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FOREIGN POLICY

On Ukraine War, Trump Proves His Foreign Policy Is Pragmatic and That Adversaries Who Defy Him Will Face Consequences Trump’s Ukraine pivot shows pragmatic America First: weapons via NATO, sanctions on Russia, and a cease-fire ultimatum aimed at ending the war without new U.S. entanglements. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/18/on-ukraine-war-trump-proves-his-foreign-policy-is-pragmatic-and-that-adversaries-who-defy-him-will-face-consequences/

President Trump’s announcement that he will send weapons to Ukraine through NATO and his pledge to impose crippling energy sanctions against Russia in 50 days if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to a cease-fire in the Ukraine War led to the usual mocking criticism of Trump by the mainstream media.

Many reporters slammed Trump’s decision as hypocrisy and flip-flopping, claiming that it contradicted his campaign promises to quickly end the war in Ukraine and keep America out of new wars. Other reporters gloated that Trump’s decision to send additional weapons to Ukraine meant he was implementing President Biden’s Ukraine policy.

These criticisms were far from the truth. What is true about President Trump’s policy shift on the Ukraine War is that for the second time in a month, Trump demonstrated that he will adjust his America First approach to U.S. national security when circumstances change and to maintain American credibility on the world stage.

President Trump announced during a July 14 Oval Office press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that he had decided, due to Putin’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire in the Ukraine War, to sell Patriot missile batteries to NATO to provide to Ukraine. According to press reports, the president may also have decided to sell missiles to Ukraine that could be fired deep inside Russia.

In addition, President Trump announced that the U.S. will impose “severe” 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy energy from Russia if Putin does not agree to a cease-fire in 50 days.

President Trump expressed his growing frustration with Putin for accelerating the war despite their phone discussions about implementing a cease-fire and diplomatic efforts by Trump’s national security team officials with Russian, Ukrainian, and European officials.

Unfortunately, after six months of Trump’s intensive diplomatic efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, Putin has shown no interest in ending the war. Putin has not only ignored President Trump’s peace efforts, but he has also disrespected him.

This is why a shift in Trump’s Ukraine policy was needed.

How Trump, Biden’s Arms Shipments Differ: NATO Pays ‘100%’ for Ukraine Trump, once vowing to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, now arms Kyiv through NATO and threatens Putin. By Philip Wegmann

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/16/how-trump-bidens-arms-shipments-differ-nato-pays-100-for-ukraine/

Though endlessly critical of his predecessor, President Trump has adopted a Ukraine strategy similar to that of former President Joe Biden: Arm the Ukrainians to the teeth and threaten Russian President Vladimir Putin with even more sanctions if he does not agree to a peace deal.

Some of Trump’s closest domestic allies are already warning that the “expanded American role in the Ukraine War” will be “quite shocking” to the America First voters who returned him to the Oval Office.

But the same president who vowed to end the war in 24 hours has lost patience with Putin after six months. “He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump said of the Russian leader. “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me.” Seated in the Oval Office next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the president offered a glimpse into the negotiation process and his seemingly shifting mood on the war.

“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump admitted. “But it just kept going on and on.”

So Trump will sell weapons to NATO to supply Ukraine, and if Russia does not yield in 50 days, Trump promises another 100% tariff on all Russian goods.

Critics accused Trump of dawdling out of hubris before arriving at the right answer for the wrong reasons. “President Trump couldn’t understand the utility of or stakes around arming Ukraine until he felt personally wronged by Putin,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department during the previous administration. “One helluva learning curve,” a former Biden White House official said of the perception that Trump was moving in a pro-Ukrainian direction, “and an expensive one too.”

A third former Biden official described the new strategy as different but similar to the former president’s Ukraine strategy, just with “a bit of an extra step.” And the twist in question is a big, Trumpian one.

Unlike Biden, the Trump administration will not send military aid directly to Ukraine. Instead, NATO allies will purchase weapons from the U.S. and then funnel them to the front lines, a development that comes in the weeks after those European nations finally agreed to meet Trump’s separate demand that they spend at least 5% of their annual GDP on defense within the next decade.

Iran’s New Trap vs. Trump’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Chance to Transform the Middle East by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21736/trump-iran-transform-middle-east

President Donald J. Trump, through a bold and unapologetic foreign policy, has emerged in just a few short months, as the only leader in recent history capable of reshaping the region and challenging Iran’s theocratic dictatorship with real consequences. His actions have already produced historic results…

If Trump settles into believing that setting back Iran’s nuclear program by a few years is enough, the world will soon fall into the very trap that Tehran has set. The regime will rebuild, rearm, and reemerge stronger, angrier, and even nearer to having its bomb. The world will then once again face the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran—with perhaps no leader to stop it.

