Category: Foreign Policy

President Trump Held Secret Pay to Play Mar-a-Lago Meeting with Two Colombian Ex-Presidents

President Trump secretly met with two former Colombian presidents critical of an Obama-era peace agreement between their home country’s sitting government and a far-left rebel group, according to a report.

Without listing it in his daily schedule or disclosing it to reporters, Trump met with Alvaro Uribe and Andres Pastrana at his Mar-a-Lago estate last weekend, the Miami Herald first reported on Thursday.

The stealthy meeting was apparently facilitated by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been openly skeptical of the landmark peace agreement between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for brokering the peace deal, which prompted outrage from some Colombians who say the FARC rebels are getting away with murder.

President Obama last year dedicated $450 million in foreign aid to help solidify the peace deal, which effectively ended a bloody 50-year power struggle between the leftist guerilla group and government forces. Obama faced backlash over the move, especially from Republicans.

It’s unclear what was discussed during last week’s Mar-a-Lago meeting, though speculation swirled that it might have been facilitated in an effort to tilt Trump’s opinion in a certain direction ahead of his sit-down with President Santos next month.

Santos is expected to ask Trump to make good on the Obama administration’s $450 million pledge.

The White House initially declined to discuss the matter, setting off a wave of speculation among Colombian media outlets.

A Trump administration spokeswoman eventually confirmed that the meeting occurred, but downplayed its significance, claiming that the two former Colombian heads of state just happened to be at the club at the same time as President Trump.

“There wasn’t anything beyond a quick hello,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the Colombian presidents were in the company of a Mar-a-Lago club member.

But Uribe and Pastrana, who are both staunch opponents of the peace deal with FARC, had a completely different take on the meet.

“Thanks to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump for the cordial and very frank conversation about problems and prospects of Colombia and the region,” Pastrana tweeted in Spanish after the meeting.

Uribe’s former vice president, Francisco Santos, echoed those comments, telling the Herald that the meeting was concise but to the point.

“We’re very worried,” Santos told the newspaper. “You have a perfect storm, and the (Santos) government says everything is going fine and we’re living in peace. And that’s not true.”

Trump’s secret meeting raises a number of questions, including his inclination to meet with people who are either connected to, or willing to themselves pay the $200,000 Mar-a-Lago membership fee.

Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S., Juan Carlos Pinzon, criticized Uribe and Pastrana for going through back channels to discuss sensitive matters with Trump ahead of Santos’ visit.

“We need to address these issues at home,” Pinzon told a Colombian radio station. “We need to wash our dirty laundry at home.”

(h/t New York Daily News)

Reality

President Trump has been in office for 91 days. He has spent 25 of them at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, often mingling with members and guests.

Since the election, the cost of membership has doubled to $200,000.

Mr. Trump often railed against pay-to-play politics on the campaign trail, repeatedly slamming a “broken system.”

Yet the access at Mar-a-Lago is unparalleled. Last weekend, two former presidents of Colombia were guests and quietly met with Mr. Trump.

Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana later tweeted about the meeting, thanking Mr. Trump for “the cordial and very frank conversation about the problems and prospects in Colombia and the region.”

The two men are opponents of current Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who has not yet met with Mr. Trump. The encounter was not on Mr. Trump’s public schedule.

Five days later, White House press secretary Sean Spicer seemed surprised to hear about it.

“I’m just saying I’m unaware of the circumstances,” Spicer told reporters.

The White House later said the men “briefly said hello when the president walked past them.”

Club members have posted photos with military officers and even with the president himself.

Trump on North Korea: “After Listening for 10 Minutes, I Realized It’s Not So Easy”

President Donald Trump recounted an absolutely astounding detail about one of his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping in comments published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently, Trump came into his first meeting with the Chinese leader, in early April, convinced that China could simply eliminate the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. Xi then patiently explained Chinese-Korean history to Trump — who then promptly changed his mind.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president told the Journal. “I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea. … But it’s not what you would think.”

