avalon
Antwan Scott
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Official Trump: Dems favorability down to 31%! All time low! Sad!
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Demonwolverine
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I know I used to absolutely hate my parents when they wouldn't take me to Toys R Us.
ConnorEl
Well-known member
A year of Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda has radically changed the U.S. role in the world
Quote
—————
BERLIN — From the opening moments of his presidency, Donald Trump set forth a radically altered vision for the United States and its dealings with the rest of the world — one he dubbed “America first.”
Supporters say he has delivered: a military defeat of the Islamic State, greater spending by U.S. allies on defense, and a commitment to transform or abandon international agreements such as NAFTA, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord.
But the “America first” approach has also left the United States far more isolated. The overall impact of the policy, say diplomats, politicians and analysts interviewed around the world, has been a clear retrenchment of U.S. power — and an opportunity for U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia.
The American role in the world has been diminishing for years as other countries have expanded their economies, militaries and ambitions.
Foreign-policy players, however, say they see something different now: A disorderly U.S. transformation from a global leader working with partners to try to shape the world to an inwardly focused superpower that defines its international role more narrowly. The Trump administration has emphasized counterterrorism and American economic advantage in its foreign policy, while downgrading such traditional U.S. priorities as promoting human rights, democracy and international development.
Trump’s approach has won praise from countries including Israel and Saudi Arabia but is strikingly unpopular in many nations: A Gallup survey of attitudes in 134 countries that was released Thursday showed a significant drop in support for U.S. leadership in the world, from a median of nearly half of people approving under President Barack Obama to fewer than a third doing so under Trump.
“What he has achieved is a remarkable weakening of America’s moral standing,” said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the German Parliament’s foreign relations committee and an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel. “ ‘America first’ has made America weaker in the world.”
The White House did not respond to a detailed request for comment.
Across the globe, U.S. adversaries are rushing to fill the America-size void left as Washington breaks from its closest allies on trade and other international pacts. They also seek to take advantage of the confusion caused by what allies and foes have called an ill-defined and sometimes chaotic U.S. foreign policy broadcast by Trump’s tweets.
“There’s a vacuum now,” said a U.S. official who works on Middle East issues and who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment freely. “And you’re going to have some try to step in.”
At a World Trade Organization meeting last month in Buenos Aires, that someone was China.
The meeting, a biennial affair, usually delivers bromides about the advantages of global commerce along with some tweaks to the system. This time, though, U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer delivered a combative speech, accusing members of unfairly taking advantage of the group’s rules — an echo of the president’s oft-repeated denunciation of “dumb trade deals.”
Allies said they got the message: The United States was not there to find common ground.
“The whole U.S. delegation, not only Lighthizer, at all meetings and bilaterals, made clear in a very explicit way no joint declaration or a common work program could be agreed from the U.S. side,” said a European official involved in the negotiations.
Attendees watched as Chinese officials advocated more forcefully for free trade — and then worked the sidelines to seek deals with other nations, according to a senior European official who was at the meeting.
“You see them active everywhere,” the official said, adding that the buzz of Chinese activity was clear from the scores of meeting rooms the Chinese delegation booked.
In a statement, Lighthizer said that he was ready to make worthwhile deals but that poor agreements weaken the global trading system.
“It is fatuous for the Europeans to blame the United States for the failure of the WTO to arrive at negotiated outcomes in Buenos Aires,” Lighthizer said. “The E.U. approach — which is to agree to a deal simply for the sake of doing so — is antithetical to the global trading system. And to be clear, China got nothing from the ministerial.”
Trade is not the only area in which China has seen opportunity. The emerging superpower also has benefited from a storm of acrimony in recent weeks between Washington and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that has long had a tense partnership with the United States.
As Trump has tweeted about the “lies and deceit” of the Pakistani government and his administration suspended nearly $2 billion in military aid, China has gleefully stepped in to offer support. In recent years, the Chinese have committed to a $62 billion infrastructure plan in the region. Pakistan has taken pains to differentiate between the two powers.
“China is a strategic partner, while the ties with Washington are tactical,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the defense committee in the Pakistani Senate.
Many diplomats and policymakers say they think Washington will remain the preeminent global power but with greatly dimmed ambitions — even after Trump’s tenure in the White House.
“The U.S. is not the reinsurance company for the global order. It’s no longer the guarantor of last resort,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament who works on transatlantic issues. “If the beacon on the hill doesn’t shine anymore, that has an impact.”
