Trump's Foreign Policy May Turn Out Even Worse Than His Domestic Policies!

After bashing her personally and gratuitously all during the campaign last year-- benefactor Comrade Putin hates her-- Señor Trumpanzee welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House today. And that was the best part of American foreign relations this week. Less susceptible to a smiley face was what happened with Trump trying to worm his way out from under his Adderall-fueled tweet about Obama tapping his wires... by blaming the British. That wasn't appreciated in London and, although the report from The Telegraph about "a formal apology" was, let's say, not completely accurate, the Regime promised not to make the patently false claims again. Has anyone told Trumpanzee?

After the British spy honchos issued a statement slapping down Spicey Spice by saying that "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect are nonsense; they are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored," there were claims that McMaster (the largely ignored National Security Advisor) and Spicey personally apologized. McMaster apologized to Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Theresa May's National Security adviser and Spicey contacted Sir Kim Darroch, Britain's ambassador in DC. Did they now? And Trumpanzee? He's still pissed off his state visit was cancelled in such a humiliating fashion and that he's not allowed to meet the Queen or address Parliament. And the cardboard Secretary of State, T-Rex? He was busy stirring up a war with North Korea. Oh, yeah... that.

So, according to bemused Korean officials, T-Rex had to cut his visit to South Korea short because of "fatigue." But not before plenty of crazy saber-rattling. At a joint news conference in Seoul with Korea's ’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se Friday Tillerson-- sans the traditional U.S. reporters in tow-- declared that the existing "strategic patience" approach is over, saying all options including military action are on the table. He needs a nappy? Today he's off to Beijing.

“Let me be very clear: the policy of strategic patience has ended. We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security, economic measures. All options are on the table.”

His remarks represent the Donald Trump administration’s strongest signal yet that it would take a much tougher stance than its predecessors including Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” policy.

“Certainly we do not want for things to get to a military conflict, we’re quite clear on that in our communications, but obviously if North Korea takes actions that threaten the South Korean forces or our own forces, then that would be met with an appropriate response,” he said.

“If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, that option is on the table.”

Tillerson has said his maiden Asia tour, which also took him to Tokyo and includes a stop in Beijing from Saturday, is aimed at exchanging views on a “new approach” toward Pyongyang.

David Sanger's NY Times report was even more ominous, Tillerson rejecting talks with North Korea altogether! "Tillerson," he wrote, "ruled out on Friday opening any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and said for the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action 'if they elevate the threat of their weapons program' to an unacceptable level." Chimp-in-chief tweeted this earlier today:

I guess the idea that the U.S. only attacks non-nuclear powers-- like Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan-- while leaving nuclear-armed states-- like Russian and Iran-- alone, is being tested here.

Mr. Tillerson’s comments in Seoul, a day before he travels to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders, explicitly rejected any return to the bargaining table in an effort to buy time by halting North Korea’s accelerating testing program. The country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said on New Year’s Day that North Korea was in the “final stage” of preparation for the first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

The secretary of state’s comments were the Trump administration’s first public hint at the options being considered, and they made clear that none involved a negotiated settlement or waiting for the North Korean government to collapse.

“The policy of strategic patience has ended,” Mr. Tillerson said, a reference to the term used by the Obama administration to describe a policy of waiting out the North Koreans, while gradually ratcheting up sanctions and covert action.

Negotiations “can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction,” he said-- a step to which the North committed in 1992, and again in subsequent accords, but has always violated. “Only then will we be prepared to engage them in talks.”

His warning on Friday about new ways to pressure the North was far more specific and martial sounding than during the first stop of his three-country tour, in Tokyo on Thursday. His inconsistency of tone may have been intended to signal a tougher line to the Chinese before he lands in Beijing on Saturday. It could also reflect an effort by Mr. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to issue the right diplomatic signals in a region where American commitment is in doubt.

...On Friday afternoon, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone and peering into North Korean territory in what has become a ritual for American officials making a first visit to the South, Mr. Tillerson explicitly rejected a Chinese proposal to get the North Koreans to freeze their testing in return for the United States and South Korea suspending all annual joint military exercises, which are now underway.

Mr. Tillerson argued that a freeze would essentially enshrine “a comprehensive set of capabilities” North Korea possesses that already pose too great a threat to the United States and its allies, and he said there would be no negotiation until the North agreed to dismantle its programs.

Mr. Tillerson ignored a question about whether the Trump administration would double down on the use of cyberweapons against the North’s missile development, a covert program that Mr. Obama accelerated early in 2014 and that so far has yielded mixed results.