Four quick observations about this:

  1. Trump thought China could fix North Korea until the Chinese president politely informed him that North Korea is in fact complicated.
  2. Trump seems to have required the leader of China to explain basic facts to him that he could have Googled, or at least asked one of the many US government North Korea experts about.
  3. Trump came to a profound realization about one of the most dangerous conflicts on earth after a 10-minute conversation.
  4. Trump is getting his information about East Asian affairs from the leader of America’s largest rival in the region.

Around the same time the Journal piece was published, North Korea informed reporters to prepare for a “big and important event.” Initial reports suggest that Pyongyang is planning to test a nuclear device for just the sixth time in the country’s history. There’s no word yet on how the Trump administration plans to respond.

(h/t Vox)

President Trump Blames Obama for Syria Chemical Attack

President Donald Trump said that the attack in Syria on Tuesday “crossed a lot of lines for me,” but he did not specify how he would respond to it.

His comments came during a press conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II that began with Trump’s condemning the “heinous actions,” which left at least 72 people dead.

Trump was asked if the attack crossed a red line for him, a reference to then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 threat that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be seen as doing so.

“It crossed a lot of lines for me. When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal — people were shocked to hear what gas it was — that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines,” he said.

Later, when a reporter noted he seemed reluctant to get involved in the matter, Trump said, “I watched past administrations say we will attack at such and such a day at such and such an hour … I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or the other.”

He released a statement on Tuesday saying the attack was “a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution.”

Today he said, “I think the Obama administration had a responsibility to solve the crisis a long time ago. And when he didn’t cross that line in making the threat, I think that set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many other parts of the world, because it was a blank threat. I think it was something that was not one of our better days as a country.”

Trump added, “I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly.”

He said that he is open to changing his stance on issues and that the attack in Syria was an example of how current events have prompted a shift.

“I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way,” Trump said. “It’s already happened, that my attitude towards Syria and [President Bashar al-]Assad has changed very much.”

Later in his remarks, Trump praised Jordan‘s efforts in the fight against ISIS.

“The Middle East and the entire world is faced with one of its gravest threats in many, many years. Since the earliest days of the campaign against ISIS, Jordan has been a staunch ally and partner, and we thank you for that,” he said.

“In King Abdullah, America is blessed with a thoughtful and determined partner. He’s a man who has spent years commanding his country’s special forces. He really knows what is being a soldier is — that I can tell you. And he knows how to fight,” Trump said.

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

Trump can try to put the blame solely on former President Barack Obama but things are not as simple as “if you bad then I bomb,” Syria in particular is a very complicated situation.

Obama could have used military force in Syria as promised after Assad crossed the “red line” and used chemical weapons on his own people, sure that’s a position you could hold. But then you’ll need to explain how you would deal with Russia, which has massive investments such as an important naval base in Tartus, and Iran, who Syria is its closest ally, and are both backing Assad.

Keep in mind, at the time the Obama administration was holding negotiations with Iran to dismantle their nuclear program. If there was no nuclear deal with Iran, then they were ready to have a bomb within two or three months and were ready to walk if America used force in Syria as retaliation. So an alternative solution needed to be found.

So what Assad actually did by crossing Obama’s red line in 2013, is created international pressure for Syria to accept a diplomatic solution. (A much preferred foreign policy.) The agreement left Russia in charge of overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons and was in charge of ensuring they wouldn’t be used. Russia, as it seems, did not do such a good job.

This would also ignore Trump’s own missteps. Just a few days prior, the Trump administration mentioned their new policy in the Syrian civil war was to lead from behind. Assad, always one to test his boundaries with both ally and enemy, read this signal loud and clear that he was free to act as he wished.

If Trump did not have such a simplistic view of a very complex situation (which is usually the case with him) then perhaps this attack would have never occurred.

Media

Flynn Attended Intel Briefings While Taking Money To Lobby for Turkey

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was attending secret intelligence briefings with then-candidate Donald Trump while he was being paid more than half a million dollars to lobby on behalf of the Turkish government, federal records show.

