Ms. Rice, still as brazen as when she was UN Ambassador for the US who was known to use the F word to make her point with other diplomats! Does it mean nothing that her bosses chosen successor, HRC, lost. Obama's and Rice's accomplishments were so magnificent that the world was not a mess when they left office?!? China did not spend the eight Obama years becoming "greater"?!? Trump causd it all is o happen in less than a year?!?'The woman lives in an alternative universe.
6
PC liberals need to learn that national greatness is not a product of and so does not diminish or increase with their level of outrage.
National greatness is based on real factors that have not changed in centuries: how much money can you wield, and how much military do you have. We're filthy rich by any historical standard, and have never had more firepower in most respects than today (although this has not been tested in a real war where the enemy had an air force or navy). So I suggest my fellow liberals of the Trump Deranged Variety take a pill as they say, because no it's not all about how you feel.
As for rubbing elbows with killers there is no larger case of appeasement in American and perhaps history than Eisenhower's free ride given to Stalin over Eastern Europe, and NOBODY is saying bad things about Ike. What you got is outrage, it's worthless.
2
On my office wall, I keep a couple of World War II posters. One of them says, "WE CAN DO IT!" Another one features a muscle-bound Uncle Sam, rolling up his sleeves, about to "give 'em Hell."
In this spirit, I suggest that The United States of America should very-simply put itself back into the ring of ... business COMPETITION. Within the US Congress, simply repeal the existing provisions that cause it to somehow "make sense" to export raw-materials half-a-planet away, to be manufactured overseas and then shipped back the same distance. (And, while we're at it, repeal the entire notion of the "non-immigrant visa.")
"If a product is to be sold in Topeka, why wasn't it manufactured in Kansas City? Or Des Moines? Or ...?"
The only reason why "a country half-a-planet away from here" has any possible "advantage" over domestic manufacturing is that we very-foolishly wrote OUR OWN laws and regulations that way. We can, "in one moderately-busy afternoon, and with nothing more than the stroke of our own pen," change everything.
Change everything BACK, to the way that it not-too long-ago used to be.
Change everything BACK, to an arrangement that actually makes infinitely more sense that the ridiculous state of affairs that we have right now!
"C'mon, Uncle Sam! Put up your dukes, again!" This is the old-fashioned game of international business, and anyone can play it. Not very long ago at all, YOU were the un-challengeable winner. Don't you still remember how? C'mon ...
Susan Rice is going to have a lot to answer for - my prediction. This is deflection in the run up to Sessions' investigation.
Trump is right about her - I predict he finds evidence of her "leaking something to somebody," to turn her words around on her.
3
Trump did not "surrender" to China as others have noted. Instead, he has merely initiated the smooth transition of world leadership to " a very special man" who our president has an "incredibly" warm feeling for. Diplomacy for the Ages. And we still haven't completed year one of his presidency.
Then there is our president's upcoming domestic achievement. Soon he will relieve several million citizens of their healthcare insurance and relieve about 5% of the population of their tax burden.
Depending on your imagination, you should be feeling great any day now.
4
Everything the US has done for the last two decades has strengthened China. The idea that Trump has strengthened China’s rise is ludicrous and a liberal fantasy. Inaction by past US administrations has done nothing but make China more assertive and brazen.
3
Makes sexual idiocy of the kind others in the Oval Office were impeached for look downright patriotic -- compared with selling out your country for red carpets, parades and fawning comments.
The guy who thinks he's a "player" is being played big time. And we'll pay the price.
3
the comment elsewhere about Trump turning to mush in the presence of strong men dictators - seems to me to be him regressing to his childhood in the face of a strong authoritarian father who trained him to be a 'killer' when he probably really just wanted to be liked.
So in the face of real killers he regresses to just wanting to be liked ...
3
Trump's negating the tpp has insured that china will be the leader in the region.
We will be forced to keep up as best we can by using military might. A more expensive tool than trade. Even Nixon understood this.
5
Until this election I argued there was no way China was going to win the superpower race. I have now resigned to the fact they will win. It will be a Chinese century. Not because we lost but because we gave it to them.
5
It takes the work of many dedicated and super-competent people to craft a n intelligent and coherent foreign policy, but only one egotistical loudmouth to wreck it. Mr. Tillerson was right in his characterization of Trump.
3
Mr. Trump is merely putting the final nails into the US reputation's. The fact he's doing it in absolutely breathtaking, spectacularly bad manner doesn't cover the fact that US's reputation wasn't all that fantastic anymore. From the highs of the Marshal Plan which saved Western Europe, stumbling thru the Vietnam War, and prevailing in the Cold War, to the blunders of Somalia and the disaster of Iraq's illegal invasion, there wasn't much left of that reputation. The venal, bumbling and, dare I say criminal, incompetence that gave rise to ISIS plus episodes like Abu Ghraib showed US is no "free world" leader anymore but more of a bully. Trump is a beautiful personification of that.
7
I have begun to wonder whether his ignorance is a studied and assumed persona. He just cannot be as stupid as he acts and talks. Can he? He is president.
It really seems that, if all biologic endeavor can be statistically described by the bell shape curve and the x axis is intelligence, then it would easily be arguable that Obama is on the very end of the high intelligence and Trump is on the very end of low intelligence. Where intelligence would include the ability to access complex concepts and express them and attitudes about them in a coherent manner.
Trump is however president. So there is another axis on which survival abilities are measured. Any ideas?
We saw what we were getting and we elected him anyway. The electoral college failed us and rubber stamped it. We are getting what we deserve.
If China's relying on Trump for greatness they might as well declare bankruptcy now and get the paperwork done.
Last time Trump met with the Chinese premier in Mar A Lago, his family garnered over three dozen different approvals for business in China.
I hope NYT, WAPO, MSNBC and their liberal colleagues in the media are investigating how many approvals have been granted this time around ...
America is for "Sale" .... by its very head of the state.
8
How is Trump's performance neither treasonous to U.S. interests nor a symptom of inability to fulfill the requirements of office?
3
We have handed the steering wheel of globalization, particularly with respect to the global economy, to China. One of the most dangerous aspects of Trumpism is the denial of demographic and geopolitical force that will happen, with or without US leadership and influence. Just as those with a parochial, build-the-wall, island mentality handed the Presidency to this narcissistic, ignoramus, Trump continues to hand the opportunity to be on the winning side of the greatest change humanity will have ever experienced to China and Asia.
2
You forget one significant group that has been handing our wealth to China - the short term profiteers on WS and in the boardrooms and country clubs of corporate America.
5
Nice to see Susan sticking her head out again - I would have thought she under Mueller investigation regarding the unmasking of surveillance in the Trump saga. That wouldn't be obstruction of justice, I mean just dozens of requests for the unmasking. And I'm sure she shared that with no one. RIGHT
4
China has surpassed us. China has a $3 Billion working copper mine in Afghanistan. We have coffins shipped to us. China is building roads, infrastructure, dams and power facilities, and buying and managing huge farms in Africa.
We get coffins sent back to us.
Take an extra shoe with you to any public town hall meeting or press conference with your (un) representative from congress.
6
As several (including Colbert) have observed, Trump resented being referred to by Kim as “old”, but apparently doesn’t mind being called a “lunatic”. Which tells us something about his priorities and vanity.
2
Much to talk about here, but my strongest impression is, as often, the madness of King Donald. He all but contradicts himself in mid-sentence. After a year or more of denigrating the duplicitous and double-dealing Chinese leaders, now he gushes that they are wonderful, saintly people, a joy to be with, an honor to work and trade with. I hope my psychiatrist can help me with cognitive whiplash.
5
The unspoken issue here is not that Trump has abandoned American leadership in Asia, but that he has abandoned it globally as well.
Whether making goo-goo eyes at Xi's opulent welcome, to his embrace of the murderous dictator Duterte, to his effusive handshake and subsequent sidebar conversations with Putin during the ASEAN Economic Conference, Trump continues to plumb the lowest depths of disdain he can find for American presidential leadership. And where his deferential treatment of Putin is concerned, it begs the question: what is it that Putin has on Trump that Trump does not want the rest of the world to know?
The answer to that question will take awhile to reveal itself. But, as we sit and wait for the conclusion and findings of the Special Counsel's investigation(s) into the Trump-Russia imbroglio, no reasonable-minded American would be faulted for extrapolating, based on the publicly available information, that Trump was eye deep in his campaign's efforts to recruit Russian interference in our 2016 presidential elections.
It is an understatement to say that Trump's presidency and his neo-isolationist views are an embarrassment to America. Based on the publicly available information, there can be no other conclusion than this: Trump's presidency is illegitimate.
1
Pandering to Trump's narcissism has surely and logically become an indispensable, if not principle, basis of any state's foreign policy playbook. The seemingly easy path to manipulating the President by stroking his insatiable ego constitutes a compromise of our national security. It contrasts sharply with Ambassador Rice's cogent, calculated and experienced leadership the United States sorely misses.
7
The virtues of TPP are touted by the same bought politicians and media that have run our country into the ground.
Trump's lies would have gone nowhere if they were not grounded in truths.
The global trade regime that our politicians have nurtured for decades, with both parties taking advice from the likes of Henry Kissinger, who opened us up to China, was supposed to make everyone better off in the long run. But the long run has come and gone and most workers are far worse off than if we froze American policy where it was in the fifties, when one wage earner could raise a family.
"Free market" globalization has been great for global corporations and global billionaires, with all of the rules designed to make them more powerful, but wages have been flat for 35 years, while productivity increased 40%.
TPP is an investor dispute resolution deal which gives corporations the power to sue countries for profits lost when democracy regulates them.
There is more than one way to globalize. We need fair trade not a transfer of power from nations to corporations.
I predict that Trump will declare the TPP fixed next year and try to fast track it through congress again. Then all of the establishment politicians will say he saw the light.
Favoring global corporations over U.S. citizens is just as traitorous as favoring Russia over U.S. citizens.
6
Blaming other countries for your country's deficit is like blaming all restaurants for one's obesity. Americans are the biggest consumers in the world; no other country spends half as much as you do. Americans buy all things all the time. No country can produce that amount of stuff on its own; you have to import most of it. If you keep spending the way you do ...hence your trade deficit.
5
To be fair to the Trump administration alot of the specific examples Rice brings up about progress and with the Chinese started in 2014 six years into Obama's term. Trump has been in office for less than a year.
2
China's Gross Domestic Product grew from 1 trillion USD in 1998 to 11.2 trillion in 2016. In the Obama years alone it grew from 4.6 trillion to 11.2 trillion. It over doubled itself! This happened due to terrible trade policies that fed the China economy at the expense of the US economy for 2 decades.
Now Trump comes along after this massive growth already placed China as the second largest economy in the world, and Ms Rice has the gall to say "Trump is Making China Great Again" ?? Trump is? Do these people have no shame? Do they think we know absolutely nothing? Policies that were alive under Clinton, Bush and Obama had already made China very great before Trump ever stepped a foot in the White House.
There is a campaign of misinformation afoot that has risen to the point of pure evil. Make no mistake, it is this campaign, rather than Trump's, that is the existential threat to our country.
6
"He blamed his predecessors rather than China for our huge trade deficits"
Where is Trump wrong on this?
China is not to blame for our trade deficits, we are. Even during the campaign Trump blamed the U.S. for making bad deals with China resulting in huge trade deficits. Whether or not the trade deals turned out bad or good, we willing pursued and agreed to them. We wanted the deals.
I am no Trump supporter, but is Ms. Rice saying that the China trade deal is a good deal, and Trump is wrong on that assertion? Seems like it to me.
6
What's wrong with China being great? Asia is China's neighborhood, not ours. Too many Americans have died in Asia fighting wars we should have stayed out of. Too many Americans have lost their jobs due to trade agreements with Asian countries. We have opened our borders to Asian goods while their borders are closed to ours.
Let China be great. Let them handle North Korea. Why should American cities be threatened with nuclear destruction over a conflict on the other side of the world that the American people have no stake in?
Thank goodness Trump put a stake through the TPP--which was nothing more than a massive anti-democratic sell out of the American people to corporate interests. It's time for American leaders to start worrying more about the well-being of Americans instead of global leadership, whatever that means. To me, it means dead Americans overseas, lost jobs and the selling out of America to multinational corporations.
5
My big fear is that Trump is actually a Chinese operative, and the whole Russia thing is designed to throw investigators, Democrats, and the press onto a wild goose chase that will kill their credibility when it falls apart. I can hear them now. I thought we were Russian spies,; now we're Chinese spies?
