Tag Archives: foreign policy

Political Tactics

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal says the “Ukraine call” will

leak eventually, so Trump might as well get it out.

No.  Telecons between American and foreign heads of state must, necessarily, remain strictly between heads of state, else it’ll be impossible for an American President to engage in “frank and open” dialog and polylog with foreign leaders or to conduct serious foreign policy in general.  No transcript should be released.

Alternatively, and in second place in the order of priorities for such things, let the leak(s) occur.  Then release the transcript and let the truth burn the leaker(s) and those who jumped onto the leak-related opprobrium bandwagon knowing they didn’t have the facts.

In the realization, something close to that second place has already happened.  In their hysteria to get President Donald Trump and to undo the outcome of an election the Progressive-Democrats consider to be their personal property stolen, the House Progressive-Democratic caucus has forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) to authorize an “impeachment investigation.”  In the immediate wake of that stampede, Trump has decided, with the permission and agreement of Ukraine’s President Volodomy Zelenskiy, to release the unredacted transcript of the call, with the so-called whistleblower’s “complaint” to be released by week’s end.

And that will be irrelevant, at least in the eyes of Progressive-Democrats: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) is saying it doesn’t matter what the transcript says; Party wants to “see what happened.”  Because the transcript isn’t actually what happened.

“Trump Repeatedly Pressured Ukraine President”

Posted on by
Reply

…regarding Biden’s intervention with Ukraine’s law enforcement in favor of his son.  At least that’s how The Wall Street Journal has characterized a phone call between heads of state.

Except that’s not what happened, and to call it “pressure” is to insult, grievously, the mettle and courage of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.  In that phone call, Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate Biden’s role in getting Ukraine’s Prosecutor Generall, Viktor Shokin fired in order to get a billion dollars in already promised aid to Ukraine.

No one serious, though, sees requests as pressure.  There were no or elses; not even the WSJ alleges that. Nor have the tabloids that have taken up the cry, The Washington Post or The New York Times.  Nor is there any reason to believe Zelensky is such a Milquetoast as to feel pressured because someone merely asked him to do something.  Indeed, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko was blunt and clear:

I know what the conversation was about, and I think there was no pressure.  There was talk, conversations are different, leaders have the right to discuss any problems that exist. This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.

And

President Trump is interested, his advisor, Giuliani, newspapers, Democrats, Republicans are interested in whether pressure had been put on Ukraine.  I want to say that we are an independent state, we have our own secrets.

No pressure.  Except, perhaps in the minds of Progressive-Democrats who are projecting their own responses to such questions.

Which brings me to Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ex-Vice President (during the time of his threat vis-à-vis that Prosecutor Genera) Joe Biden and his distortion of the current situation.

He is violating every basic norm of a president. He’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me.

Because the truth is smearing.

On the contrary, the abuse of power and the misuse of every element of the presidency is Biden’s own interference with that Ukrainian investigation into his son’s role in what the Ukrainians were investigating as an illegal, if not criminal, activity.  He demanded Shokin be fired so the investigation couldn’t go forward, or he would withhold all that foreign aid.

And then Biden bragged about his successful interference at a US Council on Foreign Relations event.

I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. … He got fired.

That’s pressure, and it was successfully applied by a badly misbehaving American Vice President.

One more thing.  Progressive-Democrats and their communications facility, the press, all have the vapors because Trump is insisting misbehavior be investigated.  As though it’s OK to misbehave, so long as it’s a Progressive-Democrat government official doing the misbehavior.  It puts me in mind of a remark reported to have been made by then-President Richard Nixon (R), that “if the President does it, that means it’s legal.”  I’ll paraphrase, slightly. It seems to be the position of the Left that “if a Progressive-Democrat mucky-muck does it, that means it’s legal.”

No.  Wrong-doing should be investigated, thoroughly, regardless of who’s suspected of doing it.  And that’s what Trump is insisting on.

Powell and Trump

Posted on by
Reply

Nick Timiraos, writing in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, is concerned with messaging from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to President Donald Trump—is Powell being too subtle, or does he need to answer more explicitly, Trump’s often heated admonishments?  Timiraos is concerned particularly against the backdrop of the often deprecatory nature of Trump’s opprobrium.