Now is not the time to offer the regime a lifeline in the form of negotiations or sanctions relief. The regime will doubtless try its old tricks—sending diplomats to Western capitals, promising temporary compliance, and begging for centrifuges for “peaceful energy” and a new “deal.” This is a trap

Any deal now will not benefit the United States. It will only help the Iranian regime recover, rebuild its economy, and ultimately return to its path of terror. The time has come to “finish the job.”

The Iranian regime must not be allowed to survive long enough to recover. The goal is not to delay the problem but to solve it.

It took decades — across multiple presidencies, wars, and failed negotiations — before the United States finally had a president who understood, with both clarity and conviction, how to confront the Iranian regime and transform the trajectory of the Middle East.

President Donald J. Trump, through a bold and unapologetic foreign policy, has emerged in just a few short months, as the only leader in recent history capable of reshaping the region and challenging Iran’s theocratic dictatorship with real consequences. His actions have already produced historic results — from crippling the regime’s nuclear infrastructure to fostering unprecedented peace deals.

Warnings to President Trump on the Future of Gaza by Robert Johnson

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21747/trump-gaza-future

The Trump administration is being sent early warnings of the priorities of its possible “partner,” Qatar, for the future of the Gaza Strip.

“His Excellency” Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar’s former ambassador to the United States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5 that he is concerned about “keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its people,” and slammed Israel: “No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor Washington—has labelled the Gaza campaign as ‘systematic killing,’ let alone moved to punish Israel under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.

Meetings currently appear to be underway to create a possible “consortium” of Arab and Muslim nations to govern the Gaza Strip – basically leaving in place many of the same radical Islamic adherents of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which it is an offshoot, as before — most likely to make sure that Israel can be attacked again in the future as many times as necessary to ensure its extinction.

“Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran.” — Udi Levy, former senior official of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet, April14, 2024.

President Donald Trump — whose initial instincts are often perfect until “advisors” try to talk him out of them – originally suggested an American-built “Riviera” on the Gaza Strip. Combined with a military base, it would greatly serve the interests of the United States as well as Israel – similarly to how the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect the oil-rich peninsula. American forces at Al-Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East, effectively serve as Qatar’s private air-force. Qatar might even have snookered some US bureaucrats into thinking that they are doing the US a favor by allowing its troops to be there.

Trump’s original idea of a US “Riviera” in Gaza, stems from an “America First” point of view, may be the most constructive way to successfully deter further military engagement for the United States in the Middle East.

At the moment, however, it is crucial not to allow Qatar, Egypt or any Arab state to get anywhere near Gaza. “His Excellency” al-Rumaihi from Qatar is clearly telling you so.

The Trump administration is being sent early warnings of the priorities of its possible “partner,” Qatar, for the future of the Gaza Strip.

“His Excellency” Mohammed al-Rumaihi, Qatar’s former ambassador to the United States, and former Minister of Municipality and Environment, noted on July 5 that he is concerned about “keep[ing] the Palestinian cause alive – and its people,” and slammed Israel:

“No major capital—neither Beijing, nor Moscow, nor Washington—has labelled the Gaza campaign as ‘systematic killing,’ let alone moved to punish Israel under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

You are not left to guess which side of the conflict he is on.

Is Trump Abandoning the Iranian People and Guaranteeing War? by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21710/abandoning-the-iranian-people

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners might be at risk of executions.” — Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization, June 26, 2025.

Iran… has reportedly executed 1,700 people in 2025 alone — and it is not even August.

US President Donald J. Trump deserves every credit for bombing the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan uranium enrichment plants. However, forcing Israel to terminate its “Operation Rising Lion,” just as it was finally giving the Iranian people a glimpse of hope for freedom in the course of destroying Iran’s nuclear program and its key institutions of oppression, was a terrible move. It left Iranians abandoned to a gruesome fate under a regime that had been likely weeks away from facing total destruction. Why? For another 46 years of “fake talks”?

The Trump administration cannot thank Qatar enough for “helping” to negotiate every transition. Qatar is doubtless delighted to help, to make sure that none of its well-funded clients gets hurt. Qatar does not want regime change in Iran. Qatar has also promised Trump more than a trillion dollars in investments in the US.

By rescuing Iran’s regime, is Trump signaling to the people of Iran that actual peace in the Middle East might be just a dream; that more than 90 million Iranian people are seemingly not worthy of the same freedom that other nations have and that they should suffer unspeakable persecution forever?

