, although it has not prompted the kind of tough action by China toward North Korea that Trump wants.

Tillerson told reporters in Hamburg that neither leader was eager to re-litigate the past, that their differences on Russian meddling were intractable and that each was looking for a way to put the relationship between these two adversaries on firmer and more positive footing.

On one key point, the accounts of the meeting were at odds. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Trump had listened to Putins denial of interference, had accepted those statements and had dismissed the investigation into Russian interference. Tillerson said Putin, despite the denials, had nonetheless agreed to talks about noninterference in U.S. elections.

[Kremlin defends account of Trump-Putin talks]

What Trump said in response to Putins denial is a critical question, given what he said the day before at a news conference. Asked by reporters on Thursday whether he fully accepted U.S. intelligence findings of Russian interference, Trump again declined to give a clear answer. I think it could very well have been Russia, but I think it could well have been other countries, he said. Trump added that a lot of people interfere and have been for some time. Nobody really knows for sure, he said.

If that is Trumps true belief, and he has said it often enough over many months to make it seem as though it is what he thinks, then how exactly did he raise the issue directly with Putin, and how forcefully did he press the case when Putin offered his denial? Having raised it with the Russian leader, is that the end of it for the president, at least in terms of what he plans to do either to punish the Russians or aggressively look to prevent a repeat performance in 2018 or 2020?

His true feelings may have come out on Friday morning when he tweeted, Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful! There are any number of inaccuracies in that tweet, and Podesta, on a road trip with his wife, pointed them out in a response published by The Washington Post. Trumps tweet was a reminder that, on matters related to Russia and the election, the president continues to look for diversions and digressions, raising more questions about what transpired in his meeting with Putin.

Trumps speech in Warsaw drew more positive reviews than his address to NATO when he was in Europe in May. In Poland, he unequivocally reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty dealing with common defense. In May, he pointedly did not.

His speech was nationalistic in tone, yet different from some in the past. Critics found the speech still too dark in tone. The Economist called it a departure from past administrations, and not that far from the American carnage language of his inaugural address, a philosophy that champions closed borders and that does not celebrate pluralistic values.

More positively, the Wall Street Journal said that, in his affirmative defense of the western tradition, Trump offered the core of what could become a governing philosophy. The editorial ended with this statement, It was an important and, we hope, a defining speech for the Trump presidency and for Donald Trump himself.

That, like the question of what Trump truly thinks about Putin, Russia and the interference in American democracy, is the persistent puzzle about this president. Are speeches like the one he gave in Warsaw genuine expressions of his views or more the assembled consensus of his advisers? Are his views expressed best in readouts by advisers from his private discussions with the likes of Putin, or by what he says during his infrequent news conferences or his more frequent tweets? Answers still to come.

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Who is the real Donald Trump? - Washington Post

HAMBURG, Germany President Donald Trump's G-20 trip was dominated by news of his "very robust" first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin but other critical issues hinged on his ability to maneuver through diplomatic channels.

After a rough reception last month during the NATO summit, foreign policy experts predicted an icy reception for Trump especially after his recent policy pronouncements on climate and trade put him out of step with the other allies gathered in Germany.

But this international trip played better than that previous stop in Brussels, according to Jamie Fly, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund. Trump seemed to have "navigated some of the differences that everyone knew would exist with the Europeans," Fly said.

Optics was but one of Trump's challenges, however. These five issues are the top takeaways of the G-20 summit:

Tensions over North Korea were already high before the G-20, with urgency for a resolution over how to rein in the isolated nation renewed after an intercontinental ballistic missile test earlier in the week.

"Something has to be done about it," Trump reiterated at the start of a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday, adding that he appreciates what's been done by China regarding North Korea.

That's a new tone from the one Trump took days earlier, chastising China for growing its trade relations with the regime of Kim Jong Un.

"So much for China working with us but we had to give it a try!" Trump tweeted Wednesday.

The Xi-Trump meeting lasted over an hour and a half, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters in a plane gaggle en route to Washington. It would have lasted longer, he said, "if we didn't have to get pulled out to leave."

The White House strategy in North Korea has counted heavily on a helping hand from the Chinese, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described their actions Friday as "uneven."

The United States has kept the pressure on Beijing sanctioning a Chinese bank last week and excluding China from a trilateral meeting with leaders from South Korea and Japan prior to the start of the G-20. That meeting yielded a joint statement from the three countries, pressing for the early adoption of a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would put additional sanctions on North Korea to show "that there are serious consequences for its destabilizing, provocative, and escalatory actions."

