Trump opened his yap on Israel and he thinks that we don’t remember how he stirred up trouble there when recognized Jerusalem something no other president did because they recognized that it would create more tension in the Middle East.
His warped foreign policy while he was president is coming to haunt us.
His warped foreign policy while he was president is coming to haunt us.
But wait there is more!Trump’s turn against Israel offers stark reminder of what his diplomacy looks like
CNN
By Stephen Collinson
October 13, 2023Donald Trump’s inflammatory and artless comments about Hamas’ horror in Israel emphasize the defining characteristic of his attitude toward foreign policy and his entire political world view: It’s all about him.
Trump criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lauded Hezbollah militants as “very smart” and sought political gain from the attacks that killed 1,200 people by claiming that if the last election was not “rigged,” he’d be the American president and they’d never have happened.
The ex-president openly admitted a grievance against Netanyahu, complaining he had pulled out at the last minute from joining the US air attack that assassinated Iranian intelligence chief Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. Trump had previously fumed over the Israeli leader’s perceived disloyalty in recognizing he lost the election.
Trump is now a private citizen, and it’s possible he wouldn’t have addressed the situation in the same way if he were president – although there were multiple examples of his tone deafness and indiscretion when he was in the White House. But he’s also the 2024 Republican front-runner for president and his statements are therefore scrutinized for clues over how he would behave in office. His latest comments add to plentiful evidence that a second Trump term would be even more riotous at home and globally disruptive than his first four years in power.
And let us remember what Trump did when Putin invaded the Crimea,Trump Plots to Pull Out of NATO — If He Doesn’t Get His Way
At the very least, the former president wants to put the U.S. on “standby” mode — and undermine NATO’s principle of collective defense
The Rolling Stone
By Asawin Suebsaeng, Adam Rawnsley
October 23, 2023Donald Trump wanted to pull the United States out of NATO during his first term, but was repeatedly talked out of it by senior administration officials. For a possible second term in the White House, the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner is already discussing how he could actually get it done, if his demands aren’t met by NATO. He and his policy-wonk allies are also gaming out how he could dramatically wind down American involvement to merely a “standby” position in NATO, in Trump’s own words.
When the former president has privately discussed the United States’ role in the transatlantic military alliance this year, Trump has made clear that he doesn’t want the upper ranks of a second administration to be staffed by “NATO lovers,” according to two sources who’ve heard him make such comments. The ex-president has made these kinds of jabs at the longstanding alliance during conversations related to the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine.
[…]
Any threats or action on Trump’s part in recasting the U.S.’s role in NATO would all, of course, be contingent on Trump winning reelection next year. When he was leader of the free world for four years, he dangled anti-NATO sentiments on multiple occasions, only to yield to intra-administration pushback.
You have to ask yourself, whose side is he on?Trump Told G7 Leaders That Crimea Is Russian Because Everyone Speaks Russian In Crimea
Trump made the remarks over dinner with other world leaders at the G7 summit in Canada.
BuzzFeed
By Alberto Nardelli and Julia Ioffe
June 14, 2018President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.
Trump made the remarks over dinner last Friday during a discussion on foreign affairs at the G7 summit in Quebec, Canada, one of the diplomats told BuzzFeed News.
The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the matter.
Russia invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, leading to widespread international condemnation and sanctions. The move also directly led to Russia being kicked out of the then-G8. Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Russia’s intervention in Crimea at the time, saying that he had the right to protect Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine.
During the dinner, Trump also seemed to question why the G7 leaders were siding with Ukraine. The president told leaders that "Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world," the source said.
CNN wrote last year that,
You have to wonder where Trump loyalties lay? Is he for what is best for the U.S. and our allies or is it what is best for Trump.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine didn’t just happen out of nowhere.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with the West for the better part of the last decade – he annexed Crimea, meddled in US elections, poisoned an ex-spy on British soil, and more. Nearly every step of the way, former President Donald Trump parroted Kremlin talking points, excused Russian aggression and sometimes even embraced it outright.
[…]
A popular revolution in 2014 ousted the pro-Russia regime in Kyiv, which was led by President Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced it with a Western-leaning government. Russian troops soon invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, initiating the armed conflict that escalated this year.
Within weeks, Trump praised Putin for how he handled the takeover of Crimea and predicted that “the rest of Ukraine will fall … fairly quickly.” Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Trump said in a TV interview that the Crimean people “would rather be with Russia,” a position he also pushed in private. One of his 2016 campaign aides falsely claimed that “Russia did not seize Crimea.”
[…]
But Trump has a checkered past on this topic. As a candidate, his position was unclear at best. Trump campaign aides intervened during the 2016 Republican National Convention to block language from the GOP party platform that called on the US to send lethal arms to Ukraine.
And in 2019, Trump infamously withheld nearly $400 million in military aid as part of his attempt to pressure Zelensky into announcing sham corruption investigations into Biden and his family’s business dealings. The weapons in the stalled aid package included the Javelin missiles that have emerged as a crucial part of Ukraine’s surprisingly robust defenses against Russian tanks.
[…]
Throughout his presidency, Trump pushed a litany of false claims about Ukraine – in public and private. He rarely missed an opportunity to criticize the country. A widely respected diplomat testified to Congress that Trump believed “Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of terrible people.”
Trump’s biggest lie was about the 2016 election. He rejected the reality that Russia interfered to help him win. Instead, he falsely claimed it was Ukraine who meddled, and that he was the victim. These lies, which he repeated dozens of times, were a double boon to the Kremlin: they downplayed Russia’s brazen attack on US democracy, while simultaneously smearing Ukraine.
[…]
Zelensky’s top priorities were to get more shipments of American weapons and to meet Trump at the White House. Veteran US diplomats in Kyiv shared this goal. But they were smeared and sidelined – and replaced by a band of Trump loyalists who made his demands clear: Zelensky could only get these things if he announced that Ukraine was investigating Biden for corruption.
This strong-arming by Team Trump forced Zelensky, in his first months in office, to navigate a surprisingly hostile relationship with the US, a supposed top ally in his fight against Russia.
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