Trump questions need for NATO, outlines non-interventionist foreign policy

[jpak]

Source: Washington Post

Donald Trump revealed part of his foreign policy advisory team and outlined an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs during a wide-ranging meeting Monday with The Washington Post's editorial board.

The Republican presidential front-runner, for the first time, listed five of the people who are part of a team, chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), counseling him on foreign affairs and helping to shape his policies. They are Keith Kellogg, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Walid Phares and Joseph E. Schmitz.

Trump's meeting with members of The Post's editorial board covered a range of issues, including media libel laws, violence at his rallies, climate change, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. presence in Asia.

Trump — who is set to give a major address on foreign policy later Monday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — said in his meeting at The Post that he advocates an aggressive U.S. posture in the world with a light footprint. In spite of unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Trump insisted that the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding domestic infrastructure.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/

[dogman]

1. Moving way to Hillary's left there.

How long will this last?

[truthisfreedom]

2. I give it two days. He sounds a little like Bernie right now.

He can't keep that up.

[William Seger]

3. But they're supposed to wait until they have the nomination to do that

... but maybe he's intentionally sticking his short fingers in establishment Republican eyes.

[Bad Dog]

4. I don't think Trump will have any problems.

Giving Putin everything he wants, they're both corrupt businessmen and Trump doesn't give a shit about people in Ukraine and Georgia.

[Ghost Dog]

16. I don't think Mr. Putin was ever a businessman, Bad Dog,

not in that sense.

Putin was an officer in the KGB for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, before retiring to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. Putin moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration, where he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999, when Yeltsin resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election by enough (52% to 30%) to avoid a runoff against Communist opponent Gennady Zyuganov, who claimed the resultr was due to electoral vote-rigging,[2] and was reelected in 2004 with 72% of the vote. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008.

Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tandemocracy".[3] In September 2011, following a change in the law extending the presidential term from four years to six years,[4] Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive term as President in the 2012 presidential election, an announcement which led to large-scale protests in many Russian cities. In March 2012, Putin won the election, which was characterized by criticisms of procedural irregularities and accusations of fraud by opposition groups and international observers,[5][6][7][8] though polls had indicated he was a favorite.[9]

/... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[Ghost Dog]

17. Nb. One might notice that that last passage...

X won the election, which was characterized by criticisms of procedural irregularities and accusations of fraud by opposition groups and international observers, though polls had indicated he was a favorite.

... could easily be applied to recent US presidential elections, although international observers might have some difficulty doing their job there and US MSM probably wouldn't report.

[Bad Dog]

20. Maybe not in the strictest sense of the word.

But he sure as hell acts like a robber baron capitalist when it comes to feathering his own nest.

[highoverheadspace]

5. I don't know about Trump, he may be trying to gain favor with the left,

but I do know that the new British Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has been exposing the lies of NATO and has some quite revealing things to say about them. I think that is why he was elected. The British people have seen through the corrupt mainstream media lies. I think the US citizenry are seeing through it too.

[Bad Dog]

21. He wasn't elected by the British people.

Just those eligible to vote in the Leadership elections. There's a huge difference between the two figures.

We won't know what the British people think until 2020.

[leftynyc]

6. How is he

going to be both noninterventionist AND kick isis's ass at the same time?

[jpak]

8. And China in the South China sea - and Iran?

[xocet]

12. Interesting trick, right? n/t

[They_Live]

13. He's gonna make Mexico

pay for all of it!

[pampango]

7. AFAIK, Trump is opposed to all international organizations and agreements.

They just tie his hands and prevent him from acting unilaterally anytime he wants.

[olddad56]

9. won't matter to his supporters, they can't comprehend foreign policy...

They understand NASCAR, Ultimate cage fighting, and owning 30 assault rifles for duck hunting and home protection. Beyond that, they hate the government and believe anything Trump will bark at them. I doubt that many of them are even registered to vote.

[former9thward]

10. He seems to be winning a lot of elections

given that many of them are not registered to vote.

[actslikeacarrot]

11. I think we underestimate him at our own peril.

In fact he is the only reason I have pledged to vote for Hillary in the Ge, even though I don't support her in the primaries. His non interventionist message will resonate with many Americans sick of a decade and a half of war.

[Angel Martin]

14. the end of the world's policeman

a large part of the rationale of the USA having a huge military is to maintain a worldwide open trading system.

since Trump believes that the open trading system is bad for the USA, it makes no sense for the US to continue to pay the world's policing costs.

[Ghost Dog]

18. But it isn't so much paying the world's policing costs

as it is running a very large part of the US economy, surely.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

19. 800 bases in 80 countries. Foreign bases in US = 0

Does anyone think we could afford to cut the military budget at least in half if we closed most of these bases?

[sofa king]

15. "Elect me and our enemies will come to us."

Recall that during the years 1861-1865 the United States intervened almost nowhere, and it's true that the French set up a puppet empire on our southern border and the British nearly took back the Pacific Northwest over a seized rowboat, but aside from those setbacks, virtually no American soldiers died on foreign soil....