U.S. bombers practiced their attack capabilities at a training range in South Korea on Friday, NBC News learned a clear show of force to the North Korean regime just days after they tested the intercontinental ballistic missile.

Local media reported that the bombers flew close to the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, but they did not cross demarcation lines.

Perhaps the most-watched policy piece of this summit of world leaders was on climate change as it related to the Paris Climate Agreement. After a climate change session, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters Trump participated and "even made a contribution" to discussions.

But by the end of the two-day summit, America was officially standing alone.

The United States was singled out in a G-20 statement for its stance on climate issues, and the other countries took the uncharacteristic step of noting America's lone position in rebuffing the accord.

"We take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris Agreement," the end-of-summit document read. "The United States of America announced it will immediately cease the implementation of its current nationally-determined contribution and affirms its strong commitment to an approach that lowers emissions while supporting economic growth and improving energy security needs."

The other G-20 leaders called the Paris Agreement "irreversible" and French President Emmanuel Macron announced an end-of-year summit in France to fete the accord's two-year signing anniversary.

But the White House balked at the idea that the statement was done to brush aside the United States.

National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn told reporters on Air Force One that "it was never a situation where there was isolated forces" as "everyone accepted" the U.S. decision to get out of the Paris Agreement early on.

Another instance that set the U.S. apart from its G-20 partners came on trade, with leaders giving an early rebuttal to possible U.S.-imposed tariffs on steel imports a decision the White House is expected to move on soon.

On Friday, European leaders were direct in their opposition. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised, metaphorically, that "we are prepared to take up arms if need be," but hoped it wouldn't be "actually necessary."

President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a panel discussion on the second day of the G20 summit on July 8, 2017, in Hamburg, Germany. Pool / Getty Images

Experts told NBC News before the G-20 that

In closing out the summit in her home country, Merkel told reporters that G-20 leaders were clear that markets must be open, while fighting against protectionism and unfair practices.

Fly, who served on the National Security Council and in the Pentagon when President George W. Bush was in office, said the Trump administration should be cautious on the pending tariffs decision.

He told NBC News that it needs to "make sure that they're not, at the end of the day, going after countries that are really not the root of the problem on that issue."

Trade tensions, he noted, are "added to all the other emotions about Trump and about Paris Climate Agreement withdrawal that the imposition of tariffs that affect our European allies would have a very negative impact on Trans-Atlantic relations."

Tillerson announced Friday that the United States, in tandem with Russia and Jordan, agreed to a de-escalation in southwest Syria, a "first indication of the U.S. and Russia being able to work together in Syria."

National security adviser H.R. McMaster said Saturday that a "de-escalation zone" will go into effect noon local time (5 a.m. ET) Sunday.

But there have been ceasefire attempts before amid the country's civil war and questions remain over who will be monitoring the ISIS-ravaged region.

Related:

"At the end of the day, this is Syria," one senior State Department official said Friday, briefing reporters anonymously to better discuss details of the ceasefire deal and acknowledging the complications there.

The question also remains of what to do with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Tillerson has said of the country's future: "There will be a transition away from the Assad family."

The White House pledged $50 million to a new World Bank initiative geared toward breaking down barriers to female economic empowerment.

The introduction of the Ivanka Trump-backed group drew Merkel, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the podium to praise efforts to help women entrepreneurs around the world achieve greater success with the help of loans, mentorships and policy reform.

Trump

Ivanka Trump's White House role is nebulous, but she has consistently focused on projects that support female economic advancement. Her role in this particular initiative would not be one of a fundraiser, a senior administration official insisted, but instead, one of a global champion and advocate.

More:

G-20 Summit: Top Five Takeaways From Trump's Trip - NBCNews.com

Then there was an initial, strange silence from Trump and his aides about a rash of anti-Semitic vandalism and bomb threats around the country in January and February.

In May, in Israel, Trump insisted on a much shorter stop at Yad Vashem, an important Holocaust memorial and museum, than either Barack Obama or George W. Bush had made, and he stuck to that plan even as many Israelis and American Jews cried foul. The tone-deaf breeziness of his approach was accentuated by the message he left in the visitors book: It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends so amazing & will never forget! As Yair Rosenberg of the Jewish magazine Tablet tweeted, it was basically just what teenagers write in each others high school yearbooks.

Ivanka Trump went to the Warsaw memorial in her fathers stead, though Trump softened that blow somewhat by mentioning, in his big Warsaw speech, that the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Polands Jewish citizens.