This is headed into a cul-de-sac, though.

The question of Fed messaging—to Trump or anyone else—shouldn’t even come up. The Fed’s role is to maintain stable pricing, full employment, and low interest rates.

Full stop.

Accordingly, the Fed Chairman and members of the BoG should stay out of politics. The Fed does its job by setting its benchmark rates at levels historically consistent with its target annual inflation rate of 2%—two of its mandated tasks. Full employment falls out of that.

Having done that much, the men of Fed governance need to sit down and be quiet, accepting that free market forces will cause all three of those goals to fluctuate—and self-correct—except in the most extreme conditions.

All of that precludes, or should preclude, the Fed members from chasing stock/bond markets—and international trade activity, which is much more about foreign policy—politics—than it is about economics.

Powell also is on the wrong path, though, when he says,

The thing we can’t address, really, is what businesses would like, which is a settled road map for international trade. We can’t do that. We don’t have that tool[.]

It’s a tool the Fed doesn’t need.  What businesses need is a stable domestic economic environment. A stable political environment, both domestic and international, would certainly be useful, too, but that’s a…political…environment and up to the political arms of government to generate. It’s outside the purview of the Fed.

It’s especially not the Fed’s job to counteract the foreign policy moves of the Executive Branch.

EU Version of Brexit

Posted on by
Reply

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says that the risk of a no-deal Brexit is very real.  He also says he told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

…I have no emotional attachment to the backstop.  But I made clear that I do have an intimate connection to its commitments. I have asked the prime minister to make, in writing, alternatives.

The commitment of the backstop, the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which violates a central premise of the vote to leave the EU—British control of British borders—still amounts to a backdoor to partitioning Great Britain. Keep in mind that one of the EU’s early offers on this backstop was that Great Britain could put its hard border on the Irish Sea coast—an offer quickly deleted when its purpose was recognized as too obviously presented.

On top of that, Juncker has shown his unseriousness in these “negotiations” with his demand that Great Britain offer all the alternatives. Juncker has no need, apparently, to stoop so low as to offer his own.

Indeed, led by chief negotiator Michel Barnier,

EU negotiators say that he [Johnson] is yet to offer a viable replacement solution.

Because if they offered their own solution, and Great Britain accepted it, then Juncker and his court would have actually to say, “Yes,” finally.

It’s hard to see how negotiations can get more bad faith than this.  Juncker is like an emperor on the throne awaiting the pleas of his supplicant.

Strength of Consent

Posted on by
Reply

The people of Hong Kong are in their 15th straight week of protest against the People’s Republic of China’s moves to intervene in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, to impose yet more PRC controls over a nominally free, “two systems” city.

People of all ages, many unmasked and some carrying children, walked more than 2 miles from a shopping district, where usually busy stores were shuttered, to downtown Hong Kong. Many chanted, “Five demands! Not one less!,” “Fight for freedom!” and “Revolution of our times!”

Those five demands, which do not add up to freedom, but are a necessary early step on the path to freedom, are these:

  • independent inquiry into allegations of police brutality
  • amnesty for arrested protesters
  • electoral reforms to allow Hong Kongers to vote for their own leaders
  • formal withdrawal of the extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong citizens (and anyone else arrested) to be sent to the PRC for trial and jail
  • Hong Kong Executive Carrie Lam’s resignation

Lam has “promised” to formally withdraw the extradition bill, but she has not honored her promise, and she has categorically rejected the others. Lam’s “promise” was a cynical effort to divide and weaken the protest movement.

However, as The Wall Street Journal put it in the article at the link,

The scale of the crowds Sunday evoked mass marches earlier this summer, suggesting efforts by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to weaken and divide the opposition movement are having little effect, and the crisis remains a challenge for the Chinese leadership in Beijing.

This protestor illustrates the matter.

The PRC’s President Xi Jinping has a golden opportunity, here, to demonstrate the strength of consenting to the citizens’ demands, but he’s overtly eschewing it. He, and his Chinese Communist Party cronies, are simply too insecure to take the step.  And not just politically: they’re personally and emotionally too insecure.