Trump is a master of media manipulation. Keep all of the possibilities in your head until one is definitively proven.
In the eighties we sent Chicago School of Economics "experts" to China to turn China into a capitalist country without democracy. In the nineties we sent the same Chicago Boys to Russia to turn them into a capitalist country without democracy.
Both countries have powerful billionaires running those countries. Our powerful billionaires are almost completely in control of U.S. policy also.
How much intermingling, cooperation, and competition there is between these groups of billionaires is nearly impossible to know. I doubt there is any illuminati-like hierarchy, but more likely they use counties to battle each other.
Trump is a global billionaire. He obviously has no loyalty to the US, because if he food, he would not be trying to undermine our constitution regularly.
As they say on Westworld, this game has deeper levels.
Keep an open but skeptical mind, and don't choose teams unless you really know what that team is up to.
4
Maybe this is too conspiratorial but I would not be surprised if Tump is setting the stage for when he is out of power and he reverts to being a businessman again.
He is helping the Chinese and giving them everything they want so that he and his family will collect the proceeds of these deals when he is out of office. The same thing is going on with Saudi Arabia. Both Countries will be indebted to him.
Tump and his family is going to make billions with the Chinese and the Saudis when he is out of office.
31
He with the most toys -- wins.
I think trump is being duped. Do you really think the Saudis and the Chinese would honor any "bargain" with trump. They are laughing all the way to the bank. They don't respect him and are pandering to him because they know what a fool he is. Regardless, the mighty trumpy empire will fall, sooner rather than later.
2
So much for being the master of deal making! What we have seen so far is nothing short of total domestic and international chaos. He defines cluelessness! How did we get here?
3
The world has bought into cheap products at the store. That means cheap labor and materials which mea 2nd overseas. You wait, if we make it 20 years the world's manufacturing will be in africa
1
The world has bought into cheap products at the store. That means cheap labor and materials which means manufacturing overseas. You wait, if we make it 20 more years the world's manufacturing will be in africa with yheir cheap unskilled labor and their lax environmental regs. We've just been globe hopscotching around for cheap labor markets since WWII in the name of " more for less" only now people realize if there's no jobs it doesn't matter how cheap it is. The wealthy have secured generations of easy living for themselves all while innovating us out of jobs.
2
Why do you think Trump's grandchildren are learning Mandarin? The Trump family expects China replace the USA as world leader. Trump is just making sure it happens. They are already invested in that result. How the rest of us will manage is not really Trump's concern.
4
TRUMP's Behavior demonstrates that he seems to have symptoms of dementia in the form of severe deficits in language, memory and executive functions of he brain. He is able to mouth certain words, but does not necessarily have the slightest idea of what they mean. If he were to do anything to make anyone or anything great again, it would be to violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution by raking in money from foreign nationals from his hotels. The closest Trump can get to making any contribution to Chinese culture is to issue a special limited edition of fortune cookies with the Stayings of Chairman Trump written on each fortune.
4
Trump is dragging the inflection point moment when China overakes the US closer towards us all...
http://www.abitleftandabitlost.com/posts/what-we-learned-from-trumps-tri...
2
he's so enamored with his own image that it will never cross this idiot's mind just how badly he got played by China....not the lasting damage he is doing to this country. just show him shiny military objects.
why is it becoming the norm that GOP leadership causes harm that DEM leadership has to spend all their time repairing?
trump is a disgrace who needs to be removed from office.
4
I think it's abundantly clear that his primary motivation is protecting future business deals in China, and the patents for Trump brands that Chinese leaders have bestowed on his family. Even a cursory review of his tax returns would explain this new foreign policy direction.
6
Hmm, the same Susan Rice that counsels learning to live with a nuclear armed NK and engaged in all the unmaskings during the election? Yeah, she's a credible opinion on foreign policy for the False Narrative Times.
7
We ARE learning to live with a nuclear armed NK.
We have no leverage over NK. We can't invade because they will immediately kill millions with artillery. We can't nuke them because China and Russia would nuke us, in return, ending civilization. There are no sanctions that will change their minds. We killed the last leader to give up his nuclear program, Khaddadi, and are trying to back out of the last nuclear deal we signed, with Iran.
The only country with leverage over NK is China, And NK nukes are far closer to them. The wise course is to let the Chinese deal with NK. The only thing we can do is help the Kims paint us as a threat to the country so that their people accept more pain.
After decades of threatening NK with annihilation they did not back down and now have a hydrogen bomb, first tested under Trump, while he was threatening to nuke them.
Our aggressive policy had the opposite of its intended effect. Give up on it already.
2
Is this the same Susan Rice who met Bill Clinton on the runway?
4
This Comments section is particularly educating today. It seems that right-wing extremists have not lost their taste for going after Susan Rice for her so-called lying about Benghazi on that fateful morning. Even in an administration that has made lying into a national sport, that has made itself completely untrustworthy around the world, and its chief executive a laughing stock, right-wingers attack Ms. Rice reflexively, as if there is some kind of equivalence between her activities during the Obama administration and the disgraceful and treasonous behavior of the entire Trump nest of traitors. Quoting from I, Claudius, "Let all the poison that lurks in the mud hatch out." We are even now seeing the accumulation of evidence about the bad faith and collusion that appear to have put Trump in the White House, along with his band of white supremacists and morons. Ms. Rice, you are a talented, competent, and forward-thinking diplomat. The country is suffering around the world as all talented, competent, and forward-thinking diplomats are being forced out of the government by these wreckers.
11
third world banana republic politics: putting YOURSELF as the sole conduit for the country. Making the US third world again.
4
Donald Trump's record of bully tendencies and actions belies the inherent cowardice of the man as revealed in this Asian trip. This country can not afford the risk of being led by such a weak president. Come on Congress do your impeachment duty!
5
"Winning!", says China.
3
Were I a "believer," I would be praying for you Ms. Rice -- because I worry that your criticism of our critically-incompetent president might get you your very own special prosecutor, 'courtesy' of his insufferable ego and of his critically-racist and embarrassingly-obsequious attorney general (and garden gnome suitable for xmas display).
If Brett ("The Breitbart Blogger") Talley doesn't get confirmed for the federal bench, I'd expect his childish and indecent rants about your good friend Ms. Clinton will stand him in good stead for appointment as your special prosecutor.
GOOD LUCK ...... but I'm starting to fear a validity in something that Nat'l Lampoon long ago offered us in song -- then, with some sarcasm/now and perhaps 'just' a reasonable, dying-resignation choice: "With all it's hopes, dreams, promises and urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate....GIVE UP!"
2
We need to dump & impeach Don The Con for ruining America.
2
China is ablaze with policies and investments based on competent analysis of goals and strategies compatible with the realities of a connected world.
Their leadership and human capital are not wallowing in an Idiocracy (dear lord look at the incompetency of trump's department appointees) led by an ignorant blustering grifter sociopath in chief supported by a survival only GOP mentality and his core conservative suporters:
White drug addled nativists and xenophobes - Absurdity riven christian conservatives.
China is sooo happy now!
2
Do not underestimate these people by calling them incompetent. They are not dismantling our Republic by accident. They are doing it on purpose, and they are doing it very well.
These global billionaires have been undermining our constitution for a long time and they are more than competent in that regard.
Don't let wishful thinking blind you to how dangerous these people really are.
2
Ms. Rice’s childish insults and playgound taunting is hardly what one might expect of a former national security adviser and ambassador to the UN. But it does prove that even the most full of themselves can be just as small minded and childish as your gossipy next door neighbor. “Ha! Ha!” she says, “You’re not going to make America great again, you’re going to make China great again!” just like some school girl. And not even original. It’s a taunt which has been repeated often in this very paper, not just by the journalists, but even by those making comments.
Of course, it’s easy to see why she does this: to create a smokescreen so people won’t look at her own incompetence as national security adviser which has brought us to this unhappy present state of affairs. And before she accuses the white guy in the white house for his “hubris,” she better be careful lest someone accuse her of the same thing - and rightly do!
4
Actually, the mission of the Centrist Democrats is to save the TPP, and corporate globalism in general. It is also the mission of establishment Republicans. Establishment media, and the establishment in both parties are in lock step on the importance of pushing global corporate trade deals.
Despite Trump's "populist" rhetoric, he is not a populist. He took up Bernie's call to end the TPP because it was popular, not because he believes in it. My bet is that he will declare it fixed next year and try to push it through fast track again.
Trump, like most global billionaires feels himself above mere countries and is using the media to manipulate public opinion into supporting his personal goals, whatever they are.
13
Now here's a surprise, Donald duck as patsy. Who'd a thunk it?
1
Welcome to America under Trump the new hermit kingdom.
1
We have a stupid man who has been bankrupt four times leading us with a decimated and purged diplomatic core unable to bail fast enough the keep the ship afloat.
What do you expect of a country that is well past it's prime who is living on borrowed wealth and prestige from an earlier glory? The rot set in with Saint Ronnie and we now smell the stench of rotting GOP policies for the rich and against the people.
2
No, stop the drama. In reality, for now, at least, America will not be last. America will be MAMI - Make America Mediocre & Irrelevant.
2
This is why Putin backed Trump's campaign. He and other dictators like him know this idiot will hasten our demise. For the first time in our lives, my husband and I are considering moving to another country, as the US is clearly circling the drain.
1
Leading from the bunker, no?
1
Not so fast.
For most of the past 2200 years China has been a socioeconomic political educational scientific and technological superpower. But for a brief interlude over the past 500 years when China foolishly decided to isolate itself from "barbarian "European empires and nations who took advantage of China's arrogant xenophobic retreat. Japan's invasion and occupation of China during World War II using Western technology that left 30 million Chinese dead in the ultimate world war holocaust.
While Xi Jinping is the first Chinese "core leader" since Deng Xiaoping and the first Chinese Communist Party leader whose "thoughts" are deemed worthy of study since Mao Zedong, Mr. Xi does not have the Mandate of Heaven of a Chinese emperor. However it is noteworthy that Mr. Xi bucked modern tradition and did not designate a successor to his term limited collective leadership in five years.
But Mr. Xi has many problems as he tries to ride the dragon of ethnic Han Chinese supremacy. Beginning with term limited collective one-party leadership. Continuing with 8-10% non-ethnic Han Chinese in 54 different ethnic groups. While China has the nominal #2 GDP, on a per capita basis it is #80 near Bulgaria. China has an aging and shrinking ethnic Han population with a massive male gender imbalance. China spends a third of America on it's military. China has few allies and alliances. China has 4x as many people as America in a nation the geographic size of America.
6
Good analysis.
One caveat. China manages to protect its interests abroad without projecting military power into most countries. That is why it spends a third of what we do. Or military is probably protecting China's interests as much as ours.
2
Remember when Tony Blair was ridiculed for being Bush 43's lap dog?
Trump wags up to any despot who flatters him.
He is a tail told by and idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
1
Good analysis. Not much time is spent these days, though, speculating on what Sen Clinton would have done about TPP if the Electoral College had chosen her instead of Trump. It is obvious that rejecting the TPP is part of Trump's abdication of leadership in the world, but she, under pressure from the Sanders wing, also turned her back on it during the campaign. Now, suddenly, the virtues of the TPP are again plain for all to see! How did that happen? If she had stuck with a modified version of TPP, would she be a hypocrite or a hero?
I guess I'm just nervous about the platform in upcoming elections and how intellectually honest we will be.
The TPP transfers power from countries to global tribunals run by corporate lawyers. It would let global corporations sue countries for regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment.
If you are interested in protecting workers, consumers and the environment, then you should oppose TPP and the investor/nation dispute resolution that is the reason for its existence.
Fair trade cannot be fast tracked, but it would be fair. There are no shortcuts, unless you are trying to put nations under the control of global corporations.
2
You miss the point. In Trump's limited attention span there is no fair trade. It is always unfair because countries that export are "winners" and importers are "losers." Since Americans are the world's biggest consumers, always importing more than they export, we are losers and shall remain so until all the goods we buy are American-made and too expensive to be sold anywhere else in the world. Of course that would make us losers remain losers. Meanwhile, there's a question as to whether Americans who buy Ivanka Trump's Asian-made fashions are winners or losers? Trump has yet to answer that one.
2
Actually, the issue is fairly clear. If you are the nation with the largest consumption, your decisions DO control the market. And, more to the point, if your military footprint determines the free-flow of commerce in an economic rival region, without your military, the competing region will cease to be a competitor. It would seem that America has in some fashion been penalizing itself (and its workers) for the last seven decades.