Ivanka converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, and the couples key roles in the White House mean that Trump has observant Jews at the very core of his presidency and of his life.

But that didnt stop him from making remarks to Jewish Republican donors in December 2015 that seemed to play into an anti-Semitic stereotype. Im a negotiator like you folks, he said, later adding: Is there anybody that doesnt renegotiate deals in this room? Perhaps more than any room Ive ever spoken to.

During his presidential campaign, he embraced the favor of groups and people who trafficked in white supremacy. He re-tweeted material from proudly anti-Semitic Twitter feeds, and prompted a furor by promoting an image that placed Hillary Clintons face atop a pile of cash and beside a six-pointed star on which most corrupt candidate ever was written.

The website PolitiFact concluded that it was unlikely that the Trump campaign intended to put out a Star of David image. In fact, the campaign moved to replace the star with a circle when the image gained attention. Even so, PolitiFact noted, Trump had an unusual habit of using social media to broadcast material that comes from sources with a history of spreading racism, anti-Semitism or white supremacy.

Im not convinced that Trump is much of an anti-Semite, any more than Im convinced that hes much of a homophobe. (Racism and sexism are another matter.) But I think hes so thirsty for, and intoxicated by, whatever love comes his way that hes loath to rebuff the sources of it.

A prominent Jewish Republican put it well. I think Trump is such a pathological narcissist that the act of telling people who love you that you reject them he cant get around that, he told me, interpreting Trumps reasoning this way: What can be wrong with them? Theyre for me!

Trump is disinclined to denounce any constituency or tactics that elevate him to the throne, where hes sure that he belongs. The outcome validates even the ugliest and most divisive ascent.

I dont think hes goading these people or associating with them because he shares their views, the Republican added. I do think that hes so insensitive about the presidency about the responsibilities of the leader of the free world that he doesnt realize its not enough to say, once or twice, I dont agree with them. He doesnt realize that you have to be very clear. And he doesnt realize or care that hes validating and encouraging them.

He doesnt understand the message of zipping through Yad Vashem when predecessors lingered, because hes less concerned with the weight of his office than with the whims and convenience of Donald Trump. Its all about him, always and if hes sure in his own heart that hes good with Jews, then he shouldnt have to prove it.

Go back to his mini-tantrum during a White House news conference in February, when a reporter for a Jewish magazine tried to ask him whether he was paying proper heed to the anti-Semitic bomb threats. Trump interpreted the question as an indictment not of his behavior but of his being I am the least anti-Semitic person that youve ever seen in your entire life! he trumpeted and turned the discussion toward the big, bad media. Forget about any persecution of Jews. Lets talk about the persecution of Trump.

You can be only so considerate to others when you never stop considering yourself. And the flamboyantly nonconformist culture of Trumps presidency has downsides. This administration shrugs off and throws away some rituals and niceties that do matter to people, estranging them in the process.

Gay Pride Month came and went without even a banal word of recognition from the White House. So while Trump likes to crow, in a hallucinatory fashion, that gays love him, we made do in June with a tweet from his outsourced conscience, by which of course I mean Ivanka.

Some of this is Steve Bannon and his ilk. Their idea of nationalism is chilly to the recognition of subgroups, including Jewish Americans.

Some of it boils down to an absent professionalism. Trump isnt matching the respectful choreography of other presidents because theres no one in his inner circle familiar with the dance. Kushner, Bannon, Stephen Miller and Reince Priebus are all new to this kind and level of work. They lack institutional memory, along with any awareness of how easily those blind spots become insensitivity.

I cant know definitively how Trump feels about Jews or gays or a whole lot else. But I can see clearly his sloppiness and self-absorption, and theyre cause enough for alarm.

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Why Does Donald Trump Keep Dissing Jews? - New York Times

BBC News

Ivanka Trump takes Donald Trump seat at G20 leaders' table BBC News In an unusual move Ivanka Trump briefly took her father Donald's seat at a summit of world leaders on Saturday. The US president had stepped away for a meeting with the Indonesian leader during the G20 meeting. Ms Trump is an adviser to her father, but ... Donald Trump: Ivanka's life would be easier if she wasn't my daughterAOL Donald Trump says he's made Ivanka's life harderNew York Post Opinion: Ivanka covers for Donald Trump at G20 meetingDeutsche Welle HuffPost -CNBC -CNN -Bloomberg all 198 news articles »

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Ivanka Trump takes Donald Trump seat at G20 leaders' table - BBC News