The impact can be seen in the fact that even longtime U.S. allies such as India, Turkey and Latin American nations are casting about elsewhere for dependable friends. Indian leaders have worked to deepen strategic relationships with Japan, Australia, Israel and other countries. Mexico, meanwhile, has accelerated free-trade talks with Argentina, Brazil and Europe.
Trump’s victory threw Mexico into a near state of emergency. Several key Trump goals — building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, deporting more illegal immigrants and radically altering the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA — could pose acute threats to Mexico’s economy.
The country’s worst fears have not been realized, but avoiding a crisis takes constant effort.
“A bloody roller coaster,” in the words of a Mexican official, “trying to read between the lines, between the tweets, between the different messages coming from whomever you spoke to last, including the president himself, then trying to decide what to make out of it.”
Röttgen said that Trump was so unpredictable that some European leaders had become more cautious about seeking to meet with him.
“It’s open to accidents. It’s unpredictable. It’s always seen from a transactional viewpoint,” he said.
A top adviser to one European leader said they no longer try to schedule time with Trump on the sidelines of summits. “Always, you’re looking for a chance to meet up with the U.S. president,” the adviser said. But now, that leader communicates via lower-level, less volatile U.S. officials, the adviser said.
Still, most of Washington’s closest European allies continue to seek discussions with the president. Norway’s prime minister visited the White House this month. French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking a meeting with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, if the federal government shutdown doesn’t prevent him from making the trip. And leaders who once fretted that Trump would abandon some of Washington’s core international commitments are now reassured by robust U.S. troop deployments across Europe.
But even those who enthusiastically embraced the Trump administration have been nonplused by the president’s style and decisions.
Early in Trump’s tenure, for example, Egyptian officials sensed they finally had a U.S. president who understood them. The Obama administration had been reviled by the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi for its focus on human rights and democracy.
But Trump’s tweets and confusing U.S. policy moves have proved frustrating — and alienating. By August, Egyptians were fuming after the U.S. government, citing human rights concerns, cut or delayed nearly $300 million in assistance. Then came the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.
“Now we have a situation where the words are not enough,” said the U.S. official who works on Middle East issues. “In the early days of the administration, the words meant something. President Trump’s praise of Sissi meant something. Now, between the August decision and the Jerusalem decision, they have lost faith.”
Trump’s policies still win praise in some quarters. Saudi officials enthusiastically greeted him in a May visit, delighted that Trump had rejected Obama-era policies that were less hawkish toward Iran. And in Israel, views of the United States have markedly improved under Trump, who has been far more supportive of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than Obama was.
Trump “has brought fresh thinking to the White House,” said Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely. “He understands the region better than those experts who warned that if he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or moves the embassy to Jerusalem, the Middle East will explode. It did not explode.”
But prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, already dim, have evaporated.
“There won’t be peace — no negotiations, no normalization, and the Middle East will be sitting on a volcano” until the decision is reversed, said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Trump administration has escalated the U.S. offensive against Islamist insurgents in places including Somalia and Afghanistan, and given American military commanders more latitude in decision-making as they fought the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq.
In Somalia, the U.S. military carried out at least 34 airstrikes in 2017 compared with roughly 14 in 2016. But some officials at the State Department have raised questions about the amplified Pentagon role. There has not been a proportionate increase in diplomatic activity in Somalia. Instead, the size of the U.S. diplomatic mission has shrunk, and the U.S. ambassadorship there has not been filled.
Airstrikes and other military action can have knock-on effects that politically savvy experts could help avert, but “because the department’s footprint is so limited compared to the military engagement, diplomats lack the bandwidth,” said a former State Department official.
A similar dynamic is at play in Afghanistan.
At a ceremony in Kandahar in November to showcase refurbished Black Hawk helicopters being provided to the Afghan government, the top U.S. military commander, Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., gave an upbeat speech about defeating Taliban insurgents.
But off to one side, a group of invited local elders, clad in turbans and robes, conferred in worried whispers over an entirely different issue.
“We must speak to him about the elections. Everyone is very worried,” one elder said.
As soon as Nicholson and his interpreter had sat down, the group bombarded him with concerns, saying that the plans for national elections in July were being undermined by political pressures, ethnic bias and other problems. If the Americans did not intervene, they warned him, the elections could turn into a disaster.
Nicholson smiled and promised to pass on their concerns. But the general’s mandate does not include politics, and there has been far less diplomatic focus on Afghanistan than was the case under Obama. The country was without a U.S. ambassador until last month, and a special U.S. envoy post has been scrubbed.