3
Perhaps it might be better for the United States if President Trump made fewer foreign trips.
There is, most likely, more world wide knowledge of his mistakes in foreign policy when he travels than there is when he stays in the US.
1
Forget Trump. Why should we listen to Susan Rice? Hasn't she been thoroughly discredited as a beard for the previous administration? Or is she still blaming the video for Benghazi and praising Berghdahl as a hero? Impossible to sort out these 'fluid' storylines.
4
What I found an odd turn of phrase from Ms. Rice was "we secured agreement from China to curtail cybertheft of United States intellectual property for commercial gain". How do you read this? To me it says that the Chinese will limit the for-profit theft of US cyber-secrets. So, American IP will be stolen less via the internet and when it still is, this will not be to be exploited for financial gain. Hmm, glad we cleared that up.
What I also find puzzling in Ms. Rice's piece is the insistence that President Putin is lying about (the) Russian meddling in the US elections. I have several issues with this. First and turning it around, if an American or a group of Americans were to be found to have tried to "meddle" in Russia's elections, would that constitute American meddling in any sense other than the semantic? I'm quite sure the US would protest its innocence, and rightly so. Secondly, what has been coming out of the US intelligence community of late is enough to undermine confidence by itself (missing NSA peeking-and-meddling toolkit, anyone?). Standing up for them may not have a ring of truth to it. Thirdly, and most importantly, imagine for a second that a concrete and irrefutable trail can be found that leads from some computer shenanigans in the US to the desk of Vladimir Putin. What then? On the one hand, everyone who wants to knows that the NSA and CIA meddle too. On the other, Russia will still BE there. And you'll still have to share a planet with them.
2
The point is not Russia. We meddle in elections all the time. They meddle in elections all the time. The point is that the Trump administration openly welcomed the meddling, with Trump asking Russia to hack Clinton's emails on TV, on top of a mountain of circumstantial evidence that says his campaign and administration are working with a hostile intelligence service.
If the Trump administration really did welcome Russian meddling in our election that is treason.
Look at the expression on his face and his body language. Potato chips as more engaged than he is. When this picture was taken, mentally (it's a stretch) he was on the first tee at one of his golf courses. Given who he is and the position he occupies, coupled with ignorance and incompetence, he stands to get a lot of people killed.
1
Mr.Trump is not politition by nature. It would be better for him and first of all for The USA if he would proceeded his business, the beauties contests and so on.He is coryphaeus in this sphere.
Being young man he skipped from one to another educational institions.
Today we see the same in politics. In his public and first of all political activities Mr. D. Trump does not bring to end every began affairs.
In fact Trump's international politic is a disaster. What schocks me the most are some comments praising a bloody chinese dictatorship which killed millions of innocents, invaded Tibet and is constantly interfering in the private lives of it's citizens. How can you praise the economy of a country which does not respect copyrights and has a debit addicted economy with false growth rates.
Certainly Trump is not the only one with wrong views in US.
1
So saith the spinner of Benghazi, overly-protective of HRC to the end and centrally complicit in the Obama administration’s fiction that it was caused by outrage over a D-grade (if that) video of the Prophet when they knew better … in order to cover-up massive mismanagement by the administration that resulted in the loss of American lives, and to avoid threatening Mr. Obama’s 2012 re-election chances. If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wished to criticize a major Trump foray to the East, what grundoon might they task with the chore of doing that behind an artful fig-leaf, while undoubtedly still drawing a generous stipend from The Foundation? Hmmmm.
Since I reject the notion that this criticism was original, some words are appropriate about a former president and a former wannabe president who seem not to accept that we have one president at a time in this country. Actually, one word: inappropriate.
As to the substance, the Obama administration and its State Dept. under HRC labored for years to confront China and to lead the development of a massive trade agreement, the TPP, that would institutionalize a globalist foreign policy at the cost of American jobs, freezing out China. Trump clearly is taking a different tack.
3
He may believe that Xi Jinping’s cult-of-personality and his 30-year-plan, like all such attempts so far, likely will crash and burn, but that China could be helpful until that happens on more tactical issues like helping neutralize a North Korea that could be aiming a nuke at Barbara Streisand’s Malibu estate, and defusing tensions that arose on the Obama watch – AFTER he “pivoted” from the Middle East to the Pacific (wow, THAT worked out well) – that see major confrontations in the South China Sea and as a consequence VERY concerned maritime nations.
But we all know how heady the vapors are on the moral high ground. For years the Obama administration articulated the loftiest values while avoiding material engagement with the world. The result? A world more destabilized since the run-up to World War I, including a China that continues to steal our intellectual property, hacks us with impunity and challenges us on the high seas. SOMEBODY needs to at least TRY to put the pieces back together again.
Trump isn’t making China “great” again, Mr. President and Madame Secretary: YOU did that. Trump’s just trying to re-stabilize a world that YOU massively DEstabilized, and not just with China.
1
Trump has formal power but no capacity to lead. It's making our executive branch functioning without clear purposes which produces activities that are incoherent.
4
All China has to do is - to recall USA's debt in dollars - and - our whole country's economy - along with the whole world's economy would come crashing down - for China to rush in to 'Save' the world - with them being the center and all Mighty Power of the world.
5
most leveled people know that 'technology sharing' means stealing or outright theft.
China is just an updated version of the USSR, built on and maintained by lies, plus the theft of IP from the West just to keep below par in tech. The one thing they can offer is people, lots of people.
3
And the worst of it is, he has no clue as to what he is doing or what he's already done, there is nobody around him with the courage to try to explain anything to him and he really doesn't care anyway.
5
What do you expect from the con man who considers everything is reality TV. He forgets that governance is an art and require excellent team work. Unfortunately, the clueless con man has surrounded himself with the most incompetent personnel in US history. The state department is broken- thanks to the tyrant who thinks he can solve all problems by himself. Six bankruptcies on record, the failed businessman has no clue how to govern. Bullying helped him not to pay bills and deceive thousands of small businesss at his six bankrupt business entities. He stole the election with the help from Vladimir, Julian, fear and division mongering. But governance is a different story which he cannot deliver.
5
The U. S. has abandoned its leadership role -- on globalisation of trade, reduction of fossil fuel usage, foreign policy, human rights abuses and more. China is eager to fill this power vacuum.
Look to the European Union to lead where the U. S. has turned its back, not China.
Europe is the richest trading bloc in the world. They embrace global trade and have an excellent planned trajectory for reduction of fossil fuel usage. They prefer diplomacy, but have not hesitated to wage war on terrorists.
China now leads the Pacific-India 11-nation trade accord. My concern is that due to their regime's traditional lack of transparency, they will not follow through on challenging human rights abuses in the workplace, or even permit inspection of their own workplaces.
While China has declared itself the new world leader on clean energy, the country is still so dependent on coal, and is so populous, that turning around their own energy situation will be a lifetime's work. And again, lack of transparency masks how progressive they really are.
Europe is transparent, has progressive global trade policies, is against human rights abuses and it's leadership is far more accessible than China's. Europe is Democratic. China is Communist, like Russia.
Europe is a nuclear power, should such means become necessary due to American provocation of North Korea. The UK, despite Brexit, would ally with Europe in a nuclear showdown.
And Europe doesn't brag -- it does.
36
China is not responsible for imprisoning 2.3 million Americans. That is 25% of the incarcerated with 5% of humanity. And 40% look like Barack Obama and Ben Carson.
1
What could possibly have gone wrong with the export of American freedom & democracy to the developing world, accompanied of course, by immense profits, resulting in the displacement of sizable portions of the American working class from well paid production into the low paying service sector.
I guess we showed those totalitarian communists. Oh wait, they are communists. And now Trump tells us he'll bring back industry. Would that include those long ties he imports? America, haberdasher to the world.
4
The Asian Pacific nations now persue defense and trade on their own, reluctantly concluding the US ,under Trump, is an unreliable, unwilling and erratic partner. China swiftly fills the void. A new and very uncertain world order arrives for us all. Another Trump triumph !
3
Trump is not making China great again, he is speeding up the process as he digs us deeper in a hole with less worldly influence.
No one is talking about why Trump happened, It took us decades to get where we are presently, a country that is losing worldly influence and respect. It was natural for other countries to regain their strength and influence and we deserve a pat on the back for helping to make it happen. We should be chastised for not being adequately prepared for when the inevitabilityoccurred. Shame on us.
It was Lord Acton who said in the 1800's "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". And Trump arrives on the scene just in time.
5
Just imagine the howls from the right if President Obama had bestowed such praise.
2
There was a game of throw and fetch between some strong personalities and a poodle.
Trump was not among the strong personalities.
But nonetheless he was happy to play along them, fetching the sticks they threw.
2
This guy has always been an incompetent negotiator. Tell me one, just one, case of negotiation in which he succeeded: Tour de Trump? Trump University? Football League? Taj Mahal casino? And now his Asia tour was a disaster!
2
Many predicted that foreign nations would play Trump by stroking his insatiable ego. Sadly, they were right. We are witnessing the destruction of the US as a superpower by an ignorant man supported by millions of Americans who can't see what's happening.
2
Donald Trump’s boldfaced cowardice towards China would be akin to Ronald Reagan thanking Mikail Gorbachev for keeping the Berlin Wall intact.
2
This picture says it all, " Here I am, Walter Mitty sitting in on my fantasy not understanding a bit of what is going on. Gosh.....I am so bored."
2
In a word: #MCGA Make China Great Again.
2
Xi Jinping said to trump 'I will give you 35 exclusive Trademarks to do business in China if you stuff the US in a closet for me'. trump said 'You've got a deal'.
2
George Bush was a failure as a president,and I thought it could only get better,but alas we now have in Trump a weak pawn of a man determined to make America anything but great
2
When the President goes on "tour" outside the country part of me says, good we don't have to deal with his incessant tweets and foolish rhetoric. But then the other part of me says, oh God he's going to embarrass our country "again" with his lack of understanding of world affairs. It's just so difficult to watch and listen to him make a fool of himself.
Maybe we could have him tour our 7th continent Antarctica next time, he could then interact with the penguins. Just tell him their "Emperor Penguins" he'll be headed there in a heartbeat!
1
Trump continues to undermine American security, credibility, and standing in the world on a daily basis. Meanwhile, he continues to put faith in Putin. Who is this president working for anyway? What is his goal? Is he, too, an unregistered foreign agent like his first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn?
2
Too many clichés and too many metaphors. Leave the fiddle on the bus.
Well, what did you expect? The Asian nations saw Trump coming and they all played to his ego. Trump got trumped.
2
Trump managed to do worse than Obama's so-called "apology tour."
1
Make America Great again (MAGA) and Make China great again do not have to be mutually exclusive. The 2 countries are interdependent economically and politically. China, the most populated country in the world with a rich history, culture and geographical position at the current time has emerged as a major power equal to the USA in many ways. For the past 75 years, the USA has played critical roles during the world war II, Vietnam war, Korean War, the longest unending war in Afghanistan, the Iraq war, the civil wars in Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen that has cost the US 1000s of brave lives and trillions of $$s To continue to promote US values and stick our nose in every nook and corner of the world is not going to help us any more and this realization is what makes Trump different. The humility that we don't have to be exceptional and exclusively be in the middle of all conflicts around the world is very refreshing and sustainable and may even make a dent in our national debt. Let China help with N. Korea, let Russia help with Syria and ISIS, let both help with Iran, is a much needed sea change in US foreign policy that has occurred in 2017. What is wrong if while America becomes great again, China, Russia, Japan, India, Europe, Africa, Australia and every other country in the world becomes great again and supports each other for the advancement, prosperity and health of humanity? The highest honor that China gave our president was simply spectacular to watch on You tube.
3
How much longer do you suppose other nations will wish to reach agreements with the US, which has repeatedly shown itself to be an insultingly unreliable partner?
4
Are we really surprised at Donald Trump’s groveling at the foot of China’s president?
Because, this is a president that apparently celebrates a warped view of “winning” - state sponsored theft.
Like that of China’s highly successful efforts at illegally obtaining high tech secrets from U.S. firms and other western firms or having his best buddy in Moscow steal for him an American election.
2
When the President goes on "tour" outside the country part of me says, good we don't have to deal with his incessant tweets and foolish rhetoric. But then the other part of me says, oh God he's going to embarrass our country "again" with his lack of understanding of world affairs. It's just so difficult to watch and listen to him make a fool of himself.