Flynn stopped lobbying after he became national security advisor, but he then played a role in formulating policy toward Turkey, working for a president who has promised to curb the role of lobbyists in Washington.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Friday defended the Trump administration’s handling of the matter, even as he acknowledged to reporters that the White House was aware of the potential that Flynn might need to register as a foreign agent.

When his firm was hired by a Turkish businessman last year, Flynn did not register as a foreign lobbyist, and only did so a few days ago under pressure from the Justice Department, the businessman told The Associated Press this week.

Attempts by NBC News to reach the Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin, were unsuccessful Friday.

Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said the retired general would have no comment.

Flynn was fired last month after it was determined he misled Vice President Mike Pence about Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. His security clearance was suspended.

When NBC News spoke to Alptekin in November, he said he had no affiliation with the Turkish government and that his hiring of Flynn’s company, the Flynn Intel Group, had nothing to do with the Turkish government.

But documents filed this week by Flynn with the Department of Justice paint a different picture. The documents say Alptekin “introduced officials of the Republic of Turkey to Flynn Intel Group officials at a meeting on September 19, 2016, in New York.”

In the documents, the Flynn Intel Group asserts that it changed its filings to register as a foreign lobbyist “to eliminate any potential doubt.”

“Although the Flynn Intel Group was engaged by a private firm, Inovo BV, and not by a foreign government, because of the subject matter of the engagement, Flynn Intel Group’s work for Inovo could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey,” the filing said.

The firm was paid a total of $530,000 as part of a $600,000 contract that ended the day after the election, when Flynn stepped away from his private work, the documents say.

During the summer and fall, Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was sitting in on classified intelligence briefings given to Trump.

Spicer acknowledged Friday that Flynn’s lawyer called the Trump transition team inquiring about whether Flynn should amend his filing to register as a foreign agent.

“That wasn’t the role for the transition,” Spicer said. “This was a personal matter, it’s a business matter.”

He did not explain whether anyone in the Trump operation dug into Flynn’s lobbying work.

It was well known that on Election Day, Flynn authored an op-ed in the Hill, a Washington newspaper, in which he lambasted Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish cleric residing in Pennsylvania who is blamed by the Turkish government for fomenting a July coup attempt there.

Previously, Flynn had seemed to praise the coup attempt.

According to the Justice Department filing, Flynn’s firm was hired to gather information about Gülen, and to produce a short film about its investigation.

“Flynn Intel Group was tasked to perform investigative research for a specified scope of work using its laboratory team of senior defense, diplomacy, development, and intelligence professionals over a three-month period,” the filing said. “Flynn Intel Group was to retain an experienced filming and production crew in order to develop a short film piece on the results of its investigation, and a public affairs firm to utilize for public affairs as needed. Flynn Intel Group held weekly calls with the client to report engagement progress.”

Even some Republicans were wondering how the White House allowed Flynn to take one of the most sensitive jobs in the government.

“Makes you wonder if an adequate background check has been done,” Rep. Steve King of Iowa said on MSNBC. “I think we need to know a lot more.”

Ethics experts say more information is needed to know whether Flynn may have run afoul of any conflict of interest rules. His receipt of a large sum of money on behalf of the Turkish government may have meant he should have avoided specific decisions regarding Turkey, but the details would be crucial.

It wasn’t immediately clear Friday whether Flynn recused himself from any matter while he was national security advisor, or whether he directly participated in decisions that had an impact on Turkey.

(h/t NBC News)

Trump Calls for Building Up Nuke Arsenal To Be ‘Top Of the Pack’

President Trump said Thursday he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal so that it is at the “top of the pack.”

“I am the first one that would like to see everybody — nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country, even if it’s a friendly country. We’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.

“It would be wonderful — a dream would be that no country would have nukes — but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

The interview also touched on Russia’s violation of an arms control treaty, North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and China’s ability to pressure Pyongyang.