Over the past year, some U.S. allies have said they worried about being kept in the dark as the U.S. government developed its plans for military action. A delegation of senior E.U. ambassadors responsible for security policy for the 28-nation group traveled to Washington in late June and sought details from U.S. officials about the new administration’s foreign policy. One said he returned to Europe “in despair.”
The diplomat said he received no useful guidance about the administration’s strategy in Iran, Syria or Afghanistan — or, crucially, about how to interpret the president’s increasingly belligerent tweets aimed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The war of words between Washington and Pyongyang dominates a long list of apprehensions for U.S. allies for 2018 but is seen as an opportunity for others.
In response to Trump’s volatile brand of dealmaking and brinkmanship, Moscow has sought to present itself as a trustworthy interlocutor.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in September that Moscow was ready to mediate the dispute between Trump and Kim, which he likened to a “kindergarten fight.”
Some officials have noted the irony of Russia and China presenting themselves as guarantors of stability and global free trade.
When the Trump administration last January pulled out of negotiations over a 12-nation trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, 11 would-be members of the pact were left to work out the details without U.S. input. The deal had long been seen as an alternative to a Chinese regional economic order.
The U.S. exit gave Chinese President Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of one of the world’s most tightly controlled economies, the chance to present himself as a champion of globalization.
The Chinese “haven’t had to spend any energy to emerge much more clearly as the global leader that they aspire to be,” said David Rank, who resigned as acting U.S. ambassador to China over the administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.
Meanwhile, Rank said, U.S. influence is ebbing.
“For my entire career except for the last four days of it, the question in foreign capitals, was ‘What does Washington think about this?’ ” Rank said. “I suspect that is not the case anymore.”
—————
Quote
—————
BERLIN — From the opening moments of his presidency, Donald Trump set forth a radically altered vision for the United States and its dealings with the rest of the world — one he dubbed “America first.”
Supporters say he has delivered: a military defeat of the Islamic State, greater spending by U.S. allies on defense, and a commitment to transform or abandon international agreements such as NAFTA, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord.
But the “America first” approach has also left the United States far more isolated. The overall impact of the policy, say diplomats, politicians and analysts interviewed around the world, has been a clear retrenchment of U.S. power — and an opportunity for U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia.
The American role in the world has been diminishing for years as other countries have expanded their economies, militaries and ambitions.
Foreign-policy players, however, say they see something different now: A disorderly U.S. transformation from a global leader working with partners to try to shape the world to an inwardly focused superpower that defines its international role more narrowly. The Trump administration has emphasized counterterrorism and American economic advantage in its foreign policy, while downgrading such traditional U.S. priorities as promoting human rights, democracy and international development.
Trump’s approach has won praise from countries including Israel and Saudi Arabia but is strikingly unpopular in many nations: A Gallup survey of attitudes in 134 countries that was released Thursday showed a significant drop in support for U.S. leadership in the world, from a median of nearly half of people approving under President Barack Obama to fewer than a third doing so under Trump.
“What he has achieved is a remarkable weakening of America’s moral standing,” said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the German Parliament’s foreign relations committee and an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel. “ ‘America first’ has made America weaker in the world.”
The White House did not respond to a detailed request for comment.
Across the globe, U.S. adversaries are rushing to fill the America-size void left as Washington breaks from its closest allies on trade and other international pacts. They also seek to take advantage of the confusion caused by what allies and foes have called an ill-defined and sometimes chaotic U.S. foreign policy broadcast by Trump’s tweets.
“There’s a vacuum now,” said a U.S. official who works on Middle East issues and who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment freely. “And you’re going to have some try to step in.”
At a World Trade Organization meeting last month in Buenos Aires, that someone was China.
The meeting, a biennial affair, usually delivers bromides about the advantages of global commerce along with some tweaks to the system. This time, though, U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer delivered a combative speech, accusing members of unfairly taking advantage of the group’s rules — an echo of the president’s oft-repeated denunciation of “dumb trade deals.”
Allies said they got the message: The United States was not there to find common ground.
“The whole U.S. delegation, not only Lighthizer, at all meetings and bilaterals, made clear in a very explicit way no joint declaration or a common work program could be agreed from the U.S. side,” said a European official involved in the negotiations.
Attendees watched as Chinese officials advocated more forcefully for free trade — and then worked the sidelines to seek deals with other nations, according to a senior European official who was at the meeting.
“You see them active everywhere,” the official said, adding that the buzz of Chinese activity was clear from the scores of meeting rooms the Chinese delegation booked.