Maybe we could have him tour our 7th continent, Antarctica, he could then interact with the penguins. Just tell him their "Emperor Penguins", he'll be on his way in a heartbeat.
4
This has been going on for awhile. Even under your sainted Obama.
Anyone who actually looks, knows that there is no American 'intellectual property'. The people in the research laboratories are mostly Chinese and Korean now. 'Intellectual property' is whatever is in their heads.
The Americans who invented electronics and aviation and went to the moon are now cooking meth and abusing opioids and playing video games. In South Carolina, we have just learned that we have forgotten how to build nuclear reactors. We can't seem to run passenger trains. But of course, we have Twitter and Facebook. And 'financial services', whatever that is.
We're in a sorry state. But don't blame Trump. Trump's failure is in not having a good plan to lead us out of this mess.
8
Under our "sainted Obama" we had, mercifully a president who used his intellect to try to solve problems that are always with us, counting on a team of qualified public servants to provide information needed to govern a complex country.
A 1954 quote from the Army-Republican SenatorMcCarthy hearings lives on:
"Have you no shame?" Republicans only goal for Obama's terms was to obstruct and chance for a democratic agenda. And the shame continues.
2
"More concrete" meetings going on behind the scenes? To foreign leaders, he is a laughingstock. They are probably rolling on the floor. Frankly, the video with the ridiculous Saudi Sword Dance is the image that sticks in my mind. One thing is certain; our enemies are gasping for breath with tears running down their cheeks, even as they contemplate a world without obstacles. If the circle of
protective ignorance that Trump's keepers use to protect his ego is ever broken, we are going to be dealing with a very real problem. Meanwhile, both at home and abroad, the minions are carrying on their dirty work to turn back the clock and weaken America's position of moral authority and hope in the world.
5
Certainly Trump is no asset in “making America great” but he’s just a one of many failures. The GOP Congress is unable to sharpen pencils, nevermind implementing ten- and twenty-year plans. They can’t even fix the interstate highways already built, nevermind high-speed transit. International affairs? You’re not serious!!
9
"Such scenes of an American president kowtowing in China to a Chinese president sent chills down the spines of Asia experts and United States allies...."
Well, Trump kowtowing and rhetoric sends chills down the spines of the majority of Americans.
Constantly blaming previous presidents
Lashing out at Clapper/Brennan/Comey as political hacks
Believe in Putin one day....then believe in our Intelligence agencies (with his fine people) the next day (Well Donald....which is it?)
Laughing at Duterte's lame joke about our media.
One day it's fire and fury/locked and loaded ....the next day he's open to sitting down for personal talks with Kim.
It's been a dismal 10 months. Trump is weak at home and weak abroad. When all the facts come out, he will exposed as the leader of one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history. And that's a very chilling thought.
9
We seem a collective Charlie Brown to Trump's Lucy, who never fails to move the football on us. Yet, we continue expecting him to turn the corner and act a Linus. Sending Trump on an international diplomatic tour is much like sending Hannibal Lecter to review Turin's Slow Food Festival. He will always end up eating the chef. No matter how low we set the bar, Trump will always find some way around it.
6
Trump always panders to the people right in front of him, just to get through the moment. Our country deals with the fallout.
3
Excellent summary of a failed tour.
3
Talk is cheap and cost nothing. 250 billions in exchange for few flattering words, Trump is brilliantly showing off the art of the deal at its finest moment.
1
Did we expect anything different? People with a conscious, morality, discipline and the power to work behind the scenes to right all these wrong is more necessary than ever. However, it is very scary for shadow people and we the people.
Trump is not controllable and is insanely deficient as a human being.
3
The level of corruption is unprecedented.
Trump refused to put his assets in a blind trust as is the norm. The tax cut scheme he wants to sign will treat the 535 LLCs he owns as some special entity worthy of tax preferences over wage labor.
A con man lies for a living, and up to now Trump was content to stiff bank lenders, contractors, his customers, etc.
Now he is up for conning 300 million Americans and the US Treasury.
America's oligarchs and corporations are blinded by the tax cut ruse, but when Putin had consolidated his power in 2003, he took half of every oligarch's wealth, or jailed or kill them.
The NSA's top secret coding has mysteriously been appropriated, while Michael Flynn was Trump's first choice for Head of the NSA. Flynn left after payments from Russia and Turkey became public.
The American branches of justice and legislation can still put an end to the Trump-Putin alliance and save American and Western democracy.
The argument that Russia some how wants to fight "Islamic jihadism" with America is a joke, as they are some of their closest allies.
Putin came to office with a "false flag," the apartment fires of 1999 that were blamed on foreign terrorists and cost nearly 300 people their lives and injured a 1000.
He used that as an excuse for the 2nd Chechen War and his ascension to power over Yeltsin.
Meanwhile, Trump admires how dictators gained brutal control over their countries.
2
I don't know of any other political party in the world whose objective is dismantlement of government. The Republican Party in the US stands alone.
7
At least China with its civilisation was "great" once, a few centuries ago. Sadly the same cannot be said of the US which squandered its "American century" by acting incontinently everywhere. Trump is only an exclamation mark at the end of that period. Time to move on....
1
The President of China ate chocolate cake at a golf course - Trump dined at one of the great treasures of China- I think that sums up his first year. The White House is the venue for visiting dignitaries- a Florida golf course is like Motel 6.
4
The failures of Trump’s domestic policies have now been matched by his failures in Asia. Trump’s lack of knowledge and lack of intellectual research has been duped by Asian flattery. As Ms Rice has stated, China has set the stage to be the world’s economic power and subsequent to economic power, China will become the workd’s political and military power.
Trump does not have the capacity to play diplomatic chess! He’s still admiring himself in the rear view mirror.
5
Trump could have simply stayed at Mar A Largo and so much less damage to American standing would have taken place.
The "I believe Putin" remark which threw the U.S. intelligence community under the bus while Trump was on foreign soil is beyond the pale.
HIs concern about his reception by these Asian countries as opposed to former U.S. Presidents is the extent of his foreign policy knowledge and an embarrassment this country will not soon recover from. China took this chump to school and he's retuning to the U.S. empty handed.
So now he'll return to new revelations about his son communicating with WikiLeaks during the campaign in which he claimed never happened.
To say this is the most corrupt, incompetent and dismal failure of an administration who is bordering on treason is a kind description of the state of affairs we now have.
And the complicit GOP? Not a peep. Nada. And what does that say about them? They're willing to allow Fox News to govern the country and remain silent to get a tax cut for their donors. And where are all the great people Trump was going to surround himself with? Under indictment, lying to congress, or being forced to resign because of the abuse of their office.
One can only conclude this will not end well for the people in the once greatest democracy on the planet.
5
Thanks for stealing my headline. I was just writing an article I wanted to call "Making Europe Great Again ... And China, and Obama."
Trump is truly the champion of all of our -- and his -- competitors. Everything he does makes others look better. Obama's policies had their flaws, but after only 10 months of Trump, who can remember. Everything Obama ever did now looks like pure genius ... in comparison.
5
"calling him “a very special man” and stressing that “my feeling towards you is an incredibly warm one.” "
When will this fawning over autocrat leaders stop?
Bush Jr. started it with Vladimir ...Trump continues it unabated! This man wears no clothes and feels no embarrassment.
We have to feel it for him.
2
Within a year the United States of America has lost its global reputation. It went from a respected leader of the “free” world to a complete laughing stock. All my European friends talk about are Dotard Trump’s infantile tweets of self aggrandizement, foolishness and frank out idiocy.
On foreign policy matter the US has become a shadow of its former self, like an old patriarch who has suffered from senility. The US faces global irrelevance, hardly ever has fallen a nation faster from the pedestal other than through economic collapse. But with Trump the US suffered from a self made crisis of vast and unsurpassable incompetence,
The foreign policy disaster casts a shadow on the subsequent economic decline, it just takes longer for the domestic political system to unravel. But it will happen, and it will take decades - if ever given the rise of China - for the US to recover domestically and repair its global reputation as a leader of democracy, human rights and free trade.
78
If the USA had not already lost its global reputation after LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin lies to expand and attack Vietnam, yet another in a long line of countries that never attacked US soil; it most certainly lost its global reputation after Bush-Cheney's WMD lies to attack Iraq. On the other hand, where else do you want to live? As bad as it is, most other places are many measures more corrupt.
2
There is no long-term contest between China and the US in the arena of world leadership. Europe may well laugh at our "Dotard Trump," -- we deserve to be the laughingstock of the world as long as this narcissistic man-child is at the helm. But over the long haul, the world knows the difference between freedom and bondage, and however prosperous China becomes, no one is going to opt for the autocratic leadership of the Chinese Communist party.
I hope for Chinese greatness.... but they're not on the road yet.
1
America First equals isolationism. This will be the Trump legacy.
1
This is the Bush-Cheney legacy of vast overreach and lies to fight a war vs a country that never attacked American soil, following upon Vietnam. When a President and Vice President so abuse and misuse American power and tax dollars as Bush-Cheney did for Iraq, and the Congress and judicial system refuses to hold such abuse accountable, and when the American people do their best to correct this by electing Obama twice, and watch as Obama continues the wars for the entire 8 years of his presidency, and expands the wars to Syria using CIA running of guns and CIA training of "rebels," etc, (let alone fails to prosecute the preceding administration for war crimes), you can bet the American people are going to be forced to embrace isolationism. Don't blame Trump; blame LBJ-Vietnam; Bush-Cheney-Iraq; Obama-Iraq-Syria.
1
Trump's Asian visit will go down in history as the time that all his moral, intellectual, and mental flaws were on full display--and led to a disaster for U.S. foreign policy, as Rice aptly portrays. The psychological was the most intriguing, and the most disturbing. Trump nakedly displayed every textbook characteristic of a weak person plagued by feelings of profound inferiority and driven to try to disguise his failings with bombast and inflamed rhetoric.
Trump was particularly noxious in showing one of the chief characteristics of someone with a narcissistic personality disorder: projection. Since he glows in the face of overwrought flattery and groveling toward him, he thinks everyone else does, too. Hence, his obsequious praise of Xi, who undoubtedly saw the pathos for what it was. Trump will go to his grave never realizing that real powers players like Xi and Putin recognize him for the empty shell that he is, and, as Rice said, play this weakling like a fiddle.
The fact that so many Republicans do not see through this fraud is a stunning comment on their own moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Especially in the wake of Roy Moore.
6
According to Rice, "it is unclear whether such diplomacy wa undertaken".
In other words, Susan hasn't a clue about the results of discussions out of the glare of the dog and pony shows that countries stage for visiting dignitaries.
Kinda like her time as an advisor to 43. Clueless.
5
It's hard to undertake diplomacy given the State Department's current staffing or lack thereof.
#
Again, America committed a collective crime against humanity in Nov 2016.
While optimists and other delusional people think they will or are entitled to slip by without a scratch or price paid as to this crime, unfortunately there is now an unavoidable punishment that must be suffered, which one can learn of the judgement rendered against them each and every morning via TV news, Internet, and/or newspapers.
“Through all of history and pre-history it has been accepted that there is something wrong with the human animal. Health may be the natural condition of other species, but in humans it is sickness that is normal. To be chronically unwell is part of what it means to be human.”
John N Gray
1
The minute I saw his fawning and empty remarks towards Mr. Xi, I knew we were handing over power to the Chinese. This "empty barrel" who is playing President has no understanding in regards to his position. His ignorance, narcissism and immaturity allow the rest of the worlds leadership to play him like a fiddle. The damage that this man is doing to the country across the board will take a gargantuan effort to repair. The losses incurred already are going to weaken us and our allies. Our domestic situation is even worse. We are being led by an ignorant blowhard and we are going to be paying for it for years. We are turning into a third world banana republic so quickly that my head is spinning. I hope his voters are not getting tired of all of the "LOSING" we are doing. VOTE!
3
@JDH: Hate Trump all you want, but the rise of China was made possible by Clinton, Bush and Obama. Trump at least accepted that China did what was best for China. Democrats and Republicans did what was best for Wall Street and multinational corporations. That is why Trump got a rise from his "make America great again" spiel. Many, many Americans correctly feel that they have been made worse off due to globalization.
Trump inherited a country in relative decline. He doesn't know what to do about it, but he is not in denial about the real world.
3
Trump is a huge disgrace and a total embarrassment to many Americans, who care for their country's global standing and their future in an increasingly worrisome world, which is marked by strongman politics.
Trump and his supporters believe that being nationalist and tough would help preserve America's power, without knowing that they are undermining the Pax Americana from which American business, including the Trump empire had benefited.
