President Donald Trump, after promising a radical break with the foreign policy of Barack Obama, is embracing key pillars of the former administration’s strategy, including warning Israel to curb construction of settlements, demanding that Russia withdraw from Crimea and threatening Iran with sanctions for ballistic missile tests.
In the most startling shift, the Trump White House issued an unexpected statement appealing to the Israeli government not to expand the construction of Jewish settlements beyond their current borders in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Such expansion, it said, “may not be helpful in achieving” the goal of peace.
At the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki Haley declared that the U.S. would not lift sanctions against Russia until it stopped destabilizing Ukraine and pulled its troops out of Crimea.
facebook twitter email Share More Videos 2:49 Police identify suspect in 2013 fatal stabbing Pause 3:02 Alex Jenkins is the Food Dude 1:44 New Hornet Miles Plumlee 1:30 Super Bowl 51: Players to Watch 2:19 Trump boasts executive orders in first weekly address 3:05 Hidden Figures 0:57 Girls watch Hidden Figures movie 5:49 Fayetteville police rescue woman and child from car trapped in flood waters live on Facebook 0:30 Wheelchair-bound student makes big assist 2:27 Concerto for Percussion Share Video
Trump administration eases Russian sanctions to allow U.S. tech exports
Press Secretary Sean Spicer during a press conference on Thursday said the Treasury Department amended recent sanctions imposed by the Obama administration that prevented U.S. companies from exporting electronic products to Russia.
C-SPAN
Press Secretary Sean Spicer during a press conference on Thursday said the Treasury Department amended recent sanctions imposed by the Obama administration that prevented U.S. companies from exporting electronic products to Russia.
On Iran, the administration is preparing a set of economic sanctions that are similar to what the Obama administration imposed on Iran just over a year ago. The White House has also shown no indication that it plans to rip up Obama’s landmark nuclear deal, despite Trump’s withering criticism of it during the presidential campaign.
New administrations often fail to change the foreign policies of their predecessors as radically as they promised, in large part because statecraft is so different from campaigning. But the Trump administration’s reversals were particularly stark because they came after days of tempestuous phone calls between Trump and foreign leaders, in which he gleefully challenged diplomatic orthodoxy and appeared to jeopardize one relationship after another.
facebook twitter email Share More Videos 2:49 Police identify suspect in 2013 fatal stabbing Pause 3:02 Alex Jenkins is the Food Dude 1:44 New Hornet Miles Plumlee 1:30 Super Bowl 51: Players to Watch 2:19 Trump boasts executive orders in first weekly address 3:05 Hidden Figures 0:57 Girls watch Hidden Figures movie 5:49 Fayetteville police rescue woman and child from car trapped in flood waters live on Facebook 0:30 Wheelchair-bound student makes big assist 2:27 Concerto for Percussion Share Video
Trump administration putting ‘Iran on notice’
Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn describes the recent “provocative” actions by Iran that led the administration to officially put Iran on notice.
The White House
Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn describes the recent “provocative” actions by Iran that led the administration to officially put Iran on notice.
Trump, for example, made warmer relations with Russia the centerpiece of his foreign policy during the campaign, and European leaders were steeling themselves for him to lift the sanctions that they and Obama imposed on President Vladimir Putin after he annexed Crimea. But on Thursday, his U.N. ambassador, Haley, sounded a lot like her predecessor, Samantha Power.
BREAKING: US Amb. to UN Haley: "I must condemn the aggressive actions of Russia" in eastern Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/rj7YQURxNO
“We do want to better our relations with Russia,” Haley said in her first remarks to an open session of the U.N. Security Council. “However, the dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions.”
Similarly, Trump presented himself during the campaign as a stalwart supporter of Israel and sharply criticized the Obama administration for allowing the passage of a resolution last month at the Security Council that condemned Israel for its expansion of settlements.