In a statement, Lighthizer said that he was ready to make worthwhile deals but that poor agreements weaken the global trading system.
“It is fatuous for the Europeans to blame the United States for the failure of the WTO to arrive at negotiated outcomes in Buenos Aires,” Lighthizer said. “The E.U. approach — which is to agree to a deal simply for the sake of doing so — is antithetical to the global trading system. And to be clear, China got nothing from the ministerial.”
Trade is not the only area in which China has seen opportunity. The emerging superpower also has benefited from a storm of acrimony in recent weeks between Washington and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that has long had a tense partnership with the United States.
As Trump has tweeted about the “lies and deceit” of the Pakistani government and his administration suspended nearly $2 billion in military aid, China has gleefully stepped in to offer support. In recent years, the Chinese have committed to a $62 billion infrastructure plan in the region. Pakistan has taken pains to differentiate between the two powers.
“China is a strategic partner, while the ties with Washington are tactical,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the defense committee in the Pakistani Senate.
Many diplomats and policymakers say they think Washington will remain the preeminent global power but with greatly dimmed ambitions — even after Trump’s tenure in the White House.
“The U.S. is not the reinsurance company for the global order. It’s no longer the guarantor of last resort,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament who works on transatlantic issues. “If the beacon on the hill doesn’t shine anymore, that has an impact.”
The impact can be seen in the fact that even longtime U.S. allies such as India, Turkey and Latin American nations are casting about elsewhere for dependable friends. Indian leaders have worked to deepen strategic relationships with Japan, Australia, Israel and other countries. Mexico, meanwhile, has accelerated free-trade talks with Argentina, Brazil and Europe.
Trump’s victory threw Mexico into a near state of emergency. Several key Trump goals — building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, deporting more illegal immigrants and radically altering the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA — could pose acute threats to Mexico’s economy.
The country’s worst fears have not been realized, but avoiding a crisis takes constant effort.
“A bloody roller coaster,” in the words of a Mexican official, “trying to read between the lines, between the tweets, between the different messages coming from whomever you spoke to last, including the president himself, then trying to decide what to make out of it.”
Röttgen said that Trump was so unpredictable that some European leaders had become more cautious about seeking to meet with him.
“It’s open to accidents. It’s unpredictable. It’s always seen from a transactional viewpoint,” he said.
A top adviser to one European leader said they no longer try to schedule time with Trump on the sidelines of summits. “Always, you’re looking for a chance to meet up with the U.S. president,” the adviser said. But now, that leader communicates via lower-level, less volatile U.S. officials, the adviser said.
Still, most of Washington’s closest European allies continue to seek discussions with the president. Norway’s prime minister visited the White House this month. French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking a meeting with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, if the federal government shutdown doesn’t prevent him from making the trip. And leaders who once fretted that Trump would abandon some of Washington’s core international commitments are now reassured by robust U.S. troop deployments across Europe.
But even those who enthusiastically embraced the Trump administration have been nonplused by the president’s style and decisions.
Early in Trump’s tenure, for example, Egyptian officials sensed they finally had a U.S. president who understood them. The Obama administration had been reviled by the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi for its focus on human rights and democracy.
But Trump’s tweets and confusing U.S. policy moves have proved frustrating — and alienating. By August, Egyptians were fuming after the U.S. government, citing human rights concerns, cut or delayed nearly $300 million in assistance. Then came the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.
“Now we have a situation where the words are not enough,” said the U.S. official who works on Middle East issues. “In the early days of the administration, the words meant something. President Trump’s praise of Sissi meant something. Now, between the August decision and the Jerusalem decision, they have lost faith.”
Trump’s policies still win praise in some quarters. Saudi officials enthusiastically greeted him in a May visit, delighted that Trump had rejected Obama-era policies that were less hawkish toward Iran. And in Israel, views of the United States have markedly improved under Trump, who has been far more supportive of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than Obama was.
Trump “has brought fresh thinking to the White House,” said Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely. “He understands the region better than those experts who warned that if he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or moves the embassy to Jerusalem, the Middle East will explode. It did not explode.”
But prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, already dim, have evaporated.
“There won’t be peace — no negotiations, no normalization, and the Middle East will be sitting on a volcano” until the decision is reversed, said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Trump administration has escalated the U.S. offensive against Islamist insurgents in places including Somalia and Afghanistan, and given American military commanders more latitude in decision-making as they fought the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq.