Trump has no idea that in the absence of rules-based ethics and an international order, China or Russia would seek to impose their will on the rest of the world.
4
There is nothing wrong with China becoming great. The reality of the our place in the world is changing, and that is a good thing. China isn't Russia, we can have a good relationship with them and work together. The doom and gloom of America losing power is shortsighted. Other countries are just catching up. We are still the power house we always were.
10
While it is embarrassing to watch our fawning, clumsy, Buffoon-in-Chief stumble around in some of the many countries he was surprised to learn existed, it is terrifying to watch Tillerson eviscerate the State Department. Can we please bring back the professionals?
Trump's right. We are the fools who agreed to give away technology and free trade. We gave them our factories and they cleaned our clocks without having to worry about the environment or child labor. Way to go free traders and Globalists!
3
Susan is delusional about what she accomplished over the years with Obama on China. The fact is over those years, we ran a record trade deficit with China, we shipped more manufacturing jobs over to China than ever before, China created man made islands and militarized them without repercussion, and we did nothing with China on N. Korea leading to the situation now.
So she can pose however she wants but her record speaks for itself and it is horrible.
8
Trump's facial expressions speak a thousand words. He is truly clueless.
As Trump ends this 12- day tour of destruction, I hear each land he visited whispering, "checkmate".
1
Trump has no ability to look at the big picture. He is only about Trump and his bloated ego. Decision making becomes impossible on serious issues which involve discipline and contemplation and an ability to look at the big picture. He is a shallow weakling that is selling America down the drain for a few moments of basking in pomp and circumstance.
1
Susan Rice: News flash: China was great before America even existed and is merely resuming her rightful place.
2
Why shouldn't China be great again?
2
Ms. Rice's apt use of the verb kowtow in describing Mr. Trump's China posture is interesting when one understands the origin of the word. From etymonline.com, here's the Chinese origin of the noun "kowtow":
also kow-tow, 1804, from Chinese k'o-t'ou custom of touching the ground with the forehead while kneeling as a gesture of respect or submission, literally "knock the head," from k'o "knock, bump" + t'ou "head."
Very good. Now what about the positions of American presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. Is there Mandarin for kissing up?
1
I've been alive since 1952. I first cast a vote against Richard Nixon in 1972, and have never voted for a Republican, though I've cast votes for some pretty dubious Democrats: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. I've lived through Nixon's treachery, Reagan's senility, Dubya's unqualified disasters. Politically, I've seen a lot.
But I have never seen a president stoop so low as Trump has done on this trip. He has doubly disgraced himself, and by extension our country, first by asking President Xi Jinping to intercede on behalf of three American thieves who just happen to be basketball players; and second, by sharing a stage and pressing the flesh with President Duterte of the Philippines.
The entire country will need to be fumigated when we've finally sent Trump packing. The man is like a walking infection,.
The embarrassment of the United States continues.
We can’t be surprised at his ignorance. He doesn’t read and I don’t think Fox News nightly was available.
The Chinese are simply beside themselves with joy that Trump is handing them the region and the globe. Trump's astoundingly reckless and incompetent foreign policy is pushing America into a corner that will be very hard to emerge unscathed. Meanwhile, China and other global leaders will laugh at Trump, whose ability to cozy up to the deadly Duterte is a bright spot in the trip to Asia. Isn't is time to apply the High Crimes and Misdemeanors phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the US Constitution to Trump to begin proceedings to rid ourselves of this nincompoop? Start now and once the mid-terms produce the result we are all expecting, we can bounce this shameful clown from the White House.
1
Trump was guest of honor at farewell banquets celebrating America's leaving the region.
"calling him “a very special man” and stressing that “my feeling towards you is an incredibly warm one.” "
When will this fawning over autocrat leaders stop?
Bush Jr. started it with Vladimir ...Trump continues it unabated! This man wears no clothes and feels no embarrassment.
We all have to feel that for him.
1
Are there any pictures of trump, where he doesn't look like he is lost, out of his element, and being played.
Here he looks like he's just realized that if he takes his ball and goes home, the kids have another one, and the game will continue without his tantrums.
China is Great. Period! End of story!!
1
Please explain to me why we embrace trade with China but continue our embargo of Cuba.
1
A good summary of only SOME of the reasons why this man is so unfit to be president of the United States.
“Make China Great Again”
Good for them. I'm rooting for China.
2
And this is the man who wrote (actually someone else ghost wrote, but he is the author of record) "The Art of the Deal" and promised Americans that, as a shrewd businessman, which he was not, he'd be able to negotiate better with his international peers. Even when he said these things during the campaign, it was laughable. This is what he said at a campaign event in Bluffton, S.C. on July 21, 2015:
“I beat the people from China. I win against China. You can win against China if you're smart. But our people don't have a clue. We give state dinners to the heads of China. I said why are you doing state dinners for them? They're ripping us left and right. Just take them to McDonald's and go back to the negotiating table.”
And yet he was happy to have a state dinner with all pomp and glory and no substance. Not much of a negotiator.
This emperor has no clothes. It was evident back then, and I hope more people are seeing The Donald and his utter ineptitude. All bark, no bite.
2
I disagree with this essay. It is China that has made China great again. China has a history going back thousands of years. There is no tradition of democracy in China. Instead, China looks back to great emperors who used autocracy to solve China's problems.
Of course, China had bad emperors too.
We should give China for one landmark achievement. By introducing a one-child program in 1979, China's leaders allowed China to focus on raising living standards for a more slowly growing population. And China's recent renaissance has been remarkable.
Yes, China achieved this population control at a cost. China is considerably less free than the US. Dissidents are persecuted. On the other hand, the rate of incarceration is 1/6 that of the US, an indication that the US has tremendous social problems that have not been effectively addressed.
I agree with Susan Rice that Trump's cozying up to Duerte was repugnant. So is his constant tweeting which attempts to belittle Kim Jong-un. Trump is a terribly flawed president, and his most serious deficiency seems to be his inability to seek out good advice on foreign affairs.
But would Hillary Clinton have been better? It's hard to know.
The 2016 election provided voters with terrible choices.
20
"Would Hillary do better?" That's a very silly question, behind which lies a history of despicable defamation of a very good and very competent person. The fact is that almost anyone, anyone you can name, would have done better. One who was being fooled by the Japanese and Chinese like Trump was, and who continuously is being fooled by Putin is, and doesn't understand what's happening, is, to put is simply, beyond the pale.
4
America has had good Presidents under our Democracy but now we too suffer a bad emperor who did not win the popular vote in our Democratic Country but rules anyway,
3
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” —
H. L. Mencken
2
Just one detail: 250 billion represents 1.4 percent of US GDP. That’s chicken feed anyway you chop it up.
1
It should be becoming very clear to everyone by now that no one really cares what the President says or does--especially foreign nations. Trump, in the word's of one of our own, is a "blowhard."
1
Democrats elected Trump. More specifically, the DNC elected Trump. Debbie Wassermann Schulz and Donna Brazile are two of the slimiest politicians in the country. The conduct of the Democratic Party during the last election defiantly had the Clinton affect. Sleazy. The US deserves Trump.
3
He is doing the job he was hired to do which is to fatten the depleted bank accounts of his benefactors. That his own account will balloon is a welcome coincidence. Some people have all ther luck.
Nothing more to see there. Too bad Melania had to leave so soon, Duterte isn't near as bad as people think.
Great trip. Makes me proud to be an American. Such a great leader
Get this man OUT of the role of POTUS. He is a screaming example of the Peter Principle, and his international peer group sees him for what he is, a delusional, inept, man who can be played like a fiddle. He needs to be removed from office, and NOW would not be soon enough.
John~
American Net'Zen
Many US voters are simpletons unfit to choose leaders.
They worry more about guns and abortion than about economics and international relations.
These buffoons can, when serving on a jury, be talked into awarding $50 million for some wrongful death when the person could have earned only $2 million their entire life, The jury not realizing that the money would come from consumers through higher prices to pay the legal expenses,
Do not be surprised when the big bluff called Trump is out of his league. SO are his voters out of theirs.
Without US involvement in TPP, the Asian countries will, by default, turn to China as the dominant trading partner. Without NAFTA, Mexico and Canada have no incentive to avoid China.
Trump is handing the US' international position to China.
1
But I though the President told us during the campaign that China was a currency manipulator. What changed?
2
Susan, Just come out and say it: Trump is not serving with honor and distinction.
1
Thank you Ms. Rice for this on point article, and for your service to our once great nation.
2
As a resident of the Asia Pacific (Australian) , Trump's visit has been very strange. It seems that the US is deserting our region and leaving us to China. I don't think anybody wants one country having almost total power over our part of the world. When the US was invested, there was at least a balance, now China will basically do what it wants,particularly with its new trade deal.
Also of interest was an article in a major Sydney , newspaper which was highly critical of Trump's performance. It's the first time I've seen such a critique of a US president. Usually we are very supportive of the US in fact we border on sycophantic. The author of the article is considered a relatively conservative man,so the article was even more surprising. Basically it called Trump a clown.
I am concerned. But I guess we in the Asia Pacific have no choice but to turn to China.
78
You're better off. We're no longer a white knight on the international scene, if we ever were. Henceforth, if you need quality products, buy Japanese; if you want affordable products, buy Chinese. Both their cuisines are healthier than our fast-food menus of death. And their governments are saner and more competent than the Trump maladministration.
1
If you read the NYTimes, you know he has been "called out" going back to his declaration to run for the presidency. As far as calling Trump a clown, I'm sure clowns everywhere will accept your apology for classifying them with the likes of trump. Clowns have far more decorum and smarts than our fake president.
1
Trump is all about the brand and the Trump brand is very popular in China.
Just ask Ivanka. When Trump blamed the United States for the trade deficit, he was warmly applauded by surprised Chinese officials while Trump ties and bottles of Trump cologne flew off the shelves throughout the Middle Kingdom. This how you measure success in the Trump era.
1
There is an old saying: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
The Obama administration led-- on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine, TPP, locking down loose nukes, the Ebola crisis and more.
The world is telling Trump to get out of the way as it moves forward without him. In the case of the Paris climate accord, much of the United States is moving ahead without the Trump administration.
1
Susan rice embarrassed by kowtowing? Mr Obama not only kowtowed, he followed with a tribute gift of the abandonment of the pacific trade routes and a nuclearized korea. Mr Obama success in China was the climate accords? Co2 rose this year almost solely due to china, a signatory to a toothless document. His other accomplishment with China, getting their help with Ebola? It was these great successes that led to Mr Trumps win.
3
When the President of the United States conflates real world diplomacy with "The Apprentice," it's time for that President to be "fired."
My suggestion of a slogan for the 2020 Democrat candidate for President: "Make America Great Again." It will be a daunting task.
2
Trump is making not just China but the rest of the world great again: Nations and economic blocs, including Europe, have realized they can no longer rely in the U.S. to pursue the social, economic and political principles it once stood for. The day tradjtional U.S. stalwart, German Cbancellor Angela Merkel, publicly decried reliance on the U.S. was the day the U.S. was sent to the sin bin.
Trump has been a wake-up call for the rest of the planet which is proceeding independently from the U.S. Trump has made the U.S. not 'great again' but irrelevant.
1
"President Xi followed Mr. Trump’s hostile speech with a paean to open markets, fair commerce and the benefits of globalization, ideas that might have been cribbed from previous American presidents."
American Democracy is speaking loudly on the past views of American Presidents: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump rose to prominence by rejecting globalism at the expense of American working men and women. That is why I voted for both of them.
The author touts outcomes in Chinese talks circa 2014-2016 that are virtually nothing burgers... Cooperation on Ebola? A "crack down on fentanyl precursors," and agreement that the Chinese will curtail cybertheft?
What about forced technology transfers? Why did the Paris Accord include a 13 year noncompliance window for China? (The worlds biggest polluter). This whine is a big fail - as was the Chinese policy of the last three administrations.
3
One can say that the trip was bad for the USA but it was guaranteed great for Trump's brand. How many hotels and golf course deals were made on these trips? We will see.
1
Appreciate what Ms. Rice is saying but let's not forget it was Bill Clinton who took the illegal campaign financing from China for the DNC & for his 1996 reelection and then rewarded them with the quid pro quo of entry into the WTO (as well as squashing the chain migration reform recommended by Clinton's own immigration commission). When FBI Director Louis Freeh strongly and publicly recommended a special prosecutor to investigate the Chinese campaign financing and influence on 1996 elections, Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the FBI Director & killed the investigation (over the objections of DOJ's own elite campaign finance prosecution team & unlike Jeff Sessions recusal earlier this year when Comey made same recommendation).