Trump also claimed the U.S. has “fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity,” according to Reuters.

Trump previously called in a December tweet for the U.S. to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

The December comment drew consternation from arms control advocates, who said the U.S.’s current 30-year, $1 trillion nuclear modernization efforts and 7,000 existing nuclear warheads are already more than enough.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Trump was “very clear” that the U.S. cannot “yield its supremacy to anybody.”

“That’s what he made very clear in there in that if other countries have nuclear capabilities, it will always be the United States that has the supremacy and commitment to this,” Spicer said at Thursday’s press briefing.

“The question that was asked was about other people that were growing their stockpiles.”

In the Reuters interview, Trump slammed the New START Treaty with Russia that caps the number of nuclear warheads the U.S. and Russia can deploy, calling it “a one-sided deal.”

“Just another bad deal that the country made, whether it’s START, whether it’s the Iran deal,” he said. “We’re going to start making good deals.”

Trump also reportedly called the New START Treaty a bad deal in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.

A separate treaty with Russia, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, bans ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Russia has violated the treaty by deploying a cruise missile within its borders.

Trump called the violation a “big deal” in the Reuters interview. He said he would bring it up with Putin “if and when we meet.”

Trump also said that “we’re very angry” at North Korea’s ballistic missile tests. Accelerating the deployment of a missile-defense system in South Korea was among many options available, he added.

As he has in the past, Trump pointed at China as being able to curb North Korea’s provocative behavior, saying Beijing could do so “very easily if they want to.”

“There’s talks of a lot more than that,” Trump said when asked about the missile defense system. “We’ll see what happens. But it’s a very dangerous situation, and China can end it very quickly in my opinion.”

(h/t The Hill)

Trump Lawyer Pushed Pro-Russia Deal For Ukraine

The setting was a Manhattan restaurant, and after 25 minutes what allegedly emerged was a pro-Russian peace plan for Ukraine that its author believes may have ended up in the White House.

In a CNN interview, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko said he discussed his left-field proposal for Ukraine in January with US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who offered to deliver the plan to the Trump administration.

The exact details of the plan are unclear, yet reports have suggested it revolves around leasing Crimea — annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 — to Moscow for 50 to 100 years. In exchange, Russia would withdraw its troops from the separatist regions in Ukraine’s war-torn east.

Artemenko declined to discuss the plan’s details, yet hinted that a lease might be part of the idea.

The lawmaker says Cohen, who has long advised Trump, wanted to take the plan to Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

Any suggestion that the White House might consider a plan that formalizes Russia’s control of Crimea would cause consternation in Kiev and among its allies in Europe. The White House has flatly denied any knowledge of the proposal.

In his interview with CNN, Artemenko shines a light on how a key Trump associate was allegedly prepared to push a controversial peace plan that might benefit Russia at a time when questions were being raised about the Trump’s ties to that country.

The Ukrainian member of parliament told CNN he met Cohen through a mutual acquaintance, businessman Felix Sater, and that the three had dinner in a Manhattan hotel in January.

Cohen told CNN in a text message that although he had dinner with Artemenko, they never discussed peace in Ukraine. Other media organizations reported that he offered them a different account. The White House has denied that Cohen delivered any peace plan to Flynn.

Russia and Ukraine have since rejected the plan, and Artemenko has now become the subject of investigation for treason for suggesting it to Cohen.

In a hurried interview in a Kiev hotel, Artemenko said Cohen told him that Flynn — who resigned in mid-February due to a controversy over calls with the Russian ambassador to the US — was his best connection at the White House.

“Michael Flynn is the best person, the best of my connections in the Trump administration, who if he likes [it], it’s going to [get] huge support, huge support,” Cohen said, according to Artemenko.

Flynn did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on this story.

Artemenko knew the proposal would be controversial as it undercuts both the US and Ukrainian diplomatic corps, and he says he knows it angered Kiev, who will have seen it as a pro-Russian proposal.