In Somalia, the U.S. military carried out at least 34 airstrikes in 2017 compared with roughly 14 in 2016. But some officials at the State Department have raised questions about the amplified Pentagon role. There has not been a proportionate increase in diplomatic activity in Somalia. Instead, the size of the U.S. diplomatic mission has shrunk, and the U.S. ambassadorship there has not been filled.
Airstrikes and other military action can have knock-on effects that politically savvy experts could help avert, but “because the department’s footprint is so limited compared to the military engagement, diplomats lack the bandwidth,” said a former State Department official.
A similar dynamic is at play in Afghanistan.
At a ceremony in Kandahar in November to showcase refurbished Black Hawk helicopters being provided to the Afghan government, the top U.S. military commander, Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., gave an upbeat speech about defeating Taliban insurgents.
But off to one side, a group of invited local elders, clad in turbans and robes, conferred in worried whispers over an entirely different issue.
“We must speak to him about the elections. Everyone is very worried,” one elder said.
As soon as Nicholson and his interpreter had sat down, the group bombarded him with concerns, saying that the plans for national elections in July were being undermined by political pressures, ethnic bias and other problems. If the Americans did not intervene, they warned him, the elections could turn into a disaster.
Nicholson smiled and promised to pass on their concerns. But the general’s mandate does not include politics, and there has been far less diplomatic focus on Afghanistan than was the case under Obama. The country was without a U.S. ambassador until last month, and a special U.S. envoy post has been scrubbed.
Over the past year, some U.S. allies have said they worried about being kept in the dark as the U.S. government developed its plans for military action. A delegation of senior E.U. ambassadors responsible for security policy for the 28-nation group traveled to Washington in late June and sought details from U.S. officials about the new administration’s foreign policy. One said he returned to Europe “in despair.”
The diplomat said he received no useful guidance about the administration’s strategy in Iran, Syria or Afghanistan — or, crucially, about how to interpret the president’s increasingly belligerent tweets aimed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The war of words between Washington and Pyongyang dominates a long list of apprehensions for U.S. allies for 2018 but is seen as an opportunity for others.
In response to Trump’s volatile brand of dealmaking and brinkmanship, Moscow has sought to present itself as a trustworthy interlocutor.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in September that Moscow was ready to mediate the dispute between Trump and Kim, which he likened to a “kindergarten fight.”
Some officials have noted the irony of Russia and China presenting themselves as guarantors of stability and global free trade.
When the Trump administration last January pulled out of negotiations over a 12-nation trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, 11 would-be members of the pact were left to work out the details without U.S. input. The deal had long been seen as an alternative to a Chinese regional economic order.
The U.S. exit gave Chinese President Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of one of the world’s most tightly controlled economies, the chance to present himself as a champion of globalization.
The Chinese “haven’t had to spend any energy to emerge much more clearly as the global leader that they aspire to be,” said David Rank, who resigned as acting U.S. ambassador to China over the administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.
Meanwhile, Rank said, U.S. influence is ebbing.
“For my entire career except for the last four days of it, the question in foreign capitals, was ‘What does Washington think about this?’ ” Rank said. “I suspect that is not the case anymore.”
—————
Newenglanddeac
Well-known member
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Tourism to the United States has dropped 4 percent during President Trump's time in the White House, NBC News reported.
Travel spending has dropped by 3.3 percent, or $4.6 billion, and 40,000 jobs have been lost, according to the network, which cited the latest data from the National Travel and Tourism Office.
The U.S. is also no longer the world's second-most popular destination for foreign travel, NBC News reported.
Experts say Trump's series of travel bans and some of his rhetoric could have had an impact on travel to the U.S., the network added.
avalon
Antwan Scott
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The Trump train heads off to Davos. A good way to keep them out of trouble, I guess.
In Davos, Trump faces the powerful 'establishment' he's repeatedly shredded
WakeandBake
Well-known member
lol, hey read this shit
http://theweek.com/articles/750314/trumpistas-dont-care-about-american-democracy
http://theweek.com/articles/750314/trumpistas-dont-care-about-american-democracy
Newenglanddeac
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- 390
This is a frightening read. Especially the Pat Buchanan article the piece links to: "Nationalism or Democracy?"
WakeandBake
Well-known member
It’s a scene, man
Newenglanddeac
Well-known member
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- 390
Newenglanddeac
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 1, 2011
- Messages
- 13,135
- Reaction score
- 390
Lol he is such a wuss
PhDeac
PM a mod to cement your internet status forever
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Definitely something a dictator would demand from the leader of a democracy.