Bottom-line, we are not in this situation today absent President Clinton. Apparently Trump is not the only president the Chinese played like a fiddle.
2
With Trump's complete failure to win back the US leadership role, rather submission to the authoritarian leaders of China, Russia, and the Philippines for personal gains one could clearly conclude that what looked as merely a wishful thinking at Davos and Paris, when Xi Jinping had staked his claim to be the global leader on issues of Climate change and the free trade seems to have become a real possibility after the abdication of such authority, that US had enjoyed, by Trump.
1
Reading the column, disagree. Unlike Obama, Trump was very pragmatic. (No more, "Give-it-Away, Give-It-Away".) Japan was put on notice that it now has "first responsibility' for its defense. South Korea was implicitly informed that it is slowly veering away from the American Alliance. (Without course correction it will eventually be the "Finland of the Pacific".) China was made aware of the impending, and probably unavoidable, trade war with the US. (Future American membership in the WTO is now in question.) And the very likely scenario of other Asian neighbors seeking nuclear capability if the North Korea program is not curtailed. (Japan, South Korea and, possibly, Vietnam will be those nations.) But the most beneficial development for the American economy, and its citizens, is a modified disengagement from the region. It will motivate the domestic economy and insure our American military is not used for "globalist outreach". All in all, the President's trip was a success.
6
Well, that is certainly one way to look at it. A very naive, narrow way, but a way.
Well, I guess we’ll just have to close Ft. Hood then. Won’t need it. Cut the defense budget by half at least . Won’t need it.
1
R, you've been drinking too much cactus juice to come up with this list of Trump's "successes." The only loser in a trade war with China would be the United States. And what happens when China presents us with all the IOUs we signed for all the cash we borrowed? Abandoning Japan, South Korea and other Asian allies pushes them right into the arms of China, which has already assumed leadership of the TPP thanks to Trump's withdrawal. China offers Asian countries better protection from North Korea than we do, since it controls the North Korean economy and, rather than helping Trump handle Kim Jong-un, Xi may enjoy sitting back to see how Trump does it alone. Simply put, he played Trump for a chump by massaging his monstrous ego with pomp and ceremony but offering little of value in exchange for Trump's fawning accolades.
3
Trump already had the Chinese sancions against Korea that Rice never could achieve by offering a deal on the trade deficit. He went to China to live up to the deal and feed Xi's ego as a reward.
The Vietnam summit was, as Trump said at his press conference (Thanks to the NYT for publishing it) had two goals. One was to finalize the end of her awful illegal war in Syria that destabilized Europe with its refugees. (The right wing parties are fading becauseTof his success.) The other is real progress on the Ukraine mess that she and Nuland created with their illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government. The next step is the second reading of the Ukrainian language bill on Nov. 16.
Rice should go back to her lobbying work.
8
The members of APEC are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam. While both Russia and the US are members, an APEC meeting seems a strange place to resolve issues in Syria and Ukraine.
1
What a joke. As a victim of China's OPM hack, I was distressed and disappointed that even Rice's proposed micro-sanctions were not implemented in response. Besides making zero progress in Afghanistan, and going backwards in Iraq and Syria, Team Obama did exactly nothing substantive about China's coddling of North Korea or their militarization of the South China Sea. At least the Chinese are taking Trump seriously, as witnessed by the recent triumphant welcome to Beijing extended to the President, starting with him getting off the front end of Air Force One upon arrival.
9
Trump is so easily won over. Just compliment him and he will compliment you! Yes he loves pomp and circumstance--as this article pointed out----big on show and tiny hands failing to grasp substance.
trump's people are living in the delusions of their favorite phony news sources. "triumphant welcome to Beijing"??? gimme a break.
2
TPP
The Chinese take Trump seriously? You are kidding yourself. They seriously take advantage of an uneducated and incompetent president who falls for any flattery of his fragile ego.
2
It's all about himself isn't it? I recall Trump's words about the great and head-spinning business deals he would complete with Xi: they'll be great for both of us, he said. I don't mind being excluded from any group of which Trump is a member, but he should learn at some point that we are not dumb cattle to be ranched and sold according to his will. We're the bosses.
11
Ms. Rice is all sour grapes. She and her former boss accomplished very little of lasting value during their eight years in office. The "achievements" that she lists are administrative matters of minimal impact. I doubt that the Chinese ever intended to implement any of them, especially issues concerning intellectual property rights. Under Mr. Obama, the Chinese have slowly and methodically achieved political and economic ascendency throughout Asia. It is no secret that they are determined to displace the United States as the dominant power in the world by 2049.
Like Nixon who they respected, the senior Chinese leadership are cagey practitioners of realpolitik. It is well known that they held Mr. Obama in low regard as they did Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. However, they are very pragmatic and have worked with all sitting American Presidents to advance their agenda to the maximum extent possible. When not possible, they worked with other nations to achieve their ends.
With or without Mr. Trump, China under Xi Jinping is poised to achieve its goal of becoming the dominant economic, technological, military and cultural world power. Mr. Obama did very little to alter that trajectory. Ms. Rice has no business crowing.
13
Do something for the environment! Stop buying Chinese junk! Just consider the number of Chinese coal fired power -plants that could be shut down, just by stopping the import of all the Chines junk being purchased every year, in particular for the Christmas season.
The talk of reducing the environmental impact does not sound very promising, when considering that for the next coming years China will be building half of the coal fired power-plants in the world.
As far as I can see, reduced production of junk will reduce the pollution from power-plants. Lower production will be the most effective way to go, until coal is eliminated all together. All the junk in retail stores is also displacing availability of of the products we really need or wand to purchase.
7
Trump's approach is pure, old-school sales tactics. He has spent his lifetime "making deals," and the first thing a salesman learns is to speak with the person in authority. Traditionally that was the "man of the house" or the CEO; today it's the authoritarian leaders. These are people who don't have to worry about checks & balances - he (and yes, it's still, always, a "he") can make a decision and follow through with no "bumps" in the road.
No wonder DT kowtows to dictators - no red tape!
12
“China always prefers to couch state visits in ceremony rather than compromise on policy. This approach seemed to suit President Trump just fine” Of course it did Mrs. Rice Mr. Trump loves the grandiosity and is excellent at pontificating. Visits like these makes him worse not better as it feeds the monster within. I do agree that he was extremely well scripted the first part of the trip, but unfortunately we all know well that those are just words on a paper.
Thank you for sharing Mrs. Rice. I miss your brain, Mr. Obama’s character and respect for diversity.
21
Trump is a conundrum. As the shockingly negative stories and commentaries pile up daily about his presidency since day one, the majority of Americans are left now with a dismal situation...waiting for the next catastrophe. We are all helplessly watching the train heading for a wreck.
17
We should welcome China becoming great again in the world. China's prosperity is both good for its people and the world. The problem is that the US has lost its greatness in the eyes of the world under Trump and is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Our allies cannot count on Trump as he alienates them and cosies up to dictators. Our trade policy is incoherent and countries move ahead without us. We are now the sole abstainer from the ground breaking Paris agreement, not only endangering the environment for future generations but also losing out on global market shifts to green technology. We have sadly lost any last shreds of moral leadership in the world as well.
Let us all hope and pray that our ability to purge ourselves of Trump in 2020 if not before will show that our democratic institutions are still alive and that the US can be great again.
129
Dude, we had a good run, but our run ended during the Korean War. Since then, with perhaps a few exceptions, we have become the problem, the world's #1 terrorist. We invade and destroy Iraq because of WMDs, then after finding none, we explain it all with: "Oops!" Vietnam was a major fiasco. Cuba, Lebanon, Libya, etc. Power corrupted and ruined us because when the world's biggest dog makes a mistake, it's a whing-dinger. May China do a better job.
1
The geopolitical game is won by clever strategic positioning for the future, and the Great Dealmaker Trump has cost us our position in the world, with nothing in return. This cost will dwarf the 5 Trillion dollar run on the Treasury.
How can you be a great dealmaker is you are the Bankruptcy King?
1
During WWII China was our ally. Had they not become embroiled in civil war right after WWII ended our relationship with them and their relationship with the world would be quite different. We need to get over ourselves.
The US not China has interfered militarily in other countries since the end of WWII. Our interference has destabilized countries throughout the world. We've gotten drunk on our own propaganda that we're the leader of the free world but considering our military engagements abroad and our arms deals with questionable people we have no room to criticize China.
China has chosen to engage in soft power. Rather than attacking our interfering in elections they engage in trade and infrastructure projects. They are improving lives and lifting communities out of poverty by connecting poor regions to the developed world.
The trade imbalance only exists because corporate America and the wealthy profit from it. We can't blame China for being better negotiators. Trump isn't to blame for policies that go back to Nixon.
13
Rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be the economic legacy of this administration, and it will haunt us for a generation. China is about to control half of the economic world in real terms. Trump's positioning only diminishes our power and influence on the world stage, and will hurt all of our industrial/economic output.
"America for Americans" is a fun campaign phrase, but not good international economic policy. We are about to be left in the dust as the world moves forward. I hope our Congress has the wherewithal to override and influence Mr. Trump's policy decisions. His path is leading backwards.
15
Appeasing Russia and weakening the United States is a major goal of this president. It’s not hard to find examples of how we are losing stature in the world and Russia is getting what they bargained for.
1
Trump is a pragmatic businessman who knows what he can do and can't do. He knows he can develop a medium to long term harmonious relationship with Beijing so that future differences between the 2 countries can be resolved at the negotiating table, and he knows that he can't pick a fight and start a military confrontation with another genuine nuclear power to satisfy the press and to put on a show for the supporters of the other camp. Political rhetorics can never be as good as real deals.
5
Four years from now, a weakened America will be forced to return cap-in-hand seeking entry to all the trade deals Trump has abandoned. The work of decades undone in a single year.
19
It's what second-rate powers have to do.
1
Last week, America and the world saw a leader with a clear understanding of global economics and politics, and with a 21st century strategy to make his country great again. Then there was Trump. We can only hope he learned something from Xi.
17
Spot on, Ms. Rice. We pulled out of the TPP but it is going forward without us. Same with the Paris Accord. Same with the opening up of Cuba. By all accounts NAFTA discussions are stalled, but Canada has deals with the EU and is talking to Mexico to shore up the relationship in case Trump walks away from NAFTA. And China is cutting deals all over the world--in Africa, the Middle East and with other Asian nations. The rest of the globe isn't going to stand still while Donald Trump congratulates himself via tweet about isolating the U.S. There are other deals to be made and other trading partners to work with. The world moves on.
Apparently it is only Donald Trump and his fellow GOP isolationists who think going backward to the 1930s means going forward. How ironic that the self-proclaimed world's greatest dealmaker has not figured out that people will do deals whether you are there or not.
18
It seems obvious that Trump was playing up to Xi in the hope of getting more support from China on North Korea. That's unlikely to happen, but if Trump had taken a different tack no doubt Ms. Rice would have criticized him for that as well.
Objectively speaking, Ms. Rice was probably the worst national security advisor ever, Michael Flynn excepted. On top of that she's obviously following a partisan line in this piece. Trump's foreign policy is in some ways a joke, but Ms. Rice is hardly the right messenger to convey the opposing side's views.
6
In his attempt to serve himself and America first, Mr. Trump is giving away the leadership role this country has served for many years.
He thinks the other countries need us, they don't.
Don the Con is so out of his depth on the world's stage, and as he would say, SAD.
10
Our once mighty republic, erstwhile envy of the world, is moving faster along the downward path of decline. We can only hope the hole we are slipping into is not so deep that, come the day when Trump and his Know-Nothing cohort have the left the stage, we cannot climb out. Meanwhile, we cede our place in the world order to a new, authoritarian hyperpower whose objectives and pursuits are vastly unlike what the United States and the Order-Since-1945 has espoused.
It may be that all powers and their things must end. Greece ended. Rome ended. Spain ended. Britain ended. And now, it seems, America is taking its turn toward the exit. There is still a chance, in our lifetimes, for that not to happen so fast.
7
President Trump can't stay focused for twelve minutes. I'm not sure how anyone expected him to keep things together for twelve days. And yes, Trump torched leadership in Asia. However, he accomplished this mind boggling feat on almost his first day in office. The TPP, although arguably unfavorable to US domestic interests, was America's path to continued influence in the Pacific. Obama led the horse to water but Trump refused to drink.
