Category: Foreign Policy

Trump: ‘Only one thing will work’ with North Korea

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President Trump on Saturday continued to dismiss a diplomatic approach in handling North Korea’s escalating nuclear ambitions, saying “only one thing will work.”

“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators,” Trump wrote in tweets.

“Sorry, but only one thing will work!” he added.

Trump’s tweets alluding to possible military action in dealing with the crisis on the Korean Peninsula echoed his comments last Sunday in which he argued that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea.

The president said that his administration would “do what has to be done” in response to actions from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he referred to as “Little Rocket Man.”

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have remained heightened in recent months, though relations between Trump and Tillerson have also gained fresh interest recently amid differing comments on the U.S. approach to North Korea.

Tillerson held a hastily-scheduled press conference on Wednesday to push back on reports that he considered resigning over the summer. Trump later expressed confidence in his chief diplomat, and officials emphasized that the administration was working together.

North Korea has put the international community on alert in recent months after testing a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles, including two over Japanese airspace.

Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea on the floor of the United Nations last month, prompting the country’s foreign minister to threaten to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean.

[The Hill]

Trump Says Tillerson Is ‘Wasting His Time’ on North Korea

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President Trump undercut his own secretary of state on Sunday, calling his effort to open lines of communication with North Korea a waste of time, and seeming to rule out a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear-edged confrontation with Pyongyang.

A day after Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said he was reaching out to Pyongyang in hopes of starting a new dialogue, Mr. Trump belittled the idea and left the impression that he was focused mainly on military options. Mr. Trump was privately described by advisers as furious at Mr. Tillerson for contradicting the president’s public position that now is not the time for talks.

“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, using the derogatory nickname he has assigned to Kim Jong-un , the North Korean leader. “Save your energy Rex,” he added , “we’ll do what has to be done!”

While some analysts wondered if the president was intentionally playing bad cop to the secretary’s good cop, veteran diplomats said they could not remember a time when a president undermined his secretary of state so brazenly in the midst of a tense situation, and the episode raised fresh questions about how long Mr. Tillerson would remain in his job.

A former chief executive of Exxon Mobil with no prior government experience, Mr. Tillerson has been deeply frustrated and has told associates that he tries to ignore the president’s Twitter blasts. But these would be hard to disregard as Mr. Tillerson returned from China , where he was trying to enlist more support from North Korea’s primary trading partner and political patron.

“It may be intended as a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, but the tweet is so over the top that it undercuts Tillerson,” said Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. “It’s hard to imagine any other president speaking in this manner.”

Christopher R. Hill, who under President George W. Bush was the last American negotiator to reach a significant agreement with North Korea, said, “Clearly, it is part of his management style, which seems to be to undermine his people at every turn.” While Mr. Hill took issue with the way Mr. Tillerson handled his disclosure in Beijing on Saturday, “Trump’s tweet undermines Tillerson’s visit, leaving his interlocutors wondering why they are wasting the time to speak with him.”

But Michael Green, who was Mr. Bush’s chief Asia adviser, said the time was not ripe yet for talks. “The president is right on this one in the sense that Pyongyang is clear it will not put nuclear weapons on the negotiating table, nor will the current level of sanctions likely convince them to do so, though an effective sanctions regime might in time,” he said.
Indeed, several hours after his initial tweets, Mr. Trump seemed to preclude the possibility that the time might ever be ripe, without laying out his own preferred strategy. “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now?” he wrote , evidently referring not just to Mr. Kim, who took over six years ago, but also his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder. “Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”

North Korea has provoked a conflict with the United States and its Asian allies in recent weeks with its sixth test of a nuclear bomb and its first successful tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially deliver a warhead to the United States mainland. Mr. Trump has responded by vowing to “totally destroy” North Korea if forced to defend the United States or its allies, while ratcheting up economic pressure through sanctions.

Mr. Tillerson told reporters traveling with him in Beijing on Saturday that he was seeking a diplomatic solution. “We are probing, so stay tuned,” he said. For the first time, he disclosed that the United States had two or three channels to Pyongyang asking “Would you like to talk?” Therefore, he said, “we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout.”
There have been no indications that Mr. Kim is any more interested in talks than Mr. Trump. He has responded to the president’s threats with more of his own, castigating Mr. Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and suggesting through his foreign minister that he might order the first atmospheric nuclear test the world has seen in 37 years.

