All of this is wrong or foolish. This is the sort of clown-show you get when the president does not read or listen to briefings:
1. China is almost certainly not pressuring North Korea much now that the US is targeting Beijing in a trade-war. That should painfully obvious to /1
1. China is almost certainly not pressuring North Korea much now that the US is targeting Beijing in a trade-war. That should painfully obvious to /1
anyone: . Yes, there is some NK import price evidence to suggest China twisted Kim Jong Un's arm into going to the Singapore conference. Now though, Trump is just buck-passing the US-NK stalemate onto China, bc he doesn't want to take the blame himself. /2
That is, he threw out an end-of-war offer at Singapore, we just learned, but doesn't want to follow through: . Now,the end-of-war offer is a huge concession to the North, and we shouldn't just give it away: . But if Trump suggested /3
it, it is not too hard to figure out why the US-NK effort is frozen, and that has nothing to do with China. So Trump is further antagonizing China - on top of the trade war - which is bad for US interests in Asia, to do nothing more than cover up his own incompetence. Winning! /4
2. Trump has no 'good, warm relationship' with Kim Jong Un: . I am not sure any foreign leader has a 'good' relationship with the North since E Honecker. This is just unfalsifiable Trumpian flim-flam, bc T is obsessed with the idea that he's some amazing /5
negotiator. There's no actual evidence that Trump is 'buddies' with any foreign leader. Sure, they put up with him, bc he's POTUS. But the North is coldly transactional, so forget the idea that T has some friendship with Kim after meeting him once for 4 hours.
3. US military /6
3. US military /6
exercises are not 'war games.' That is what NK and China call them to delegitimize them. They're mostly about interoperability, which T has no idea about, bc he never listens to his aides. And no, they're not that expensive, especially not when you were ready to blow millions /7
on unnecessary,not-very-republican military parade just to satisfy your own martial lust and posturing.
4. Actually, it's not really clear that the US trade-war with China will resolve itself soon, bc no one knows what the point of the trade war is, bc Trump and his team have /8
4. Actually, it's not really clear that the US trade-war with China will resolve itself soon, bc no one knows what the point of the trade war is, bc Trump and his team have /8
provided no serious programmatic statement on its goals or preferred end-state. Therefore, China and other US trade partners don't really know how to placate Trump and end this mess. If the goal is to reduce the trade deficit, maybe Trump should rein in the sprawling US budget /9
deficit. But the tax cut just made that worse. Instead, it just looks like Trump is winging it again; he seems to love tariffs, which will just provoke China & land the US in WTO litigation. If the trade war does wrap up,it will likely be bc Trump folds, as he did with the EU /10
recently, bc he has no idea what he's doing.
5. No, Trump doesn't have a strong bond with Xi. There's no proof of this. Xi never talks this way. There's no great concession we've gotten from China in the Trump presidency to show for T's constant emphasis on personalism. And /11
5. No, Trump doesn't have a strong bond with Xi. There's no proof of this. Xi never talks this way. There's no great concession we've gotten from China in the Trump presidency to show for T's constant emphasis on personalism. And /11
are we sure we want the US president to be friends with thuggish dictators like Kim and Xi? Deal with them yes, but must Trump insist these types are his buddies? Ech. If Obama had talked like that, wouldn't we have been pretty upset?
In short, it's amateur hour on US-NK. END
In short, it's amateur hour on US-NK. END
