Trump Wasn’t the First

Since NATO’s creation, the European nations have, in the main, been shirking their obligations to the alliance and with that betraying their fellow alliance members. Then-President Jack Kennedy (D) was among the first American government officials to grow tired of that shirking and to object to it out loud.

John F Kennedy in 1963 told his National Security Council that “we cannot continue to pay for the military protection of Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share.”

Then it was then-Deputy Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci in 1981 in front of the Munich Security Conference:

US Is Even More Vulnerable

The mostly unfettered inflow of “refugees” from—pick a source, but mostly the Middle East—into Europe is beginning to awaken Europe’s western and central nations to the terrorist risk they face from that flow (eastern Europe’s nations have long been well aware). That relatively uninhibited flow, with its sample that have been caught, should be clanging alarm bells for us, too.

Authorities in Europe say they have foiled several terror plots, some involving suspects posing as refugees, raising alarm about a growing array of threats from extremists.

Biden Doesn’t Want Israel to Win

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is busily telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to go into Rafah to finish the task of destroying Hamas.

It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them. But there’s red lines that if he crosses….
[As paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal] He added that a complete cutoff of weapons shipments wasn’t an option.

Further Reasons to Ban TikTok

And not just force its sale by ByteDance. ByteDance is domiciled in the People’s Republic of China, and as such it’s subject to PRC laws, including the PRC’s national security law requiring PRC companies to answer queries from that nation’s intelligence community, queries which can range from “what do you know about this subject in that country” to “go find out, conduct the espionage.” That’s reason enough to ban the company (that subordination of PRC-domiciled companies to that nation’s intelligence apparatus is reason enough to ban all PRC-domiciled companies from the US, but that’s a different story).

Biden Wants a Port on the Gaza Strip

He said so in his Thursday State of the Union speech. He said he’s ordering the US military to set up and establish a port on the coast of the Gaza Strip. He’ll do it, though, with no US boots on the ground. US personnel will be on offshore military vessels, but they will not install the port onshore.

He was careful not to say, though, who would distribute the humanitarian aid that would be coming ashore. The only distribution personnel ashore, though, are UN, Hamas terrorists, and the IDF.

The PRC Wants Us Out Of There

The People’s Republic of China wants our technology and hardware out of that nation in its drive for self-sufficiency.

The 2022 Chinese government directive expands a drive that is muscling US technology out of the country—an effort some refer to as “Delete A,” for Delete America.
Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren’t allowed to make copies, people familiar with the matter said. It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027.

Biden and the Iranian Mullahs

The Iranian nuclear weapons program is nearing breakout.

The [International Atomic Energy Agency] has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to [Iran’s] production and inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water, and uranium ore concentrate.

And

The Institute for Science and International Security, which has followed Iran’s program for years, says Iran can enrich enough uranium for 13 nuclear weapons, seven in the first month of a breakout.

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s response:

Let us be clear: we continue to have serious concerns related to the stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran continues to maintain.

The Next Step

It’s becoming necessary. I wrote yesterday about the need for tariffs on a variety of tech-oriented goods that the People’s Republic of China is heavily subsidizing for production and export.

It’s rapidly becoming necessary—if it hasn’t been for some time already—to take the next step vis-à-vis trade with the PRC.

Trade routes snaking through former Soviet republics Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are among the many paths into Russia for so-called dual-use goods—singled out by the US and its allies because they can be used on the battlefield.
Despite their efforts, Central Asia is a growing pipeline for Russia, made possible by thousands of miles of open borders, opaque trade practices and opportunistic middlemen. The goods often originate in China, where they are manufactured in some cases by major US companies, which say the items are being imported by Russia without their permission.

Tariffs

When considering the utility of tariffs, it’s useful to keep in mind that foreign trade has very little to do with economics and very much to do with foreign policy. Tariffs, within that framework, can be either good or bad, although as with any tools used in any conflict, they won’t come without cost.

Hamas in a Post-War Gaza Governing Body?

Among the ideas being kicked around by some Middle East nations is this:

One plan for postwar Gaza being formulated by five Arab states could see the Islamist Hamas movement being folded into the widely secular Palestine Liberation Organization, ending the yearslong split between Palestinian factions.

And this, regarding any sort of role for Hamas:

Some senior members of Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, are still seeking reconciliation with Hamas….

No. Even the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (the PLO fronts for the Palestinian Authority internationally) Number Two, Hussein Al-Sheikh, is opposed to Hamas. He’s right.