ConnorEl
Well-known member
Americans Are Rising to This Historic Moment
Somebody linked to this piece from The Atlantic in the last few days and I finally got around to reading it. I don’t remember where it was referenced, but I’ll post it here. Worth a read, IMO.
Somebody linked to this piece from The Atlantic in the last few days and I finally got around to reading it. I don’t remember where it was referenced, but I’ll post it here. Worth a read, IMO.
ConnorEl
Well-known member
As Strongmen Steamroll Their Opponents, U.S. Is Silent
Quote
—————
CAIRO — When it comes to securing a second term in power, Egypt’s president is leaving little to chance.
Potential rivals in the March election have been sidelined, jailed or threatened with prosecution. The news media is largely in his pocket. On polling day, Egyptians will have a choice between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and one of his most ardent supporters — an obscure politician drafted at the 11th hour to avoid the embarrassment of a one-horse race.
As he cruises toward victory, Mr. Sisi need not worry either about foreign censure: President Trump, who has hailed the Egyptian leader as a “fantastic guy,” and most other Western leaders have been largely silent.
Across the world, autocratic leaders are engaging in increasingly brazen behavior — rigging votes, muzzling the press and persecuting opponents — as they dispense with even a fig leaf of democratic practice once offered to placate the United States or gain international legitimacy.
The global tide is driven by a bewildering range of factors, including the surge of populism in Europe, waves of migration and economic inequality. And leaders of countries like Egypt, which had long been sensitive to Washington’s influence, know they run little risk of rebuke from an American president who has largely abandoned human rights and the promotion of democracy in favor of his narrow “America First” agenda.
In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled the country for 33 years, has led a sweeping crackdown on opponents before elections this summer. In November, Mr. Trump flashed a big thumbs-up as he posed for a photo with Mr. Hun Sen, who later praised the American president for what he called his lack of interest in human rights.
In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernández was inaugurated for a second term on Saturday amid uproar from opposition figures who accused him of rigging the vote, and despite calls for a new election from the Organization of American States. Washington ignored the O.A.S. findings, with the American chargé d’affaires offering only tepid statements calling on all sides to behave peacefully.
And the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, who once was forced to surrender power for four years to respect his Constitution, has barred the main opposition challenger in the March election, virtually assuring that he will win a fourth term. Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desires for closer ties with Mr. Putin.
Despite decades of lofty American talk of democracy and human rights, espoused by every president since Jimmy Carter, policies have prioritized security and strategic considerations over principle. And the C.I.A. torture program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks further undermined America’s standing.
Mr. Trump has barely paid lip service to the promotion of universal human rights, and experts say his warm embrace of hard-line leaders like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose antidrug drive has killed thousands of his own citizens without due process, has only encouraged their worst excesses.
“The issue is a troubling one,” Stewart M. Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an email. “Trump’s lionizing of the ‘strong’ leadership qualities of authoritarian personalities like Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, and Sisi — as well as his own attacks on free press at home — cannot help but to embolden their efforts to crack down on civil society and crush dissent in their own countries.”
Trump administration officials question the value of publicly lecturing friendly autocrats about their record, arguing that such criticisms are more effectively made in private. Last year, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said that while American “values” like freedom and human dignity still underpinned American policies abroad, insisting that others adopt those values “creates obstacles” to advancing American security and economic interests.
Mr. Trump, however, has not hesitated to use human rights as a cudgel against unfriendly countries, like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, whose records he criticized in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Critics say that by not confronting allies, Mr. Trump is ceding valuable leverage over strongmen, who, despite their worst actions, still care about their international image.
“Bad governments behave badly, no matter what,” said Tom Malinowski, who was assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Obama administration. “But they take the expected American reaction into account when making decisions.”
Citing the example of Egypt, Mr. Malinowski added: “If you’re going to send your security forces out to kill a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, knowing the U.S. is going to be in your face when it happens, and that it could have an impact on security cooperation, that’s a factor. It doesn’t mean you’ll do everything the Americans want. But it does probably mean that fewer people get killed.”
American rhetoric on human rights is seen cynically in parts of the world where Washington has a history of selectively embracing despots.
During the Cold War, the United States allied with Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo; the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi; and Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile. More recently, President Barack Obama was openly disdainful of Mr. Sisi’s harsh tactics yet left untouched America’s $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt.
Even so, an American president’s rhetoric can make a significant difference.
“Yes, realpolitik often wins out over values, and it often seems steeped in hypocrisy,” said Michael Wahid Hanna of The Century Foundation in New York. But, he added, espousal of those values by American officials “is neither 100 percent cynical, nor is it inconsequential.”