“That’s why I feel pressure, and for sure today I can see people accusing me, and I see the prosecutor of Ukraine is trying to do something, to open a new case, to do an investigation about me,” he told CNN.

He said of the January meeting that Sater invited Cohen to “a dinner in the hotel in Manhattan, and we probably spoke around 20-25 minutes, where I presented my intentions, my peace plan for the Ukraine, how we can stop the war, how we can stop the killing.”

Artemenko said he had never dreamed that his proposal would be seen by the White House, but he claims Cohen said the plan had “great potential” and wanted to deliver it to the Trump administration.

“It was Michael Cohen’s idea,” he said. “He [Cohen] mentioned his name first in my meetings. And he said ‘listen, Michael Flynn’ — from his personal opinion — ‘is most powerful man who can really support this idea, who can support, who can help you, who can provide this information to President Trump.'”

Flynn resigned 24 days into the job after misleading administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US before Trump took office.

Flynn made several calls to the ambassador in December, including some on the same day that the outgoing Obama administration placed fresh sanctions on Russia over alleged election meddling.

The Justice Department also warned the Trump administration in January that Flynn could be subject to Russian blackmail, a person familiar with the matter told CNN last month.

In a text message to CNN, Cohen denied delivering any documents to Flynn, and refuted Artemenko’s recollection of their January conversation.

“If this continued fake news narrative wasn’t so ridiculous, I would be angered. Despite the multitude of statements issued denying any nexus between Presidents Trump and [Russian President Vladimir Putin], the main stream media just keeps on trying to perpetuate this lie.

“I acknowledge that the brief meeting took place, but emphatically deny discussing this topic or delivering any documents to the White House and/or General Flynn; something I stated to the New York Times.”

According to the Times, Cohen said he left a sealed envelope with the proposed peace plan in Flynn’s office. Later, Cohen denied delivering a peace plan to Flynn.
Artemenko insists, however, that it was Cohen’s idea to show the peace proposal to the senior White House official. “It was his idea, absolutely his idea,” he said.

After Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, it sent military help to separatists in the country’s east, where violent conflict over disputed territory drags on to this day.

Kiev has refused to discuss the official transfer of the peninsula to Russia, and dismissed Artemenko’s plan as a result.

Moscow considers the peninsula already its territory, after its residents — under a substantial Russian military presence — voted in a 2014 referendum to join the Russian Federation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov says Russia refuses to discuss the lease of a region it already controls: “How can Russia rent its own region? This question itself is absurd.”

Sater, who attended the dinner with Artemenko, did not respond to emailed questions, yet he emphatically denied any links between the Trump camp and Russia in an interview with Fox News: “What could be wrong in helping stop a war and trying to achieve peace? I have done so much for my country and thought that promoting peace was a good thing. People are getting killed, it’s a war.”

A White House spokesman offered this statement in response to CNN’s request for comment: “No one in the White House — including the President, Vice President and senior members of the NSC — has spoken to Mr. Cohen about any Russia-Ukraine peace proposal, and no one has spoken to Andrii Artemenko at all about any matter.

“In addition, the NSC keeps comprehensive records of documents received, and we have no record of receiving any proposal from Mr. Cohen. This is another absurd, misleading attempt to distract from the real reform taking place under President Trump.”

Artemenko left the interview with CNN to attend what he said was a meeting with the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, although the presidential administration denied such a meeting took place.

Yet moments after leaving the interview, Ukrainian prosecutors announced he would be investigated for “treason” over the deal.

(h/t CNN)

Despite Denials, Russians Were in Contact with Trump Campaign

Weeks before President Trump’s inauguration, his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, discussed American sanctions against Russia, as well as areas of possible cooperation, with that country’s ambassador to the United States, according to current and former American officials.

Throughout the discussions, the message Mr. Flynn conveyed to the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak — that the Obama administration was Moscow’s adversary and that relations with Russia would change under Mr. Trump — was unambiguous and highly inappropriate, the officials said.