Negotiations with North Korea have long proved frustrating to American leaders. Mr. Bush and President Bill Clinton both tried talks and granted concessions while ultimately failing to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. But national security analysts have said there is no viable military option at this point without risking devastating casualties.

White House officials made no official comment on Mr. Tillerson’s disclosure or Mr. Trump’s reaction, but advisers privately said the president was upset at being caught off guard. At the same time, they did not rule out diplomacy as a possible path forward eventually. On the campaign trail last year, Mr. Trump expressed a willingness to negotiate with Mr. Kim over a hamburger. He plans to visit China, South Korea and Japan in November, among other destinations, to keep up regional pressure on Pyongyang.

Despite the president’s message, Mr. Tillerson’s spokeswoman said diplomacy remained possible. “#DPRK will not obtain a nuclear capability,” Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter after Mr. Trump’s tweet, using initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Diplomatic channels are open for #KimJongUn for now. They won’t be open forever.” She did not explain what she meant about not obtaining a nuclear capability, which North Korea already has.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States had no choice but to seek a diplomatic agreement.
“I think that there’s more going on than meets the eye,” he said on “Meet the Press” on NBC before the president’s tweets. “I think Tillerson understands that every intelligence agency we have says there’s no amount of economic pressure you can put on North Korea to get them to stop this program because they view this as their survival.”

While advisers said Mr. Trump’s comments were born out of aggravation at Mr. Tillerson, he could be attempting his own version of Richard M. Nixon’s “madman” theory, casting himself as trigger-happy to bolster the bargaining power of his aides. Mr. Trump has often talked about the value of seeming willing to pull out of agreements like the Iran nuclear deal, South Korea free trade pact and Paris climate accords, to stake out a position in negotiations.

But this is qualitatively different. A misreading of North Korea could result in an atmospheric nuclear test or an artillery barrage against Seoul, the South Korean capital. Mr. Kim likes to play madman as well. Yet he has little incentive to begin talks now and may be betting that in the end the Trump administration would settle for a freeze in testing, leaving him with a medium-size nuclear force that serves his purposes.

North Korea has divided administrations over strategy before. When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in 2001 that the new Bush administration would continue Mr. Clinton’s approach, Mr. Bush angrily called Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, and instructed her to tell the secretary to correct himself. Mr. Powell then publicly fell on his sword and said he had gotten “too far forward” on his skis. When Mr. Bush was ready for negotiations in his second term, Mr. Hill found persistent resistance from Vice President Dick Cheney.

But none encountered the sort of public contradiction from the president that Mr. Tillerson did. Mr. Trump has made clear he does not mind publicly breaking with cabinet secretaries, as he did last summer when he castigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions as “very weak.” And he has contradicted Mr. Tillerson before as well, launching a harsh broadside against the Persian Gulf state of Qatar barely an hour after the secretary of state called for a “calm and thoughtful dialogue.”

Mr. Tillerson’s comments in Beijing on Saturday night did not appear spontaneous. After hours in the Great Hall of the People, where he met separately with China’s foreign minister, state councilor and then President Xi Jinping, he sat down with a group of American reporters in the living room of the home of the American ambassador, Terry Branstad.

He appeared relaxed, though tired after more than a day of travel, and was forthright, if typically brief, about his efforts to lower the temperature between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim and open a diplomatic channel.

He volunteered that there had been “direct contact” with North Korea and emphasized the point several times. His comment seemed surprising because just days before, speaking at a conference in Washington, the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, had said there had been no diplomatic contact, and that if it began “hopefully it will not make it into The New York Times.”

[The New York Times]

Reality

Trump has pushed American policy toward less diplomatic solutions when dealing with foreign policy, by cutting the State Department’s budget and refusing to hire ambassadors to key positions.

US Sees ‘No Indication’ Iran Launched a Ballistic Missile, Despite Trump Tweet

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US intelligence radars and sensors “picked up no indication” of an Iranian ballistic missile launch in the days surrounding a reported test, according to a Trump administration official familiar with the latest US assessment.

Iranian reports that the nation tested a new ballistic missile so far does not appear to be true, the official said, adding: “As far as we can see, it did not happen.”
State-run broadcaster Press TV reported the launch on Saturday, according to footage broadcast on Iranian state television.

“Iran has released footage of the successful test-launch of its new ballistic missile, Khorramshahr, a few hours after it was unveiled during a military parade in the capital city of Tehran,” Press TV said.