Instead, Mr. Tillerson referred vaguely to a “number of steps” the United States could take-- a phrase that seemed to embrace much more vigorous enforcement of sanctions, ramping up missile defenses, cutting off North Korea’s oil, intensifying the cyberwar program and striking the North’s known missile sites. At a meeting of the “principals committee” of the National Security Council on Monday, any discussion of military action was kicked down the road.

...[C]lassified assessments of the North that the Obama administration left for its successors included a grim assessment by the intelligence community: that North Korea’s leader, Mr. Kim, believes his nuclear weapons program is the only way to guarantee the survival of his regime and will never trade it away for economic or other benefits.

The assessment said that the example of what happened to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime leader of Libya, had played a critical role in North Korean thinking. Colonel Qaddafi gave up the components of Libya’s nuclear program in late 2003-- most of them were still in crates from Pakistan-- in hopes of economic integration with the West. Eight years later, when the Arab Spring broke out, the United States and its European allies joined forces to depose Colonel Qaddafi, who was eventually found hiding in a ditch and executed by Libyan rebels.

On Friday, after his visit to the Demilitarized Zone, Mr. Tillerson returned to Seoul for meetings about a problem that has quickly reached crisis proportions because of a series of recent, and successful, nuclear and missile tests.

Among many experts, the idea of a freeze has been favored as the least terrible of a series of bad options. Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert who worked on Mr. Obama’s National Security Council, and Toby Dalton wrote recently in Politico, “A temporary freeze on missile and nuclear developments sounds better than an unconstrained and growing threat. It is also, possibly, the most logical and necessary first step toward an overall agreement between the U.S. and North Korea. But the risk that North Korea will cheat or hide facilities during a negotiated freeze is great.”

William J. Perry, who was secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, said in Beijing on Friday that the Trump administration would have to offer North Korea security assurances if it wanted to escape an increasingly dangerous spiral of confrontation. Previous administrations had mistakenly based their policies on the assumption that North Korea would collapse on their watch, Mr. Perry told a small group of reporters.

“I see very little prospect of a collapse,” he said. “For eight years in the Obama administration and eight years in the Bush administration, they were expecting that to happen. As a consequence, their policies were not very effective. I would think that the United States and other countries as well should stop expecting a collapse in North Korea.”

Mr. Perry said that American policy makers needed to grasp that North Korea’s leaders regarded their own survival in power, and especially the continuation of the Kim dynasty, as more important than improving the economy. He said that as long as the goal of the United States remained completely eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons, “I think we will continue to be unsuccessful.”

“It will take initiative, primarily by the United States, to be willing to talk with North Korea,” he said.

In Asia, on his first major trip overseas as secretary of state, Mr. Tillerson has been heavily scripted in his few public comments, and he has gone out of his way to make sure he is not subject to questions beyond highly controlled news conferences, at which his staff chooses the questioners. In a breach of past practice, he traveled without the usual State Department press corps, which has flown on the secretary’s plane for roughly half a century.

Heavily scripted. I guess that means Bannon wants to see how far they can push North Korea (and China). Disturbed by this kind of "diplomacy?" So was Ted Lieu: "As a Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a veteran, I call on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop making provocative comments about pre-emptive attacks on North Korea. North Korea is a danger to regional peace and security and their leader is crazy. But fighting crazy with crazy is a recipe for disaster. We need to de-escalate regional tensions on the Korean peninsula, not ratchet them up. Any attack by the U.S. on North Korea would likely result in retaliation against South Korea or Japan or other nations. What is President Trump and Secretary Tillerson’s plan for protecting the U.S. troops and civilians in South Korea and Japan from being slaughtered? Any plan to fully take out North Korea’s nuclear program would also likely require a ground invasion. President Trump needs to articulate a clear strategy with regards to peace and security in the region before our Secretary of State potentially starts a war in North Korea." And Trump's been president for how many days so far?


UPDATE: That Was Some Crappy Joint Press Conference!

It didn't look like Merkel has to worry about Trump grabbing her pussy-- or anything else. Those two looked like they wanted to kill each other. And when photographers asked for a handshake, he just stared ahead dumbly. Even when she asked to do a handshake, for the cameras, he just stared straight ahead, like a real asshole. Look:



But the best moment was when the German reporter stepped right out of Hans Christian Andersen's Emperor's New Clothes and asked the world's most notorious liar, "Why do keep saying things you know are not true?" U.S. reporters are too pathetic to ever conceive of any such obvious question and looked absolutely shocked.