The accounts of the conversations raise the prospect that Mr. Flynn violated a law against private citizens’ engaging in diplomacy, and directly contradict statements made by Trump advisers. They have said that Mr. Flynn spoke to Mr. Kislyak a few days after Christmas merely to arrange a phone call between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Trump after the inauguration.

But current and former American officials said that conversation — which took place the day before the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia over accusations that it used cyberattacks to help sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor — ranged far beyond the logistics of a post-inauguration phone call. And they said it was only one in a series of contacts between the two men that began before the election and also included talk of cooperating in the fight against the Islamic State, along with other issues.

The officials said that Mr. Flynn had never made explicit promises of sanctions relief, but that he had appeared to leave the impression it would be possible.

Mr. Flynn could not immediately be reached for comment about the conversations, details of which were first reported by The Washington Post. Despite Mr. Flynn’s earlier denials, his spokesman told the Post that “while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

During the Christmas week conversation, he urged Mr. Kislyak to keep the Russian government from retaliating over the coming sanctions — it was an open secret in Washington that they were in the works — by telling him that whatever the Obama administration did could be undone, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified material.

Days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Vice President-elect Mike Pence also denied that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. He said he had personally spoken to Mr. Flynn, who assured him that the conversation was an informal chat that began with Mr. Flynn extending Christmas wishes.

“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Mr. Pence said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

Some officials regarded the conversation as a potential violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the American government, according to one current and one former American official familiar with the case.

Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the topics of conversation included sanctions.

The call is the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s advisers have come under scrutiny from American counterintelligence officials. The F.B.I. is also investigating Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.

Prosecutions in these types of cases are rare, and the law is murky, particularly around people involved in presidential transitions. The officials who had read the transcripts acknowledged that while the conversation warranted investigation, it was unlikely, by itself, to lead to charges against a sitting national security adviser.

But, at the very least, openly engaging in policy discussions with a foreign government during a presidential transition is a remarkable breach of protocol. The norm has been for the president-elect’s team to respect the sitting president, and to limit discussions with foreign governments to pleasantries. Any policy discussions, even with allies, would ordinarily be kept as vague as possible.

“It’s largely shunned, period. But one cannot rule it out with an ally like the U.K.,” said Derek Chollet, who was part of the Obama transition in 2008 and then served in senior roles at the State Department, White House and Pentagon.

“But it’s way out of bounds when the said country is an adversary, and one that has been judged to have meddled in the election,” he added. “It’s just hard to imagine anyone having a substantive discussion with an adversary, particularly if it’s about trying to be reassuring.”

(h/t New York Times)

Trump Blames Dust-Up Over Australia PM Call on ‘Fake News Media’

President Donald Trump on Friday thanked Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for “telling the truth” after news swirled that the two men had clashed during a phone call last weekend that abruptly ended when Trump reportedly hung up the phone.

“Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!” Trump wrote on Twitter Friday morning.

Trump’s conversation with Turnbull last Saturday became a headline this week when The Washington Post reported details from that call. In it, Trump called a refugee agreement reached between Australia and the administration of former President Barack Obama “the worst deal ever” and that one of the individuals the U.S. agreed to take under the deal could be the “next Boston bombers.”

The president also reportedly told Turnbull that their conversation was “the worst call by far” of all that he had had with foreign leaders.

But Turnbull disputed some of that reporting, telling a radio interviewer in Australia that Trump did not hang up on him and that their phone call ended “courteously.” Beyond that, Turnbull has declined to share specifics of their conversation.

“Look, I’m not going to comment on a conversation between myself and the President of the United States other than what we have said publicly, and you can surely understand the reasons for that,” Turnbull said, according to a CNN report. “I’m sure you can understand that. It’s better these conversations are conducted candidly, frankly, privately. If you’ll see reports of them, I’m not going to add to them.”