But the telemetry, or electronic signals, of a ballistic missile launch would have been picked up by a variety of US assets in the region who keep an around the clock eye on Iran’s weapons activities, the official said.

President Donald Trump tweeted about the apparent launch on Saturday: “Iran just test fired a ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!”

The footage shown on Iranian television appears most likely to be a re-run of a previous test launch, the official said.

The official did not know if Trump received an intelligence briefing about the launch before sending the tweet.

Fox News was the first to report that the US believes the launch did not take place.

[CNN]

Sarah Sanders Defends Trump’s ‘Destroy North Korea’ Remarks by Taking Obama Way Out of Context

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President Donald Trump set the international community ablaze today by saying America could destroy North Korea if the rogue nation continues its international aggression. The president’s debut before the United Nations is drawing massive intrigue from the media and political worlds, and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is justifying Trump’s remarks by saying they’re not so different from what predecessor Barack Obama has said.

There’s a slight problem though: the context and framing of the remarks are quite different.

Sanders was referring to an interview Obama gave to CBS last year, where the former president talked about the reasons why North Korea is a major diplomatic challenge.

Here are Obama’s remarks, emphasis ours:

“It’s not something that lends itself to an easy solution. We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals. But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, Republic of Korea. One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defense systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we’re also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they’re posing right now.”

In this sense, Obama was giving a matter-of-fact statement about what America is capable of in terms of military might. He did not, however, recommend the destruction of the Hermit Kingdom as a viable resolution to the crisis.

When Trump delivered his speech today, he indicated that America is “ready, willing, and able” to attack the rogue nation if they continue their weapons testing and the U.N. cannot bring the Kim regime under control.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able. But hopefully, this will not be necessary.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees

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Trump administration officials, under pressure from the White House to provide a rationale for reducing the number of refugees allowed into the United States next year, rejected a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost.

The draft report, which was obtained by The New York Times, contradicts a central argument made by advocates of deep cuts in refugee totals as President Trump faces an Oct. 1 deadline to decide on an allowable number. The issue has sparked intense debate within his administration as opponents of the program, led by Mr. Trump’s chief policy adviser, Stephen Miller, assert that continuing to welcome refugees is too costly and raises concerns about terrorism.

Advocates of the program inside and outside the administration say refugees are a major benefit to the United States, paying more in taxes than they consume in public benefits, and filling jobs in service industries that others will not. But research documenting their fiscal upside — prepared for a report mandated by Mr. Trump in a March presidential memorandum implementing his travel ban — never made its way to the White House. Some of those proponents believe the report was suppressed.

The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees “contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government” between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. “Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.”

But White House officials said those conclusions were illegitimate and politically motivated, and were disproved by the final report issued by the agency, which asserts that the per-capita cost of a refugee is higher than that of an American.

“This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data,” said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. “The actual report pursuant to the presidential memorandum shows that refugees with few skills coming from war-torn countries take more government benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services than the average population, and are not a net benefit to the U.S. economy.”

John Graham, the acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the health department, said: “We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents” and that no report had been finalized. He noted that Mr. Trump’s memorandum “seeks an analysis related to the cost of refugee programs. Therefore, the only analysis in the scope of H.H.S.’s response to the memo would be on refugee-related expenditures from data within H.H.S. programs.”

The three-page report the agency ultimately submitted, dated Sept. 5, does just that, using government data to compare the costs of refugees to Americans and making no mention of revenues contributed by refugees.

“In an average year over the 10-year period, per-capita refugee costs for major H.H.S. programs totaled $3,300,” it says. “Per-person costs for the U.S. population were lower, at $2,500, reflecting a greater participation of refugees in H.H.S. programs, especially during their first four years” in the United States.

It was not clear who in the administration decided to keep the information out of the final report. An internal email, dated Sept. 5 and sent among officials from government agencies involved in refugee issues, said that “senior leadership is questioning the assumptions used to produce the report.” A separate email said that Mr. Miller had requested a meeting to discuss the report. The Times was shown the emails on condition that the sender not be identified. Mr. Miller personally intervened in the discussions on the refugee cap to ensure that only the costs — not any fiscal benefit — of the program were considered, according to two people familiar with the talks.

He has also played a crucial role in the internal discussions over refugee admissions, which are capped by an annual presidential determination that is usually coordinated by the National Security Council and led in large part by the State Department.

