Trump Fails at Foreign Policy With The New York Times

It’s a tradition for The New York Times to have a 1-on-1 interview with a presidential candidate to dig deep into their foreign policy positions so the public can come away with a better understanding. This usually happens much later in the race but this year however is not usual as the front-runner for the Republican candidacy for the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has little-to-none public foreign policy positions. So the Times reached out to Trump to get some info out of him and what we got was a rambling mess and some really bad ideas.

Some highlights of the conversation include:

• Trump would use nuclear weapons in the fight against ISIS.
• Trump had no idea who the head of China is.
• He is willing to pull troops from Japan and South Korea.
• He believes it is okay for Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons.
• He is totally cool with Saudi Arabia collapsing if they don’t join the fight with ISIS.

Reality

Stop The Donald Trump is reading the transcript of the conversation and working on an analysis, which will be coming soon.

If you don’t have an opportunity to read the transcript allow us to sum up the conversation: Trump is asked a direct question, he rambles about nothing for 200 words, then The Times reporter asks if he can please answer the question, repeat.

 

Trump got many details just plain wrong. For example:

Trump had no idea who the head of China is.

That would be President Xi Jinping

 

Some of the ideas that Trump put forward are just outright stupid and dangerous. For example:

He is willing to pull troops from Japan and South Korea.

And then what? China and North Korea become stronger which would destabilize Asia.

He believes it is okay for Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons.

And then what? Now we have an arms race in Asia, exactly what we’ve been trying to avoid for the past 50 years.

He is totally cool with Saudi Arabia collapsing if they don’t join the fight with ISIS.

And then what? With no Saudi Arabia to balance the region, Iran becomes stronger.

Links

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-transcript.html