The deal in question is one in which the U.S. would accept over 1,000 refugees currently held in Australian detention centers on islands in the Pacific Ocean. In a post to Twitter on Wednesday, Trump pledged to “study this dumb deal,” and while he has been clear that he would not have agreed to it, the president has also not said that the U.S. will not honor the agreement made by his predecessor.

“He’s been very critical of the deal that President Obama did,” Turnbull said in a radio interview in Australia that was picked up by the Associated Press. “He clearly wouldn’t have done it himself, but we persuaded him to stick with it nonetheless. That was the outcome that we wanted to achieve and that’s what I’ve achieved.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump on Phone with Australian Leader: ‘This Was the Worst Call By Far’

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief – a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Donald Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day – including Russian President Vladimir Putin – and that “this was the worst call by far.”

Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.

“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center.

Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admissions of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”

Trump returned to the topic late Wednesday night, writing in a message on Twitter, “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!”

U.S. officials said that Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico. But his treatment of Turnbull was particularly striking because of the tight bond between the United States and Australia – countries that share intelligence, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The characterizations provide insight into Trump’s temperament and approach to the diplomatic requirements of his job as the nation’s chief executive, a role in which he continues to employ both the uncompromising negotiating tactics he honed as a real estate developer and the bombastic style he exhibited as a reality television personality.

The depictions of Trump’s calls are also at odds with sanitized White House accounts. The official readout of his conversation with Turnbull, for example, said that the two had “emphasized the enduring strength and closeness of the U.S.-Australia relationship that is critical for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.”

A White House spokesman declined to comment. A senior administration official acknowledged that the conversation with Turnbull had been hostile and charged, but emphasized that most of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders – including the heads of Japan, Germany, France and Russia – have been both productive and pleasant.

Trump also vented anger and touted his political accomplishments in a tense conversation with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, officials said. The two have sparred for months over Trump’s vow to force Mexico to pay for construction of a border wall between the two countries, a conflict that prompted Peña Nieto to cancel a planned meeting with Trump.

Even in conversations marred by hostile exchanges, Trump manages to work in references to his election accomplishments. U.S. officials said that he used his calls with both Turnbull and Peña Nieto to mention his election win or the size of the crowd at his inauguration.

One official said that it may be Trump’s way of “speaking about the mandate he has and why he has the backing for decisions he makes.” But Trump is also notoriously thin-skinned and has used platforms including social-media accounts, meetings with lawmakers and even a speech at CIA headquarters to depict his victory as an achievement of historic proportions, rather than a narrow outcome in which his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote.

The friction with Turnbull reflected Trump’s anger over being bound by an agreement reached by former President Barack Obama’s administration to accept refugees from Australian detention sites even while Trump was issuing an executive order suspending such arrivals from elsewhere in the world.

The issue centers on a population of roughly 2,500 people who sought asylum in Australia but were diverted to facilities off that country’s coast at Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Deplorable conditions at those sites prompted intervention from the United Nations and a pledge from the United States to accept about half of those refugees, provided they passed U.S. security screening.

Many of the refugees came from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia, countries now listed in Trump’s order temporarily barring their citizens entry to the United States. A special provision in the Trump order allows for exceptions to honor “a preexisting international agreement,” a line that was inserted to cover the Australia deal.

But U.S. officials said that Trump continued to fume about the arrangement even after signing the order in a ceremony at the Pentagon.

“I don’t want these people,” Trump said. He repeatedly misstated the number of refugees called for in the agreement as 2,000 rather than 1,250, and told Turnbull that it was “my intention” to honor the agreement, a phrase designed to leave the U.S. president wiggle room to back out of the deal in the future, according to a senior U.S. official.

Turnbull told Trump that to honor the agreement, the United States would not have to accept all of the refugees but only to allow them each through the normal vetting procedures. At that, Trump vowed to subject each refugee to “extreme vetting,” the senior U.S. official said.

Trump was also skeptical because he did not see a specific advantage the United States would gain by honoring the deal, officials said.