Throughout the war, most Western leaders aside from Trump, from their comfortable clubs, called for “ceasefires” and “de-escalation”, while Israel was fighting for its existence — and theirs. Would they have preferred to wait for the ballistic missiles Iran was launching at Israel to be nuclear-tipped?

Iran’s mullahs are not going to put their country back in shape: they are going put their nuclear weapons program, war machine and private militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), back in shape. The mullahs must be congratulating themselves on how much better it is to be America’s enemy than its friend.

Trump’s newfound generosity towards the Islamic Republic of Iran — whatever happened to “maximum pressure”? — will only allow it to strengthen its hold on power, rebuild its terrorist proxies, establish additional terrorist sleeper cells in the West, continue arming Venezuela, all while the Iranian people will see neither freedom nor prosperity. In addition, it will guarantee further war later on, not only in the Middle East, but also in the West.

The day after Israel began to strike Iran on June 13, the Islamic Republic ratcheted up its crackdown on the captive Iranian people The only activity at which Iran’s regime seems to excel is brutally attacking its innocent, unarmed population.

Since then, at least 1,295 people have been arrested on security-related charges, including “espionage for Israel,” according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. In addition, it noted, “at least 301 individuals were detained nationwide for sharing content, expressing opinions, or participating on social media.”

Donald Trump, Meet the Twelfth Imam Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/middle-east/donald-trump-and-the-twelfth-imam/

I am a bit this way but mostly that way on Trump’s strategy on Iran. Mostly unenamoured. Dropping those bunker-buster bombs was an unmitigated good thing. It seems unlikely after the Israel bombardment and Trump’s coup de grâce that the Iranians will be able to get back on the nuclear track very quickly, even if some minor mole in the Pentagon leaked it otherwise. But where to from here? Has anything been lastingly solved? Hardly.

While the mullahs call the shots nothing will change. I get the impression from Trump that he believes the Iranian leaders will get behind a MIGA movement (make Iran great again). Doubt it. He is dealing with religious fanatics who look forward to the end times when Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth imam, will return and make Shia Islam great again.

I trust that someone has educated Trump on Islam. Otherwise, however good his negotiation skills, he is out of his depth. Islamists (i.e., fundamentalist Muslims to which legion the ayatollahs most certainly belong) will lie and cheat with impunity if they believe it is in the interests of protecting and promoting Islam. They are obliged to do so. Quite simply you can’t deal with them on a transactional basis. Netanyahu understands that. That’s why he must be secretly ropeable about Trump’s 12-days war when many more days were required.

An opportunity has been recklessly thrown away. Not only to inflict considerably more damage on Iran’s military apparatus but to trigger a regime change; the only pathway to a lasting peaceful solution. There is no other. Was Trump fearful of being blamed for American casualties if the war continued? I hope not. That would be the most fatal of flaws. There is another explanation. Bad enough but not so bad.

A clue is in Trump’s comment: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing.” The expletive is unimportant. What is important is the equivalence he appears to draw between Iran and Israel. Don’t get me wrong. Trump knows where the fault lies. The equivalence he is drawing is a transactional one.

The Great President Trump’s Worst, Terrible, Bad Idea Ever by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21723/the-great-president-trump-worst-terrible-bad-idea

Qatar’s job, if it is part of a consortium controlling the Gaza Strip, will be to make sure that the jihad against Israel continues.

If Egypt is in any way involved in securing the Gaza Strip, it is certain there will be renewed smuggling of weapons and terrorists into Israel through and under the Rafah Crossing. The weapons-and-terrorists industry has always been far too profitable and far too successful at attacking Israel just to give up.

Trump’s original plan to make Gaza an American Riviera, together with Israel — or Israeli sovereignty by itself — is a far more dependable way to guarantee security. It is, in fact, the only way to ensure that Israel can either defend itself, or has a US shield nearby to deter aggression — the same way the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect its survival.

There were rumors this week that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas might ultimately include a consortium of Arab countries taking charge of the Gaza Strip.

Unfortunately, hardly anything could be more dangerous than that for the stability of the region. A consortium of Arab countries governing the tiny strip of land next to Israel is, in fact, is a sure-fire recipe for a monstrous conflict just around the corner. This plan will make all the breathtaking achievements of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the great US Air Force and the Israel Defense Forces be for naught.

The problem: If a consortium of Arab countries controls the Gaza Strip, one of those countries is bound to be Qatar. Qatar will no doubt make sure of that. One of Qatar’s main reasons for existing is to make sure that radical Islamic organizations stay active and well-funded. It is hard to think of an Islamist terrorist group that has not been a large beneficiary of Qatar — from ISIS, to al-Qaeda, to the Taliban, not to mention Hamas.