This year, officials at the State Department as well as the Department of Defense have argued vociferously that the United States should admit no fewer than the 50,000-refugee cap that Mr. Trump imposed in January as part of the travel ban, but Mr. Miller has advocated for a much lower number — half or less, according to people familiar with the internal talks who described them on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to detail them. The Department of Homeland Security last week proposed a cap of 40,000. The limits being debated would be the lowest in more than three decades.

“We see an administration that’s running a program that it’s intent on destroying,” said Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS, one of nine refugee resettlement agencies opposing the cut in admissions. “We do have champions in the White House and in the administration, but they’re not being given a voice in this.”

The issue is coming to a head as Mr. Trump attends the United Nations General Assembly this week for the first time as president. The United Nations has repeatedly appealed to nations to resettle 1.2 million refugees fleeing war and persecution from all over the world, and former President Barack Obama used the gathering last year to tout his goal of admitting 110,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ends this month, and to pressure other countries to follow the lead of the United States in embracing more displaced people.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, has highlighted his goal of radically cutting refugee admissions. The president moved swiftly after taking office to crack down on refugees, issuing his original ban against travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries only a week after taking office.

Facing legal challenges to that order, his administration released a second travel ban two months later against six countries, along with a presidential memorandum in which Mr. Trump called on the secretary of state to consult with the secretaries of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security and his White House budget director and submit within 180 days “a report detailing the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program at the federal, state, and local levels, along with recommendations about how to curtail those costs.”

The budget Mr. Trump released in May argued that refugees and other immigrants were a fiscal drain. “Under the refugee program, the federal government brings tens of thousands of entrants into the United States, on top of existing legal immigration flows, who are instantly eligible for time-limited cash benefits and numerous noncash federal benefits, including food assistance through SNAP, medical care and education, as well as a host of state and local benefits,” the document said.

It would be less costly, it argued, if there were fewer refugees, since “each refugee admitted into the United States comes at the expense of helping a potentially greater number out of country.” Inside the administration, those who espouse this view argue that any research purporting to illustrate fiscal benefits of refugees is flawed and reflects only wishful thinking.

As Mr. Trump deliberates privately about the issue, a coalition of human rights and religious groups as well as former national security officials in both parties has formed to encourage him not to allow the refugee cap to plummet.

“From a national security standpoint, while we can’t take an unlimited number of refugees, we need to show our friends and allies that we stand with them and this is a shared burden,” said Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security under George W. Bush.

“They’ve generated a lot of economic value,” Mr. Chertoff added in an interview. “I don’t think refugees are coming to take American jobs.”

Trump’s Plan to End Qatar-Saudi Arabia Deadlock Fails

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President Trump’s plan to de-escalate the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Qatar ended in failure this week after the two countries released conflicting statements hours after a phone call organized by Trump.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that a phone call late Friday between the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, was meant to find common ground between the two nations. Instead, the two countries attacked each other hours later in the media over which country capitulated and agreed to peace negotiations first.

“The problem is as much about appearing to not capitulate to the other side as it is trying to solve any problems,” Michael Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute told the Times.

“Given the hypersensitivity of both sides to appearing weak,” he added, “it makes the problem considerably harder to solve.”

Trump himself seemed to hint that he was favoring Saudi Arabia in the negotiations on Thursday in comments at the White House, saying that “massive funding of terrorism by certain countries” was still a huge problem. Trump has accused the country of sponsoring terrorism in the region in the past.

“If they don’t stop the funding of terrorism, I don’t want them to come together,” he added.

Trump called the two leaders separately on Friday, urging them to work together to end terrorism in the region and work with the United States to counter Iran’s influence.

Unity among the Arab nations “is essential to promoting regional stability and countering the threat of Iran,” read a White House read out of the calls.

Trump “also emphasized that all countries must follow through on commitments from the Riyadh Summit to defeat terrorism, cut off funding for terrorist groups, and combat extremist ideology,” it added.

[The Hill]

Trump Demands China Action: ‘I Want Tariffs. And I Want Someone to Bring Me Some Tariffs’

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President Donald Trump recently dismissed some of his senior staff as globalists and demanded that someone draw up a plan for tariffs that would affect China, Axios reported Sunday evening.

Citing multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting — and noting that the White House had not disputed the accounts —the outlet reported that Trump had issued the demand during an Oval Office meeting with top advisors.

“So, John, I want you to know, this is my view. I want tariffs. And I want someone to bring me some tariffs,” Axios quotes the president as saying to John Kelly, his chief of staff.