Trump’s position appears to reflect the transactional view he takes of relationships, even when it comes to diplomatic ties with long-standing allies. Australia troops have fought alongside U.S. forces for decades, and the country maintains close cooperation with Washington on trade and economic issues.

Australia is seen as such a trusted ally that it is one of only four countries that the United States includes in the “Five Eyes” arrangement for cooperation on espionage matters. Members share extensively what their intelligence services gather and generally refrain from spying on one another.

There also is a significant amount of tourism between the two countries.

Trump made the call to Turnbull about 5 p.m. Saturday from his desk in the Oval Office, where he was joined by chief strategist Stephen Bannon, national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

At one point, Turnbull suggested that the two leaders move on from their impasse over refugees to discuss the conflict in Syria and other pressing foreign issues. But Trump demurred and ended the call, making it far shorter than his conversations with Shinzo Abe of Japan, Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France or Putin.

“These conversations are conducted candidly, frankly, privately,” Turnbull said at a news conference Thursday in Australia. “If you see reports of them, I’m not going to add to them.”

(h/t Chicago Tribune)

Trump Tells Mexico: ‘I Might Send’ U.S. Military to Take Care of ‘Bad Hombres’

President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican military does more to control them itself, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.

The excerpt of the call did not make clear who exactly Trump considered “bad hombres,” — drug cartels, immigrants, or both — or the tone and context of the remark, made in a Friday morning phone call between the leaders. It also did not contain Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto‘s response.

Still, the excerpt offers a rare and striking look at how the new president is conducting diplomacy behind closed doors. Trump’s remarks suggest he is using the same tough and blunt talk with world leaders that he used to rally crowds on the campaign trail.

A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The phone call between the leaders was intended to patch things up between the new president and his ally. The two have had a series of public spats over Trump’s determination to have Mexico pay for the planned border wall, something Mexico steadfastly refuses to agree to.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt seen by the AP. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided an excerpt to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.

The Mexican website, Aristegui Noticias, on Tuesday published a similar account of phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation.

Mexico’s foreign relations department denied that account, saying it “is based on absolute falsehoods,” and later said the statement also applied to the excerpt provided to AP.

“The assertions that you make about said conversation do not correspond to the reality of it,” the statement said. “The tone was constructive and it was agreed by the presidents to continue working and that the teams will continue to meet frequently to construct an agreement that is positive for Mexico and for the United States.”

Trump has used the phrase “bad hombres” before. In an October presidential debate, he vowed to get rid the U.S. of “drug lords” and “bad people.”

“We have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out,” he said. The phrase ricocheted on social media with Trump opponents saying he was denigrating immigrants.

Trump’s comment was in line with the new administration’s bullish stance on foreign policy matters in general, and the president’s willingness to break long-standing norms around the globe.

Before his inauguration, Trump spoke to the president of Taiwan, breaking long-standing U.S. policy and irritating China. His temporary ban on refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, aimed at reviewing screening procedures to lessen the threat of extremist attacks, has caused consternation around the world.

But nothing has created the level of bickering as the border wall, a centerpiece of his campaign. Mexico has consistently said it would not pay for the wall and opposes it. Before the phone call, Pena Nieto canceled a planned visit to the United States.

The fresh fight with Mexico last week arose over trade as the White House proposed a 20 percent tax on imports from the key U.S. ally to finance the wall after Pena Nieto abruptly scrapped his Jan. 31 trip to Washington.

The U.S. and Mexico conduct some $1.6 billion a day in cross-border trade, and cooperate on everything from migration to anti-drug enforcement to major environmental issues.

Trump tasked his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner — a real estate executive with no foreign policy experience — with managing the ongoing dispute, according to an administration official with knowledge of the call.

At a press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May last week, Trump described his call with Pena Nieto as “friendly.”

In a statement, the White House said the two leaders acknowledged their “clear and very public differences” and agreed to work through the immigration disagreement as part of broader discussions on the relationship between their countries.

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