RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270421/trump-loosens-gullivers-ropes-bruce-thornton

Donald Trump left the G7 meeting early to head for Singapore and meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. He left behind a disgruntled gaggle of Lilliputian states who have grown accustomed to U.S. leaders accepting the institutional ropes binding the world’s greatest power, and now are shocked and angry that an American leader is putting America’s interests first.

We don’t know how Trump’s high-stakes negotiating on trade and tariffs will turn out, or whether the American people can take any economic pain that may attend the correction of trade imbalances that have tended to favor our partners and rivals at the expense of our own economy. But we have long needed to concentrate our partners’ minds on the wisdom of changing their assumption that the United States will put itself second in order to uphold the “postwar world order” that frequently camouflages the subordination of our interests to theirs.

This “global order” is made up of the transnational institutions built on the rubble of two World Wars. The most important include the UN, NATO, the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the G7 group of the world’s richest economies representing 62% of global wealth, a total of $262 trillion. These multinational groups are supposed to keep the global peace, and manage the globalized economy so that it runs smoothly and equitably.

This network of institutions, however, rests on some dubious ideas. One particularly tenacious one is that the old balance of power among sovereign nations failed, leading to the 20th century’s spectacular carnage. Nations that look first to their parochial interests and distinct identities threaten the global unification and “harmony of interests” that can better create and protect prosperity, democracy, human rights, and peace.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/trumps_statesmanship_surprise.html

Nobody knew. None of us saw it. Amongst his biggest supporters, maybe a handful suspected it. Many of us expected the economic renewal of the US to happen. Many of us foresaw a significant roll back of Saint Barrack’s horrid, destructive agenda. A lot of us hoped for a major push back on the left.

All of which we have gotten.

None of us, no one I have read, no one I know, expected Donald Trump to be a giant in foreign policy. No one expected him to reshape the world. Yet Donald Trump, in a short time, is doing so.

That was supposed to be one of the reasons to vote against him. He had no foreign policy experience. He did not understand the world. He was going to lead us into wars. He would be taken advantage of by our enemies. He would ruin our alliances. He would be a rube. A bumpkin. An embarrassment. That was what we were told.

Well. Guess what #nevertrumpers? You were so wrong, desperately wrong. Your shame should be bottomless. Bill Kristol, Max Boot, all of you stand up and please voluntarily go into the stocks and throw rotten veggies at yourselves. You should be ashamed to speak. Yep, the entire left-leaning foreign policy establishment as well. All of you.

I did not expect this, never saw this as one of Trump’s strengths. Nonetheless, we have not seen a better, more fruitful, and more capable foreign policy than this administration since the great Ronald Reagan.

Here are some of his accomplishments:

www.jewishpolicycenter.com
Kim Jong Un’s relationship with his military appears shaky.

As President Trump prepares for his summit with Kim Jong-un, there is no telling how it will go, but go it will.

The president has chosen to break the cycle of lower-level meetings that result in North Korean promises regarding their nuclear program followed by American largesse followed by North Korea breaking its promises.

President Obama changed the cycle a bit by refusing to engage at all — “strategic patience” he called it — just waiting for the regime to collapse or for his term to be over, whichever came first. What we are left with is a North Korea that has mastered nuclear technology and is working on miniaturizing a bomb to fit on the ballistic missiles he is pursuing.

It’s hard to see the downside for the U.S. in President Trump’s decision to meet Kim in Singapore. We already have three American hostages back in exchange for an Oval Office photo-op for Kim Yong-chol, North Korean intelligence agent posing as a diplomat. An unpleasant moment, but not devastating.

And remaining in our pocket is America’s “trump card” so to speak. More on that in a minute.

Conventional wisdom says Kim wants his nuclear capability to ensure that he is not invaded and deposed by the U.S. Having seen the U.S. overthrow non-nuclear Saddam Hussein and non-nuclear Moammar Qaddafi, it certainly could make sense that nuclear weapons would make Kim feel invincible. But only if that’s his greatest fear.

Below I repost Uwe Parpart’s Asia Times analysis of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. Liberal media is aghast at the president’s rough handling of Canadian boy-band frontman Justin Trudeau, and his confrontational approach overall at the Group of Seven summit. When the dust settles, though, Trump may accomplish what eluded Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama: a stabler and safer world without the need for millions of American boots on the ground. He well may go down in history as one of our great foreign policy presidents. It’s not in the bag, but it is within sight.

North Korea and Iran are decisive issues: Will America and its allies be subject to blackmail by rogue nuclear states? There is a grand compromise that might work in the case of North Korea, and the president reportedly has already put it on the table: Formal diplomatic recognition of the Pyongyang regime in return for full de-nuclearization. In the case of Iran, the president’s tough stance and close coordination with our ally Israel has already pushed Iran back in Syria and put the Islamist regime under extreme stress.

Of course, Trump can’t please everybody. German Chancellor Angela Merkel complains that Trump is being too nice to Russia by suggesting that it rejoin the Group of Seven. Considering that Germany spends just 1.2% of GDP on defense and can’t get more than four fighters in the air at any given moment, that’s chutzpah. Merkel’s policy is to talk tough about sanctions against Russia while rolling over for Putin when it comes to Germany’s gas supplies, which will be supplied by the just-started Nord Stream II pipeline from Russia. Germany likes to wag a finger at Russia over its depredations in Ukraine, but only 18% of Germans say they will fight to defend their country. Trump’s policy is to rebuild American strength and stand up to Russia, while looking for ways to strike agreements with Russia–on American terms. That’s the difference between speak softly and carry a big stick, and declaim loudly while waving a bratwurst. If the Germans don’t want to spend money on defense, let alone fight, that’s their business, but they shouldn’t lecture us about how to handle the competition.