Even As The Indian-Pakistani Conflict Escalates, Trump And Other World Leaders Fail to Focus On It3/5/2019 The Trump Administration’s foreign policy agenda appears to be somewhat coalescing around the Israeli-Pakistan Conflict, Russian entanglement in geopolitical affairs, and China’s emergence as a global economic power. Looking at his willingness to speak with Kim Jong-Un, it would seem the President is pursuing some sort of strategy that might give him added leverage over China as well as help resolve the Korean War. Trump’s policies toward Venezuela, Syria, and Iran also suggest the President is, in part, positioning himself to counter Russia’s attempts to reemerge as a global power while undoing what he views as mistakes of the Obama Administration. Even if one can assume the President is pursuing some grand foreign policy strategy, his attention and the attention of other world leaders is needed elsewhere. World leaders are failing to take lead on a crisis that represents an imminent global threat.
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US President Donald Trump’s use of an emergency declaration to fund his proposed wall along the US-Mexican border is a test for Congressional Republicans. Because the President is using emergency powers to circumvent Congressional opposition to his public policy priority and his alleged emergency is far from an “imminent threat,” Republicans must choose between their party leadership and the implications to the US Constitution. With Trump defenders framing the emergency declaration as a stand for national security, Republicans must also choose between national security and the Constitutional mechanisms that ensure the United States remains a democratic republic and the US government upholds the freedoms of all Americans. In many respects, it is a classic conundrum for those in government. A free society cannot exist without civil liberties and security. The answer is to choose both national security and liberal democratic governance.
The second Trump-Kim summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un collapsed in what Trump allies have framed as a willingness to walk away from a bad deal. For critics of the top-level negotiations, however, the outcome of the meeting was always a secondary concern. The fact that the US President was willing to work with one of the most tyrannical and unsavory governments in the world was an unbearable proposition from the start. The fact that Donald Trump considers Kim Jong-Un a ‘friend’ and anything less than an indecent human being reflects badly on the President as a person and as a leader for those who are willing to recognize the sins of the Kim regime. Although Kim Jong-Un may not be personally involved in or fully aware of his government’s most notorious activities, he is the head of the Kim regime and the kind of governing environment he cultivates allows the abuses and wrongs of his government to continue. With that in mind, that same disgust for Trump and Kim’s comradery needs to be used to shine a spotlight on the willingness of the US and world leaders to cooperate with unsavory figures around the world.
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April 2020
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