The embarrassing part is how Trump doesn't seem to notice how he's getting taken for a ride. Clueless is an understatement. I wouldn't trust the man with a box of tooth picks and he's supposed to negotiate trade deals. Meanwhile, the transparent defense of Vladimir Putin is down right insulting. If I had my way, Trump would stay overseas indefinitely. Preferably he'd live in a place with bad health care, no justice system and an erratic repressive leader. Maybe Trump would notice how the rest of us feel.
11
Pleased that President Trump appears to be talking with China and Russia – critical given the aftermath of sanctions that left US out of the conversation. (Trump possibly not doing much better.) Also appreciate the President's Middle East initiatives that may chart a much needed course correction from Iranian hegemony.
3
China is a mercantile power, and rising, to be sure. There governance will likely remain a hindrance to political influence, globally. Unless Western hedonism creates such instability in its societies, that laissez faire, secure public squares and conventional mores offer more peace of mind. E.g., multi-billionaire dollar businesses sabotages themselves, i.e. NFL. The NBA should rejoice, basketball is popular in China; less likely to experience universal rejection; American Football is nearly uniquely American.
China's preeminence from mercantile power to global influence, could depend on far the West degenerates.
1
Re: "Such scenes of an American president kowtowing in China to a Chinese president sent chills down the spines of Asia experts and United States allies.."
Hah!
After decades of giving China access to US markets without insisting on reciprocity (and decades of huge trade deficits, not to mention technology transfer), you express alarm - but not at decades of US fecklessness on trade policy... No, the worst criticism you can come up with, is to make a big drama out of Trump's insignificant political niceties?
Re: "Instead, the leaders of the 11 remaining Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announced a framework to remake their deal without the United States, leaving America outside.."
First off, the TPP isn't about "free trade", it is about enforcing patent rights. Second, the TPP (like any trade agreement) has winners and losers. The winners will be those who have a seat at the negotiating table: Corporations and banks. The losers? Well, if you don't have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu. Yes, that means US workers - blue collar and white collar alike - are almost certain to be losers, as they have been in other trade deals. And if they don't like it? That is what ISDS is for: To have corporate appointed judges enforce bad trade deals, superseding sovereign governments, on behalf of multinational corporations.
We get it. You don't like Trump. But it is the decades of bad economic policy - from both parties - that resulted in his election.
9
Excellent analysis of this trip highlighting our American tragedy, our terrible misfortune to have this person as our president.
7
I agree with Susan Rice that the hard work of diplomacy is regrettably an afterthought in the current "amateur hour" White House.
5
Every action that Trump has taken on his "presidential" trip reinforced his ignorance and his standing as a bully. He is alone, while surrounded by both sane leaders and other bullies. His fawning and need for validation are pathetic, and has been exposed to the whole world. Were he just a businessman, we could feel sorry for his inadequacies. Instead, he is defaming our nation. Perhaps we should also feel sorry for those who continue to support him...they are the very population that will be most harmed by almost everything he has done and proposes -- and are blinded to the fact. The other great shame is that we will have 3 more years of this madman-child unless Mueller can tie him into criminal activity from the election and transition.
5
The big problem here is that Trump is a rank amateur in all matters of politics and diplomacy, and in fact, probably couldn't care less. Stroke is oversized ego, and he believes he got a good deal. The way he almost falls over himself showering Xi with praise makes one feel Trump still doesn't quite grasp he's the U.S. president and supposed leader of the free world.
The likes of Xi Jinping may not garner our respect for his autocratic and undemocratic style of leadership, but he is a seasoned player who has worked his way up the ranks and is extremely savvy politically. He knows a buffoon and how to play him he sees one, and that's exactly what he did with Trump.
191
The business world is full of buffoons.
1
To the Chinese, all recent US Presidents, with the exceptions of Nixon and GHW Bush (41) who they respected, ware foreign policy rubes. Mr. Obama in particular they regarded as an annoying uppity twit. They never budged as much as a nanometer on any issue that was a core interest to them. They even told Ronald Reagan to take a hike when he wanted to reverse the “Öne China” policy and formally recognize Taiwan.
During the Obama Administration, China asserted sovergnty over the South China Sea (a vital shipping lane in Asia) to the consternation of America’s Asian allies. For Xi Jinping, Mr. Obama was as big a knave to be outmaneuvered as Mr. Trump. We have a classic case of Aesop’s “The Tortiose and the Hare.” Guess who’s the tortiose and who’s the hare.
Proof amatures do not know better, but telling that tho the people who adore Donald is like talking to a brick, a dense red brick.
1
No matter how much I know Trump is stupid, arrogant, and ignorant, it is startling to see him demonstrate his blind self-regard in public. We'd criticize a five year old who had as little awareness of other people as he does.
Xi just has to put up with him and pretend not to be disgusted, and he dances China's dance for them. Put him on center stage, and he parades his ignorance like a badge of honor.
Making China Great Again, Making America Small, Mean, and Last.
102
If Trumps behavior made you feel this way, how did Obama allowing our trade deficit to grow to what 300 Billion make you feel?
Is looking smart while getting railroaded more important to you?
Remember the critics kept saying President Obama lead from behind? Evidently, Trump is outdoing Mr Obama. Even Syria has joined the Paris Accord - no doubt at the behest of its patrons, possibly Russia just to stick it to the U.S. - so making China great again is not earthshaking. Instead of MAGA, we have a MALAA (Make America Last After all). Thank you Trump!
39
Signing is one thing; adhering to the rules is another. China is already violating it and so is India. And the EU is scrambling because the deadlines and the reductions are tough and not even they have the political will to follow through.
China became great again when its economy caught up to the US in GDP, and in ability to support national spending such as defense and long term research. That did not happen in the last year under Trump. That happened in large part in the 8 years Rice helped guide the US. The judgmental author of this article did what she now accuses Trump of doing.
22
China under Xi Jinping would have become great again regardless of anything the US could have or would have done. This means playing the cards we are dealt the best that we can. The other countries involved in TPP including Mexico and Canada are moving forward and opening their markets given that they have an untrustworthy partner in the US which by withdrawing from TPP and challenging NAFTA closes markets to our businesses. Trump knows nothing and got played. Yes, the US will be left home alone.
3
Mr. Trump ascended to power over an economy that had made significant recovery from the global economic crisis of 2008. A consequence of that crisis was budget cuts that did not even spare national defense. By 2014 federal R&D resumed strong growth after the major cuts.
The issue that Rice raises is that this president has taken national strengths assets developed over decades and diminished their value over the course of a few months. Yes, the pomp of the parades was impressive and the sincerity in Vladimir Putin's personal assertion of no meddling in the election convincing to an impressionable leader. But impressionable, naïve, and thin-skinned people in leadership positions can deeply damage the standing of a nation built by the dedication of millions of Americans.
While China is extremely unlikely to ever erect a statue to Trump in Tiananmen Square, the benefit to China's global standing that Trump's irresponsible behavior is helping to create is of historic proportions.
Trump has sought to solve the problem of N. Korea on his watch on his terms. But he delegated to solution to China. China will reap the benefits of closer ties to S. Korea and stabilization of the Korean peninsula on its terms, not on Trump's terms.
Perhaps as a gesture of courtesy Chinese investors will be permitted to invest in a Trump hotel near Tiananmen Square as a reminder of the major contribution that Trump is making to make China great again.
4
How did Susan Rice increase China's GDP?
2
Please, give credit where it is due. Our brilliant president has solved the North Korea nuclear problem. He has made the once mighty United States of America irrelevant, thereby relieving Mr. Kim of any necessity to nuke us.
268
No reason for any walls, either.
Who would want to come here now?
The President, an Adult-Child, emerged from a family shaped by the dynamics of alcohol and male upstreams. As Primate and Perfectionist, "He Alone Knows".
He Alone is destined to diagnose our ills and cure us.
To Trump's cCub belongs the China and Russian "Know It Alls." He "Knows His Own" and seeks to support them through his "attentive admiration.""They Too" Alone Know.. Trump's delusions as "Omnipotent Child Savior" are inexhaustible.
He like Putin and Xi - the Holy Three - are bound to "power over us." Shall we thank them for their service?.
6
Trump is playing checkers. Xi is playing Go.
193
Frustrated: trump doesn't have the ability to even play checkers. He is star struck in the presence of foreign leaders and those leaders know it and are enjoying playing with trump. What a mess.
3
China an ancient civilization has always been a step ahead. Authoritarian capitalism at its best, in display. Trump after his trip, will definitely become a Wannabe Like Xi.
2
No, no. Trump is playing CANDYLAND. Xi is playing GO.
The recent seizure of 42 kilograms of cartenfanil in Toronto, is a serious problem, which may be more dangerous than nuclear weapons with its ability to kill not just thousands of people at once, but hundreds of thousands in a large city. China is the maker and distributor of this substance, and has not been held accountable by either this administration or the last, and 9 years of this has exposed this country to thousands of deaths from heroin, which has often been laced with this drug. Canada, the United States, and other countries are worried that it could fall into the hands of terrorists. Russia is said to have used it in aerosol form to stop the standoff of Chechen rebels in the Moscow theater, which ended up killing 120 innocent civilians, and children, so even governments have it, and have not had any qualms about using it! Asleep at the switch, is not good foreign policy, but a very dangerous one as well!!!
71
Only Nixon could go to China. Only Trump could go and surrender.
Thanks, GOP.
228
Only Clinton and Bush could give China most favored nation trade status, and develop trade policy that gives all advantages to China, although I'm sure Trump will find a way.
DT lacks a coherent philosophy, because he lacks coherent judgment. Without a moral compass, his leadership is aimless, and he withers in the presence of dictators and more outspoken demagogues. Who knows where we will find ourselves next year, or perhaps year after, at the end of his term?
121
Who knows...maybe this is finally the chance for U.S. to establish genuine friendship with China.
Despite all the western media portrayal, I always felt that China, since the 1980s, was not the hostile one in this relationship. Until very recent years, China's internal media and primary education has always portrayed the U.S. as a great nation and valuable ally.
Yet, this is not reciprocated here in the U.S. When I arrived here in 2001, I was shocked to see the hostility that the U.S. government and media has toward China.
Many of the political tricks America used to use are simply nonsense. How could America lecture China about human rights when, by 2013, the incarceration rate of American citizens is nearly 7 times as high as that of Chinese citizens? And gender equality? In 2016, China has a 63% participation rate of women in the work force compared to the U.S. where the rate is only 56%. If we look at any important metrics on this, such as homicide rates, feeling of safety ratings, and actual violent crime rates, China is pretty much better than the U.S. in all these ratings.
What about the South China Sea? The U.S. pretty much helped China claim those after WWII - it's just that China had a civil war after that and the U.S. finds its originally allied party ended up in Taiwan.
So I would say it is great that President Trump does not mention these nonsense, for whatever reason.
35
How about some other "metrics"?
What is the incarceration rate in China? Nobody knows, so we can't pursue that.
About what country does Amnesty International write: "China remained the world’s top executioner [in 2016] – but the true extent of the use of the death penalty in China is unknown as this data is considered a state secret; the global figure of at least 1,032 excludes the thousands of executions believed to have been carried out in China"?
What is the proportion of women in the U.S. Senate and House vs. in the PRC State Council, Politburo Standing Committee, or People's Political Consultative Conference? What women are mentioned as possible candidates for chairperson of the Chinese Communist Party?
How many government officials of any level are free to, and do, openly criticize the national government in the PRC vs. in the U.S.?
How many courts in the PRC have the actual power to strike down, and have struck down, a national law?
Which country (at least before, and hopefully after, Trump) is recognized as an ideal, a dream, an inspiration? Which country do more people want to live in?
Sure, the U.S. has *many* shortcomings, most of them not mentioned in your comment. (You are right about the high incarceration rate, if nothing else.) And we know about these shortcomings precisely because people in the U.S. are able to raise and publicize them.
You refer to the U.S.'s human rights concerns as "nonsense." Well, at least Xi Jinping agrees with you.
2
Thank you for this insight. Even if Mr. Trump has stumbled aimlessly into a kind of truce with China, it would be wonderful to know that good could possibly come of it.
The US has been an old friend to China for many many years.
Ms. Rice makes good points about an unfit president.
135
China hacked into American US government personnel records for years without being detected and without consequence. China has been rising and reigning no matter which political party was in the White House.