One good example of that is in Egypt where, although American policy has long been driven by security concerns, activists say there was traditionally a valuable margin for human rights issues.
“Maybe 85 percent of the time they were supportive of the regime and stability,” said Heba Morayef of Amnesty International. “But there was a lot we could with the other 15 percent.”
But under President Trump, that margin has drastically shrunk, and now Mr. Sisi is heading for re-election in what the Project on Middle East Democracy this week called “the most repressive political environment in Egypt’s modern history.”
In the past month, four prominent challengers to Mr. Sisi have quit the race. Ahmed Shafik, a former prime minister, withdrew after being held for a month at a Cairo hotel where security officials threatened to prosecute him on corruption charges.
Last week Sami Anan, a former army chief with longstanding ties to the United States, dropped out after being imprisoned by the military on charges of forgery and incitement. Days later Mr. Anan’s running mate was beaten up outside his home by pro-government thugs.
In a muted response, a State Department spokeswoman noted Mr. Anan’s arrest with “concern” and said officials were “watching the situation very closely.”
Now Mr. Sisi’s sole challenger is Moussa Moustapha Moussa, an architect with longstanding loyalties to Egypt’s security services. Mr. Moussa is best known for helping President Hosni Mubarak split a small opposition party in 2008, in part by leading a gang of thugs that smashed the party’s offices and set it on fire.
The Trump administration did rebuke Mr. Sisi last summer when it froze or canceled over $290 million in military aid over concerns about Egypt’s covert ties to North Korea and a law passed by Mr. Sisi sharply restricting aid work in Egypt, especially by Western organizations.
But any critical message for Mr. Sisi was overshadowed by Mr. Trump’s praise for his rule.
Mr. Trump’s priorities are further underscored by his failure to appoint an assistant secretary of state for human rights, and by Mr. Tillerson’s unusual snubbing last year of the presentation for the release of the State Department’s annual report on global human rights.
Mr. Trump is not alone in his silence over countries like Egypt. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany, also grappling with the surge in populist politics in their own countries, have said little about Mr. Sisi’s election crackdown as well.
The most senior Western visitor to Cairo of late was the French spy chief who, according to the Egyptian presidency, expressed his appreciation to Mr. Sisi for his efforts in bringing peace to the region.
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Quote
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CAIRO — When it comes to securing a second term in power, Egypt’s president is leaving little to chance.
Potential rivals in the March election have been sidelined, jailed or threatened with prosecution. The news media is largely in his pocket. On polling day, Egyptians will have a choice between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and one of his most ardent supporters — an obscure politician drafted at the 11th hour to avoid the embarrassment of a one-horse race.
As he cruises toward victory, Mr. Sisi need not worry either about foreign censure: President Trump, who has hailed the Egyptian leader as a “fantastic guy,” and most other Western leaders have been largely silent.
Across the world, autocratic leaders are engaging in increasingly brazen behavior — rigging votes, muzzling the press and persecuting opponents — as they dispense with even a fig leaf of democratic practice once offered to placate the United States or gain international legitimacy.
The global tide is driven by a bewildering range of factors, including the surge of populism in Europe, waves of migration and economic inequality. And leaders of countries like Egypt, which had long been sensitive to Washington’s influence, know they run little risk of rebuke from an American president who has largely abandoned human rights and the promotion of democracy in favor of his narrow “America First” agenda.
In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled the country for 33 years, has led a sweeping crackdown on opponents before elections this summer. In November, Mr. Trump flashed a big thumbs-up as he posed for a photo with Mr. Hun Sen, who later praised the American president for what he called his lack of interest in human rights.
In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernández was inaugurated for a second term on Saturday amid uproar from opposition figures who accused him of rigging the vote, and despite calls for a new election from the Organization of American States. Washington ignored the O.A.S. findings, with the American chargé d’affaires offering only tepid statements calling on all sides to behave peacefully.
And the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, who once was forced to surrender power for four years to respect his Constitution, has barred the main opposition challenger in the March election, virtually assuring that he will win a fourth term. Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desires for closer ties with Mr. Putin.
Despite decades of lofty American talk of democracy and human rights, espoused by every president since Jimmy Carter, policies have prioritized security and strategic considerations over principle. And the C.I.A. torture program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks further undermined America’s standing.
Mr. Trump has barely paid lip service to the promotion of universal human rights, and experts say his warm embrace of hard-line leaders like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose antidrug drive has killed thousands of his own citizens without due process, has only encouraged their worst excesses.