Trump then reportedly ended his meeting by saying: “I know there are some people in the room right now that are upset. I know there are some globalists in the room right now. And they don’t want them, John, they don’t want the tariffs. But I’m telling you, I want tariffs.”

People in the meeting — which was set to be about plans to investigate China for intellectual property theft — included U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, trade advisor Peter Navarro, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, according to Axios.

Here’s the non-denial that the White House gave to Axios: “The president has been very clear about his agenda as it relates to trade. Discussions pertaining to specific tariffs and trade deals are ongoing and have already resulted in many positive developments.”

[CNBC]

Trump Thanks Putin for Expelling U.S. Diplomats to Dismay of State Department

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President Donald Trump on Thursday thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling American diplomats from Russia on the grounds that “we’re going to save a lot of money,” prompting dismay among some of the rank-and-file at the State Department.

“I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I’m concerned I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a pool report.

“There’s no real reason for them to go back,” he added. “I greatly appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We’re going to save a lot of money.”

Russia recently announced that it would expel hundreds of American diplomats from Russia in retaliation for new sanctions the U.S. put on the Kremlin. Those sanctions are in response to Russia’s suspected attempts to meddle in last year’s U.S. presidential election through a disinformation campaign and cyberattacks on Democratic Party officials.

Trump, whose campaign’s relationship with Russia is the subject of an ongoing federal investigation, had pushed back against the sanctions bill, but signed it into law after it passed Congress with veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

The State Department has not yet released the details of how it will handle the drawdown. But many, if not most, of the positions cut will likely be those of locally hired Russian staffers, though the local staff who are let go will likely get severance payments. Cost savings are possible in the long run.

The U.S. diplomats forced to leave Moscow will in most cases be sent to other posts, sources said.

Trump’s remarks did not go down well among the rank-and-file at the State Department, some of whom noted that the people who would be most affected are locally hired staff crucial to American diplomats’ work overseas.

A senior U.S. diplomat serving overseas called Trump’s remarks “outrageous” and said it could lead more State Department staffers to head for the exits.

“This is so incredibly demoralizing and disrespectful to people serving their country in harm’s way,” the diplomat said.

“I kid you not, I have heard from three different people in the last five minutes,” one State Department official told POLITICO shortly after Trump’s comments. “Everyone seems pretty amazed. This statement is naive and shortsighted. It sends a terrible signal to local employees everywhere.”

“THANK Putin?” another bewildered State Department official responded. “I don’t have words that are printable to describe my reaction.”

The reaction to Trump’s comments on social media was equally as withering, with many suggesting he simply didn’t understand how the U.S. Foreign Service is structured and others shocked by his gesture to Putin.

Nicholas Burns, who served as undersecretary of state for political affairs during the second Bush administration, called Trump’s statement “shameful.”

“He justifies mistreatment of U.S. diplomats by Putin,” Burns wrote on Twitter.

Ever since Trump won the election, the State Department has felt sidelined by the president and his aides. Trump largely ignored U.S. diplomats who were ready and willing to offer him briefings when he talked to foreign leaders during the transition period. Since taking office, Trump has proposed cutting the State Department’s budget by a third, and his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is considered isolated and aloof from many of the diplomats he oversees.

[Politico]

Trump Vows North Korea Threat Will Be Met With ‘Fire and Fury’

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Amid sharply escalating tensions with North Korea, President Donald Trump on Tuesday promised “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if the country continues to threaten the United States.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president warned, responding to a reporter’s question at his Bedminster Golf Club, where Trump has spent the last several days. “They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

Trump’s remarks came just hours after reports that North Korea had developed a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a missile.

The president also said North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has been “very threatening” recently.

U.S. officials believe North Korea now has the capability to put a nuclear weapon on a missile, NBC News reported on Tuesday, confirming a report in The Washington Post. According to a U.S. official briefed on the assessment, the advance does not mean North Korea has a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can survive reentry accurately.

Last month, North Korea proved its missile capabilities have reached a point where U.S. cities are within “target range.”

The Dow dropped Tuesday, in response to the president’s warning, thus ending a 10-day streak of nine record closes in a row.

In dealing with North Korea, the Trump administration has relied heavily on China to intervene with Pyongyang and convince Kim to stop his nuclear program, but outreach and action have stalled in recent months.

Top White House advisor Kellyanne Conway called Trump’s remarks on North Korea “strong and obvious,” declining to comment further on the strategy while briefing reporters in New Jersey on the administration’s efforts against the opioid crisis.