10
As we thought the end of Trump's disturbing lies and insults and scapegoating, a new low is occurring; we knew Trump was a lost case due to his incompetence and corrupted ways, but new depths of his corroded mind have surfaced, by congratulating the most violent thugs on Earth, belittling their own people, thrashing human rights and, not infrequently, making those valiant enough to constructively criticize their totalitarian regimes fatal victims by political or physical means. He has yet to denounce these abuses; instead, shaking hands while smiling, perhaps trying to learn from them for his own 'edification'... while emulating their graft. U.S. influence in Asia, 'thanks' to our demagogic jester in chief, has lost any influence...if one can forget the pornographic selling of arms to raise the mayhem in distant lands (Yemen is now the worst case scenario, with untold suffering and deaths of innocent people, especially children). Shouldn't we be ashamed of ourselves, by allowing Trump a free hand in maiming human beings, 'business as usual'?
26
Are you sure he doesn't admire the actions the rest of the world condemns? Look at those Trump admires most: Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Cissi, Duterte, criminals all.
The more Trump kowtows to China, the more China will be kind to Ivanka and Jared's commercial ventures in China. None dare call it treason.
296
This "administration", such as it is, has several "conceptual" foundations, at least insofar as they are expressed publicly-who knows what this incurious cretin actually believes to be true vs. false, categories for which he
has expressed the disdain of an ill disciplined 8 year old- that are complete
delusions detached utterly from commonly understood reality.
Three suffice here. First, there will
be robust economic growth, ie jobs jobs jobs, from tax cuts cuts cuts directed
at those who least need them. Second, that there is great uncertainty in
what it is that contributes to (supposed) atmospheric warming effects and what the consequences of that will be. Third, that if the Russian leader said that he didn't interfere in the election, then we should be willing to take him
at his word since there is nothing more that can be done about it, and,
besides, if we do so then he'll likely be more inclined to help work to deal with NK, Syria, and ISIS.
When critical policy issues are based upon such conceptual and indefensible drivel this country's interests are very vulnerable.
The farce with China is part of this new bizarre abnormal. Public obsequiousness masks, but also encodes, zero achievement. Explicit rhetorical contradiction is irrelevant. Being weak but parading authority is what strong leadership is all about.
And as long as F-x faux "news" focuses on the strutting and nothing else,
the core fanboys remain awestruck and so proud.
15
Straw Man if ever I read one. You say the trip had such potential. That depends upon the continuing successful increase in Chinese productivity, which, of course, comes at a cost--ecologically speaking. Should the President have told the Chinese how to run their country? The trade deficit certainly could rationally be left at the doorstep of past presidents and Congress. It is not, I think, anyway, a good idea to continue to arm the world to the teeth, and so to that extent, perhaps the journey could have been more satisfying. If by compromising upon policy it is meant that belligerent trade rhetoric should be replaced by real belligerent rhetoric, such as that entertained in the minds of the so-called intelligence community, then one could attribute to Trump a certain diplomatic mien: let future presidents worry about what is done here. The South China Sea issue is their response to the Strategic Island defense policy of the U.S.; and besides they have a perfectly good and valid argument--consult Grotius. As is intimated, much is not known, and so the charge of sycophancy is probably not correct. His lambasting of PDRNK in Seoul was a rehash of former capitalist rhetoric, which sought to reinforce NK's isolation. China is emerging, however deliberate. If anyone knows that V.V. Putin is a liar, let us see the proof.
6
Ok. Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine...
It should occur to everyone that the Trumpolini Trolls never identify themselves or tell you where they are. Probably concerned about a good talking too by their neighbors. Or perhaps the Russian security services. My question for 'Disinterested Party' is how much did you get paid to bring us this drippy stuff?
This is not normal. It demeans the office of the president of the United States. As does most everything this guys does. Sad.
40
Susan 'unmasking' Rice is writing about Trump making China great again? Has she no shame? Under which administration did China start its military buildup in the South China Sea? Under which administration did long time allies in the region question our commintment to confront Chinese expansionism? Under which administration did N Korea develop and test advanced nuclear weapons, a situation that necessitates Chinese help?
Hint: it wasn't Trump
36
You have a point.
China is making China Great again as anyone who has ever studied their long and glorious history has long expected.
So perhaps Rice should have been even more clear (and she was pretty clear) that Trump is the first POTUS who has aided the Chinese -- paradoxically, both intentionally and unwittingly -- in their rise to the top, by ceding the world to them.
And in what way is Trump impeding China’s expansion?
Well actually, W ignored the DPRK buildup, but it continues unabated under Trump, even more often, after goading from the bully we call President. And those individuals were being monitored by NSA because they were talking to the Russians. They should be unmasked and sent to prison. She was right to investigate traitors, if she did, since they were betraying us. It was her job. Place the blame on the criminals who are still seeking to serve other governments for money, while they have sworn to defend us.
3
Pomp and ego-stroking over substance is truly what makes Trump happy. And the Chinese and Russians have this guy's measure. It will likely take a decade or more to regain our global stature; however, given the current acceleration of Chinese efforts to fill the global leadership void created by our current POTUS, we may have lost this role for good.
33
Misleading headline...China is great again. Trump is merely recognizing reality. Why not split the world between us and them. Am equal split was OK in the era of Communist Russia and they were hardly an economic equal. We have the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean; China has the South China Sea. Let Korea and Japan figure it out for themselves without our soldiers and our money.
Europe and Russia can figure out their own problems and come to the table when they are ready.
15
"Europe and Russia can figure out their own problems and come to the table when they are ready."
Yes, and they will figure out indeed their problems. China needs very little from the US, apart from access to their market. You buy Chinese products and instead of moving your business to China, China buys your business and runs it in the US. That will be the result of your "alliance".
The most worrisome is that USA is spending resources they do not have for expanding their military force. The only way to motivate it, to make a possible return of investment, will be to find ways to use that military force.
That simple mechanism will force former allies to redistribute their resources towards destructive tech rather than the solutions we need to find to save the earth.
We are, now, at the point where we must focus on saving our planet. We must. Trump forces a different direction. My guess is that he, the Koch brothers and some other old soon-to-die-anyway fools are perfectly happy to have the humanity die with them.
These are difficult times for optimists.
Did isolationism keep us out of WWII?
China has now stepped onto the world stage as the premier go-to global superpower that every country must consider above all others.
This was inevitable, but Trump made it happen twenty years early and without consideration of a strategic managed retreat to best secure a viable second place future.
Trump and Bannon are actively engineering the destruction of our country.
They, and others, are working both domestically and internationally to dismantle our lives irreparably. These are not the actions of a buffoon. The pattern I see is a well considered strategic sequence creating an exponential synergy of destruction, a chain-reaction that cannot be stopped.
53
I give up on trying to figure out if Trump is really stupid or not but what is clear is that he is ignorant of history and not interested in doing any hard work to learn any. He also seems to be ignorant about our constitution and how legislation is formulated and enacted. That experts like Ms. Rice were shown the door before even having them download the data and expertise they had was criminal. But then I come back to Trump listening to Duarte sing him a love song and I realize that he is not only stupid but likely insane as well.
204
Although it has been shown that humans are not as rational as real politique and economists give us credit for, it is still instructive to view decision making as rational.
Assume Trump is not as crazy or stupid as he seems, and then ask yourself why he does what he does.
The same technique should be used on Bush history. Assume that Bush's Iraq War policy did exactly what it was supposed to do, then work your way backwards from the result. It makes far more sense that way.
Is it possible that the Great Recession was not a mistake? It did move 40% of the wealth of the 99% to the 1% according to the US Treasury Department, with no punishment for those that caused the crash.
Stop assuming that global corporate mass media is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Mostly they are just distracting everyone with corporate press releases and celebrity gossip. For example the Trump tweets that media obsesses over all day long are not the most important thing going on right now.
Why do they spend such little time on what Trump is actually doing?
1
I feel that my wonderful adopted country and the amazing work of previous administrations for decades is being recklessly trashed. I feel an immense sense of loss and despair after reading this article.
186
I share the concern and disappointment with a U.S. president strengthening and emboldening a global rival.
That's why the free trade agreement pushed by H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton was such a catastrophic failure.
You see, China's ascent to greatness didn't begin with Trump. It began a couple of decades earlier with a shockingly naive and misguided policy of two supposedly erudite U.S. leaders.
17
Exactly, just who does Susan Rice think signed the permanent normalization of trade relations with China and set the stage for China to enter the WTO? It could not have been Hillary Clinton's husband, could it?
2
A frightening summary of our loss of influence—I would dearly like to read Ambassador Rice’s thoughts on what is being done, what can be done, to counteract this projected isolation.
20
"China always prefers to couch state visits in ceremony rather than compromise on policy. This approach seemed to suit President Trump just fine, as he welcomed a rote recitation of China’s longstanding rejection of a nuclear North Korea and failed to extract new concessions or promises. He also settled for the announcement of $250 billion in trade and investment agreements, many of which are nonbinding and, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “pretty small.”"
Well, I'm sure glad we taxpayers got so much bang for our bucks, while Donald Trump came home empty handed on just about everything, while embarrassing the nation with his fawning praise of Communist and autocratic leaders.
"I alone can fix it," he famously proclaimed during the last weeks of the campaign.
Fix what, for whom
193
Trump will save us whatever his meal allowance was since China hosted the meals. However, we have to pick up the travel expenses. Can we get Trump to reimburse us?
tRump is so demanding of personal praise he believes others will respond the same way. He believes that is the way to make deal, particularly when you can not sue the other party.
There is an adjective that has been applied to the Chinese over many years, it is "Inscrutable." You can be dollars to yuan they are just shining him on. The Chinese are building factories in Africa, ports in Pakistan, railroads in Iran, and a new Silk Road to the middle east as a railroad.
They have joined in, in a new Asian trade agreement. China has millions of low income people they want to bring into their new middle class. They see with their low wages and subsidized housing, they can cut the price of just about any American made good, and bring up the living standard of the population at the same time. Call it China First, and no tRump plan can beat it.
I can not think of any previous president that has been duped like this one has. He is a monument to avarice and greed with the intellect of a cabbage.
331
...that was really an unnecessary insult to cabbages.
31
"the intellect of a cabbage"
Music to my ears, David.
61
Every American President has been duped by every Chinese leader beginning with Deng Xiaoping.
2
Susann Rice has jumped to more conclusions than I am generally exposed to. She tries to make a case but her supporting facts are the barest beginnings of the entire discussion, Trump was erudite in his dealings with China and ANYONE who can "read between the lines" or make reasonable inferences can see this was the BEGINNING of a successful engagement by President Trump. As was said to 'enry 'iggins, "Just you wait and see." HRS.
13
Trump is a lot of things, but "erudite" is certainly not one of them.
26
I'll have two of whatever you're taking.
21
Good to know that St. Francis lives on Asylum Avenue
8
It's all in Trump's mind that he can negotiate and deal with the Chinese or anybody else. Somehow his words about Chinese currency manipulation have been forgotten along with everything else he said at the time. Lastly, he blamed China's export success on his predecessors, what else is new? Sad.
111
Historians will forever study this meeting as a colossal failure of a US President. What an embarrassing episode.
338
How will historians distinguish it from other Trumpisms at other meetings and not in meetings? The whole episode will be treated as a pivot into decline, unless we turn to fascism and the only permitted treatment is glorification. I wish for no decline and no fascism, but I don't see any effective counter-movement here at home. It will require higher taxes on the super-rich, who are about to get their wealth increase if Congress passes a tax deform bill (yes, "deform", not "reform"), and a sharp reduction in the U.S.'s increasingly military focus (a.k.a. militarism).
57
There is only one way to fix this. Impeachment for the lot of them, and prison for some. The people must send the world our message that these representatives do not represent us. If we look away, as the Republicans are now doing, we appear to be self-dealing opportunists, taking advantage of Trump's ignorance to get those tax cuts, the country be damned. The message must be clear, we the People will not tolerate this destruction of our country. We must act soon before Trump uses his loyal police forces and perhaps the military to cement his authority with martial law. He studies and approves dictators. Can his imitation be long in coming?
1
No one has ever died nor gone to war over "an embarrassing episode". Trump is not embarrassed.
2
For those who voted for Trump, it was never about making America great again. It was about making America "white" again.
Trumps minions don't care a whit about trade, foreign policy, climate change or following anything above the level of local high school football. Trump voters were waiting for the moment they could put one of their own back into the White House after it was occupied for eight years by that illegitimate, Kenyan usurper.
As long as Trump remains white, his supporters are content.