“The issue is a troubling one,” Stewart M. Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an email. “Trump’s lionizing of the ‘strong’ leadership qualities of authoritarian personalities like Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, and Sisi — as well as his own attacks on free press at home — cannot help but to embolden their efforts to crack down on civil society and crush dissent in their own countries.”
Trump administration officials question the value of publicly lecturing friendly autocrats about their record, arguing that such criticisms are more effectively made in private. Last year, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said that while American “values” like freedom and human dignity still underpinned American policies abroad, insisting that others adopt those values “creates obstacles” to advancing American security and economic interests.
Mr. Trump, however, has not hesitated to use human rights as a cudgel against unfriendly countries, like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, whose records he criticized in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Critics say that by not confronting allies, Mr. Trump is ceding valuable leverage over strongmen, who, despite their worst actions, still care about their international image.
“Bad governments behave badly, no matter what,” said Tom Malinowski, who was assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Obama administration. “But they take the expected American reaction into account when making decisions.”
Citing the example of Egypt, Mr. Malinowski added: “If you’re going to send your security forces out to kill a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, knowing the U.S. is going to be in your face when it happens, and that it could have an impact on security cooperation, that’s a factor. It doesn’t mean you’ll do everything the Americans want. But it does probably mean that fewer people get killed.”
American rhetoric on human rights is seen cynically in parts of the world where Washington has a history of selectively embracing despots.
During the Cold War, the United States allied with Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo; the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi; and Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile. More recently, President Barack Obama was openly disdainful of Mr. Sisi’s harsh tactics yet left untouched America’s $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt.
Even so, an American president’s rhetoric can make a significant difference.
“Yes, realpolitik often wins out over values, and it often seems steeped in hypocrisy,” said Michael Wahid Hanna of The Century Foundation in New York. But, he added, espousal of those values by American officials “is neither 100 percent cynical, nor is it inconsequential.”
One good example of that is in Egypt where, although American policy has long been driven by security concerns, activists say there was traditionally a valuable margin for human rights issues.
“Maybe 85 percent of the time they were supportive of the regime and stability,” said Heba Morayef of Amnesty International. “But there was a lot we could with the other 15 percent.”
But under President Trump, that margin has drastically shrunk, and now Mr. Sisi is heading for re-election in what the Project on Middle East Democracy this week called “the most repressive political environment in Egypt’s modern history.”
In the past month, four prominent challengers to Mr. Sisi have quit the race. Ahmed Shafik, a former prime minister, withdrew after being held for a month at a Cairo hotel where security officials threatened to prosecute him on corruption charges.
Last week Sami Anan, a former army chief with longstanding ties to the United States, dropped out after being imprisoned by the military on charges of forgery and incitement. Days later Mr. Anan’s running mate was beaten up outside his home by pro-government thugs.
In a muted response, a State Department spokeswoman noted Mr. Anan’s arrest with “concern” and said officials were “watching the situation very closely.”
Now Mr. Sisi’s sole challenger is Moussa Moustapha Moussa, an architect with longstanding loyalties to Egypt’s security services. Mr. Moussa is best known for helping President Hosni Mubarak split a small opposition party in 2008, in part by leading a gang of thugs that smashed the party’s offices and set it on fire.
The Trump administration did rebuke Mr. Sisi last summer when it froze or canceled over $290 million in military aid over concerns about Egypt’s covert ties to North Korea and a law passed by Mr. Sisi sharply restricting aid work in Egypt, especially by Western organizations.
But any critical message for Mr. Sisi was overshadowed by Mr. Trump’s praise for his rule.
Mr. Trump’s priorities are further underscored by his failure to appoint an assistant secretary of state for human rights, and by Mr. Tillerson’s unusual snubbing last year of the presentation for the release of the State Department’s annual report on global human rights.
Mr. Trump is not alone in his silence over countries like Egypt. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany, also grappling with the surge in populist politics in their own countries, have said little about Mr. Sisi’s election crackdown as well.
The most senior Western visitor to Cairo of late was the French spy chief who, according to the Egyptian presidency, expressed his appreciation to Mr. Sisi for his efforts in bringing peace to the region.
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dartsndeacs
THE quintessential dwarf
As someone who has seen The West Wing like 6 times in its entirety, it sure seems odd that the current Toby Zeigler is a 29 year old former model.
PhDeac
PM a mod to cement your internet status forever
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Who is dating a 40 year old wife beater.
Gooner
Pit League Fantasy Football Commissioner
THE DEUCE
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It could not be any more clearer.....Trump and Trump Republicans are RUBES