The White House continues to insist that all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., criticized Trump’s comments as further isolating North Korea — a strategy she says has not worked to advance American goals in the region.

“The United States must quickly engage North Korea in a high-level dialogue without any preconditions,” Feinstein said in a statement, stating “in my view, diplomacy is the only sound path forward.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement: “We need to be firm and deliberate with North Korea, but reckless rhetoric is not a strategy to keep America safe.”

And Arizona Sen. John McCain said he took “exception to the President’s comments because you’ve gotta be sure you can do what you say you can do.”

Ret. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, in an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday, called the escalation with North Korea the “biggest crisis” that this Trump administration has yet to face on the global stage.

Trump has previously vowed to confront North Korea “very strongly” for testing missile launches, telling reporters during a trip last month to Warsaw, Poland that “I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinking about,” in terms of potential responses.

While Trump has said he does not “draw red lines” — a criticism he often levels of former President Barack Obama’s stated threshold in Syria — Trump’s comments Tuesday seem to draw a line at continued threatening rhetoric from North Korea.

[NBC News]

Trump Signs Russia Sanctions Bill, Then Blasts Republicans

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President Donald Trump signed into law Wednesday morning legislation that levies new sanctions against Russia and restricts Trump’s own ability to ease sanctions in place against Moscow.

The bill is one of the first major pieces of legislation that was sent to Trump’s desk, and it represents a rebuke of the President by giving Congress new veto power to block him from removing Russia sanctions.

The White House announced the signing shortly after 11 a.m. ET, saying the bill includes “a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions” that “purport to displace the President’s exclusive constitutional authority to recognize foreign governments, including their territorial bounds.”

In a separate statement, Trump said he believed the bill to be “seriously flawed” but signed it anyway.

“Still, the bill remains seriously flawed — particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate,” he said in the statement. “Congress could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking. By limiting the executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people, and will drive China, Russia, and North Korea much closer together.”

He ended the statement by saying: “I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”

Even before Trump signed the bill, the measure prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to retaliate against the US over the new sanctions, which Congress levied over Russian interference in the 2016 US election, as well as Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Syria.

In addition to the new US sanctions on Russia, former President Barack Obama seized two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland in December in response to the election meddling. Russia responded by ordering the US to cut staff at its diplomatic mission by 755 employees, as well as seizing two US diplomatic properties.

The new sanctions bill hits Russia’s energy and defense sectors, and also includes fresh sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

The measure was signed into law after it passed with overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate — which made the threat of a presidential veto a non-starter — but it was not an easy road to Trump’s desk.

After the Senate passed the sanctions on Iran and Russia 98-2, the bill languished in the House for more than a month amid a series of procedural fights. Then the House added North Korean sanctions before passing the measure 419-3, effectively forcing the Senate to swallow the new sanctions in order to get the legislation over the finish line before Congress left for its August congressional recess.

The House and Senate struck a deal to make some changes to the bill at the urging of a host of US industries and European countries, but Congress did not consider making the change that the White House wanted: removing the congressional review on Russia sanctions from the bill.

White House officials lobbied to weaken the section giving Congress a veto on the easing of sanctions, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Congress the administration should have “flexibility” to negotiate with Russia and improve relations.

But key Republican and Democratic lawmakers said that weakening congressional review was not on the table when they were finalizing the legislation.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, who initially was hesitant to pass a Russia sanctions bill before he was a key driver to get it done in July, said he has spoken to the President about the review process to try to ease the White House’s concerns.

Corker said that Congress would only veto an attempt to lessen sanctions on Russia if the administration took an “egregious” step to try to remove sanctions.

“I’ve walked the President through the process of how congressional review works,” Corker said. “The administration — knowing that unless it’s way out of bounds — likely they have the flexibility to do what they need to do.”

Corker noted that Trump has refused to believe his intelligence leaders that Russia interfered with the election, and said that may have helped push Congress to get the bill done quickly.

“I do think that the lack of strong statements in that regard probably effected the outcome,” he said.

[CNN]

Reality

In a pointed jab at lawmakers in his own party, he questioned Congress’s ability to negotiate sanctions based on its inability to approve the Republicans’ health-care legislation.

“The bill remains seriously flawed — particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate,” Trump said. “Congress could not even negotiate a healthcare bill after seven years of talking.”

According to constitutional law experts, Congress rightfully asserted its own constitutional powers to serve as a check on the executive branch, even on matters of national security.

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