Buried News: President Trump ends Africa’s deadliest war By Wendy Kinney

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/06/buried_news_president_trump_ends_africa_s_deadliest_war.html

A thirty-year war. Over six million lives lost. Entire villages erased. Generations destroyed by the silent carnage that the world chose to ignore. But in the wake of mounting atrocities in Kasanga and Beni, and after months of quiet diplomacy, the silence has finally been shattered.

Today, something happened that the United Nations never accomplished. Something the European Union only debated. Something the Biden administration didn’t even attempt.

President Donald J. Trump brought peace to Central Africa.

After decades of devastation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), fueled by regional proxy warfare with Rwanda and the brutality of militias like M23, the unthinkable has occurred: a signed peace agreement. Rwanda and the DRC, after thirty years of war and unfathomable loss, have reached a ceasefire. And it was President Trump who brokered the deal.

This is not a footnote. This is one of the most significant diplomatic achievements in modern African history. It didn’t come from the echo chambers of Brussels or the empty chambers of the United Nations. It came from action. Resolve. Leadership.

The world has long turned a blind eye to what happened in the DRC. Since the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, eastern Congo has become a graveyard of the innocent. Militias, backed at times by foreign actors, ravaged the land. M23 rebels, in particular, carried out atrocities across North Kivu, Ituri, and the Kasai provinces.

The death toll surpassed six million. That number is staggering. It eclipses nearly every modern conflict, yet barely registers in Western headlines. Even as late as Holy Week this year, the world was silent as Christians were massacred in Kasanga and Beni.

But President Trump noticed.

Obama’s Doomed and Dangerous Deal Daryl McCann (May 2015)

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/from-our-archives/wiser-men-iranian-deal/

Back in December 2013, former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger (who served from 1973 to 1977) and George Shultz (1982 to 1989) wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “What a Final Iran Deal Must Do”. This missive appeared a week after President Obama signed the 2013 interim nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, one that purported to temporarily freeze Tehran’s decade-long advance towards military nuclear capability. Kissinger and Shultz warned that the Islamic Republic’s quest for the nuclear bomb would be enhanced by the 2013 interim agreement. On April 12, 2015, a week after Obama celebrated his latest “breakthrough” with the Mullahs of Iran, the so-called framework for a preliminary nuclear agreement, Kissinger and Shultz published a sequel in the Wall Street Journal, this time titled “The Iran Deal and Its Consequences”. The worst fears of the former secretaries of state appeared to be confirmed by the latest turn of events:

“negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first ten years.”

The problem, in the opinion of Kissinger and Shultz, is that the P5+1 (UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations have progressively legitimised Tehran’s thirteen-year-old quest for nuclear weapons capability. Between 2003 and 2013 Tehran “defied unambiguous UN and IAEA demands and proceeded with a major nuclear effort, incompatible with an exclusively civilian purpose”. During this time Iran “periodically engaged in talks but never dismantled any aspect of its enrichment infrastructure or growing stockpile of fissile material”, notwithstanding six Security Council resolutions passed between 2006 and 2010. The interim agreement reached on November 24, 2013, had provided the Islamic Republic with an estimated $8 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for a temporary halt to some aspects of its nuclear program. Tehran was not being asked to dismantle or wind back its vast nuclear infrastructure, let alone lengthen the breakout time necessary to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Thus, the 2013 interim agreement effectively “recognised as baseline” past Iranian misconduct including uranium enrichment and plutonium production, all previously condemned by the United States and the international community as illegal and illegitimate.

Trump Hit Iran, So Will China Attack Taiwan? by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21699/iran-china-taiwan

[E]xpect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks.

Xi fully backed Iran and its three main proxy terrorist groups — Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis — against Israel, with Beijing providing economic, diplomatic, propaganda, intelligence and weapons support.

For a time, Beijing looked as if it was driving events with its sly proxy war conducted by Iran. Now, China’s Iranian proxy, and its proxies in turn, are being decimated, and Beijing cannot respond other than by cutting and running. The mighty People’s Republic of China is bugging out of the Middle East.

But China is not entirely out of the fight. In addition to the renewed air campaign against Taiwan, Beijing has upped the pressure against the Philippines in the South China Sea. On June 19, the same day China started its most recent air campaign against Taiwan, the Philippine Coast Guard announced that more than 50 of China’s maritime militia vessels moved close to Iroquois Reef in the South China Sea, a feature within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. A Philippine Coast Guard spokesman correctly called the Chinese action an “illegal swarming.”

China claims most of that crucial body of water, including features such as Iroquois, which are far from recognized Chinese shores.

This we learned on June 21: The United States is truly a great power — and China is not.