#trump-foreign-policy

#trump-foreign-policy

Fast forward to the present day, and Trump is threatening an even bigger attack, and backing up the threat with a large-scale movement of US military assets, including an aircraft carrier, towards Iranian waters. Trump says that these threats are his way of convincing the Iranians to agree to a deal reported to include demands to effectively end Iran's nuclear programme, limit its ballistic missile programme, and stop support for allies across the Middle East.

Despite months of warnings from party members up and down the caucus that President Donald Trump has been "lawless," "destructive, and "authoritarian" in his wielding of power both domestically and abroad, 149 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives on Thursday night joined with 192 Republicans to pass a sweeping military spending bill - a vote that progressive critics say exposes the fecklessness and hypocrisy of what claims to be an opposition party.

He announced a 10 percent tariff on eight European countries that had sent troops to Greenland for a military exercise. On Sunday afternoon, he composed a poorly punctuated, paranoiac note to the Norwegian prime minister in which he blamed the Norwegian government for not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said the rejection had liberated him to stop thinking about peace, and claimed that it had set him on the path to conquer Greenland to protect the United States.

Donald Trump is leading the world into a carrot-and-stick scenario only without the carrot while each nation, for the moment, does what it can in response. Early Tuesday morning, as the Republican posted AI-generated images on his social media showing European leaders listening to some kind of explanation from him about the United States' needs regarding Greenland, Mexico, a keen observer of Washington's strategies, was preparing another mass transfer of prisoners north.

Andrew Neil, the veteran right-leaning British broadcaster, posted an ominous warning about President Donald Trump pushing away the U.S.'s traditional allies in Europe. Neil, who has held various senior positions at publications owned by Rupert Murdoch, ended his lengthy post writing that Under Trump America is on the brink of becoming the enemy, not our most important ally. As a lifelong supporter of the US it is chilling to write and say such words.

Last weekend, I asked two British foreign-policy officials what had been the most troubling moment, so far, of President Donald Trump's world-destabilizing start to 2026. Both said (despite the British government's refusal to acknowledge this out loud) that it was the United States' seizure of the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, from Caracas, in the early hours of January 3rd. Trump "surprised us on the downside," one said. "Just not having had an inkling that Venezuela was coming," the other observed.

"incoherent strategy."

MAGA is primarily a personality cult, the objectives of which evolve to suit Trump's capricious moods. Yet his pivot to new wars of conquest is not some shocking reversal. The "Donroe Doctrine," as he calls his assertion of regional supremacy-a Trumpian extension of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which established the United States' claim over the Americas in order to keep Europeans out-is in fact consistent with his deepest beliefs. In some ways, it represents the ultimate expression of the world order he hopes to engineer.

For over 175 years - ever since the United States conquered half of Mexico - nearly every president has messed with Latin America while telling the rest of the world to stay the hell out. We have helped depose democratically elected leaders and propped up murderous strongmen. Trained death squads and offered bailouts to favored allies. Ran economic blockades and encouraged American companies to treat the region's riches, and its workers, like a cookie jar.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is barring South Africa from participating in the Group of 20 summit next year at his Miami-area club and will stop all payments and subsidies to the country over its treatment of a U.S. government representative at this year's global meeting. Trump chose not to have an American government delegation attend last weekend's summit hosted by South Africa, saying he did so because its white Afrikaners were being violently persecuted. It is a claim that South Africa, which was mired for decades in racial apartheid, has rejected as baseless.

Bloomberg News published the transcript yesterday of a leaked phone call between special envoy Steve Witkoff and one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's top aides, in which Witkoff appears to offer advice on how to flatter President Trump. If they want to know how to talk to Trump, they should ask Zohran, he jibed, rolling to a photo of Trump beaming at Mamdani during Friday's Oval Office presser.

While he has been more reluctant than some presidents to put US troops in harm's way, Trump has dismissed checks on his use of military force, saying, "We're just gonna kill people." As US forces continue to engage in illegal attacks on boats in the Caribbean and with the growing threat of direct US military intervention in Venezuela, you might be wondering, "What happened to Trump's promises to avoid foreign military entanglements?"

Fox News contributor Kellyanne Conway assured Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) that President Donald Trump loves you. Moreno appeared on Friday's edition of Hannity, which Conway guest-hosted. The two discussed Trump's ongoing bombings of boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. At least 57 people have been killed in the U.S. airstrikes, which Trump claims took out narcoterrorists. Trump has not provided any evidence for his allegation, which, even if true, is highly dubious legal grounds for the bombings.

Trump has seemingly switched loyalties several times during the course of this war, and just prior to his meeting with Zelensky took a phone call, and arranged a future in-person meeting, with Russia's leader Vladimir Putin. Since Trump took office in January, Putin has masterfully evaded further U.S. sanctions and placed in doubt America's previously unwavering support for Ukraine through a determined campaign of personal flattery and dangling hypothetical business deals in front of the American president.

President Trump spoke again about San Francisco at a White House news conference today thanks a lot, Benioff! spuriously claiming that "government officials" urged him to "start looking at San Francisco" for a National Guard deployment. Ironically, he claimed that San Francisco was "one of our great cities, 10 years ago, 15 years ago," clearly unaware that the city was being run by Gavin Newsom 15 years ago. [KRON4]

No, it's really meant to help a good financial philosophy, where Argentina can, after 20 years of disaster because it was very successful at one point, and it can be again, like Venezuela. Venezuela was very, very successful, and now it's a dictatorship. So, when we can help our neighbors you know, we're making tremendous progress in South America. [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] was telling me he's like our great expert here. He really knows it.

It's a fragile moment with Israel and Hamas only in the early stages of implementing the first phase of the Trump agreement designed to bring a permanent end to the war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants. Trump thinks there is a narrow window to reshape the Mideast and reset long-fraught relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It is a moment, the Republican president says, that has been helped along by his administration's support of Israel's decimation of Iranian proxies, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

After Goldman observed that the handover of the hostages taken by Hamas will be very emotional for everybody, Phillip asked: Why do you think this was not doable when President Biden was in office? I think the biggest problem that President Biden had is there was no pressure from Qatar, from Turkey, from Egypt. They were actually facilitating in many ways what was going on. And that is really ultimately how it all came together, replied Goldman.

Blair, as prime minister of the United Kingdom, helped negotiate a 1998 peace deal ending decades of sectarian fighting in Northern Ireland. He later served as a Middle East peace envoy for the international community, and now runs a London think tank. But the 72-year-old former politician comes with baggage: He's reviled in the U.K. and internationally for his 2003 decision to join President George W. Bush's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,

The Taliban has rejected United States President Donald Trump's demand that it hand over the Bagram airbase that Washington ran during its 20-year war in Afghanistan, dismissing Trump's threat that bad things will happen if this does not come to pass. The Taliban said on Sunday that Afghanistan's independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance and called on the US to uphold prior agreements that it would not resort to force.

Behind the scenes: White House officials are losing patience with European leaders, whom they claim are pushing Ukraine to hold out for unrealistic territorial concessions by Russia. Axios has learned that the sanctions the U.S. is urging Europe to adopt against Russia include a complete cessation of all oil and gas purchases - plus secondary tariffs from the EU on India and China, similar to those already imposed on India by the U.S.