“While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace,” the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said in a statement, “the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.”
facebook twitter email Share More Videos 2:49 Police identify suspect in 2013 fatal stabbing Pause 3:02 Alex Jenkins is the Food Dude 1:44 New Hornet Miles Plumlee 1:30 Super Bowl 51: Players to Watch 2:19 Trump boasts executive orders in first weekly address 3:05 Hidden Figures 0:57 Girls watch Hidden Figures movie 5:49 Fayetteville police rescue woman and child from car trapped in flood waters live on Facebook 0:30 Wheelchair-bound student makes big assist 2:27 Concerto for Percussion Share Video
Kerry defends Obama’s UN vote
Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Obama administration’s decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal. Kerry warned that Israel’s future as a democracy is at stake. “If the choice is one state, Israel can eit
AP
Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Obama administration’s decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal. Kerry warned that Israel’s future as a democracy is at stake. “If the choice is one state, Israel can eit
The statement noted that the president “has not taken an official position on settlement activity.” It said Trump would discuss the issue with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they meet Feb. 15, in effect telling him to wait until then.
Emboldened by Trump’s support, Israel had announced more than 5,000 new homes in the West Bank since his inauguration.
Trump’s shift came after he met briefly with King Abdullah II of Jordan on the sidelines of the National Prayer Breakfast – an encounter that put the king, one of the most respected leaders of the Arab world, ahead of Netanyahu in seeing the new president. Jordan, with its large Palestinian population, has been steadfastly critical of settlements.
The administration’s abrupt shift also coincided with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s first day at the State Department, and the arrival of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in South Korea on his first trip. Both men are viewed as potentially exerting a moderating influence on the president and his cadre of White House advisers, though it was unclear how much they had to do with the policy shifts.
With Iran, the administration has indisputably taken a harder line than its predecessor. While the Obama administration often looked for reasons to avoid confrontation with Iran in its last year in office, Trump seems equally eager to challenge what he has said is an Iranian expansion across the region, especially in Iraq and Yemen.
Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile.Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!
Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion
In an early morning tweet on Friday, Trump was bombastic on Iran.
“Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile,” he wrote. “Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!” In the second tweet, he said wrongly that “Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion.”
Still, the administration has been careful not to specify what it meant when the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, said Wednesday that Iran had been put “on notice” for its missile test and for the arming and training of the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The new sanctions could be announced as soon as Friday. But most experts have said they will have little practical effect, because the companies that supply missile parts rarely have direct business with the U.S., and allies have usually been reluctant to reimpose sanctions after many were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear accord.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, replied, “This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran,” according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency. “The American government will understand that threatening Iran is useless.”
Some analysts said they worried that the administration did not have tools, short of military action, to back up its warning to Iran.
“Whether the Trump administration intended it or not, they have created their own red line,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “When Iran tests again, the administration will have no choice but to put up or shut up.”
Netanyahu will cheer Trump’s tough tone with Iran. But the administration’s action on settlements may force him to change course on a sensitive domestic issue. His coalition government seemed to take Trump’s inauguration as a starting gun in a race to ramp up its construction in the occupied territory.
Since the president was sworn in, the Israeli government announced that it would authorize another 2,500 homes in areas already settled in the West Bank and then followed that this week with an announcement of 3,000 more. On Wednesday, Netanyahu took it a step further, vowing to build the first new settlement in the West Bank in many years.
For Netanyahu, the settlement spree reflects a sense of liberation after years of constraints from Washington, especially under Obama, who like other presidents viewed settlement construction as harmful to the chances of negotiating a final peace settlement. It also represents an effort to deflect criticism from the political right for complying with a court order to force out several dozen families in the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona.
The housing ministry on Thursday announced tenders for 2,000 homes, which appeared to advance some of those announced earlier this week.
The policy shifts came after a turbulent week, when Trump also clashed with the leaders of Australia and Mexico over one of the most fraught issues of his new presidency: immigration. He defended the tense exchanges as an overdue display of toughness by a United States that has been exploited “by every nation in the world, virtually.”
“They’re tough; we have to be tough. It’s time we’re going to be a little tough, folks,” Trump told the prayer breakfast on Thursday. “It’s not going to happen anymore.”
Yet later in the day, the White House felt obliged to put a more diplomatic gloss on events. Spicer said Trump’s call with one of the leaders, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia, had been “very cordial,” even if Trump bitterly opposed an agreement negotiated by the Obama administration for the U.S. to accept the transfer of 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention camp.
A senior administration official disputed a report that Trump threatened to send troops to Mexico to deal with that country’s “bad hombres.” He insisted that his conversation with President Enrique Peña Nieto, the official said, was “actually very friendly,” and that the president was speaking in jest.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
