Tag: Donald Trump

The media has hit its latest low now blasting headlines about how President Trump disrespected his Japanese hosts and threaten to kill precious Japanese koi by dumping his box of fish food into the pond at Akasaka Palace:

It was a story that seemed to reinforce stereotypes of President Donald Trump: On a visit to Japan, he was handed a box of food for a ritual feeding of carp, and after doling out a few spoons’ worth, he got impatient and dumped the rest of the box all at once.

Initial reports of the food dump — like this early video from CNN — suggested that Trump acted on his own. This pushed the late-night Twitterverse and blogosphere into a tizzy. The website Jezebel posted a story headlined, “Big Stupid Baby Dumps Load Of Fish Food On Japanese Koi Pond.”

One problem: Trump didn’t just decide to dump his food on his own. Video shows he was following the lead of his host at the koi pond event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  [Politifact]

You can read more at the link, but it is reports like this that just validate everything the Trump administration says about the media.  So we can now add Koi-gate to the endless list of examples of fake news.

Here is video of the koi-gate fake news event:

This is something that many people who don’t understand missile defense think until they realize the physics behind it:

U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.

The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.

Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.

The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said.  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but the reason is quite simple why the missiles were not shot down.  The missile were flying 770 kilometers above the country in outer space; this is higher than the international space station.  The Japanese Aegis ships and Patriot interceptors cannot engage missiles flying that high. To shoot down the missiles the Aegis ship would have to be located out in the ocean where the missile was coming down at.  There is no way the Japanese would could have known when and where North Korea was going to fire the missile at to have a ship sitting there waiting to shoot it down.

The real story here is why are diplomatic sources leaking this information to the news media?  This is a natural question that many people wondered initially after North Korea fired the missile over Japan.  I would hope by now someone has briefed President Trump on missile defense capabilities.

Japanese media reporting that Trump told the emperor shootings 'can happen anywhere' https://t.co/V6WrzTyfIZ

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) November 6, 2017

If President Trump did want to meet with Kim Jong-un I hope it is not in North Korea where it would be a propaganda bonanza for the regime.  Instead the meeting should be at the United Nations which was the organization that officially fought the Korean War.  Forcing Kim to come to New York would mitigate any propaganda value of a meeting and show how serious the regime is about talks in my opinion:

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would “certainly be open” to meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as he embarked on his first trip to Asia last week.

In an interview aired Sunday, Trump was asked on U.S. news program “Full Measure” whether he would sit down with a dictator.

“I would sit with anybody I feel,” the president said. “I don’t think it’s strength or weakness. I think sitting down with people is not a bad thing. So I would certainly be open to doing that.”

He made no commitment, though, saying, “But we’ll see where it goes. I think we’re far too early.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I think President Trump couldn’t care less what the Kim regime thinks of what he says:

North Korea threatened “merciless punishment” on U.S. President Donald Trump over “foolish remarks” on Sunday, two days before his state visit to South Korea.

The Rodong Sinmun, the main newspaper and organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), published a commentary accusing Trump of “seriously stimulating” North Korea with his words.

Trump kicked off his Asia tour in Japan earlier Sunday. He’s scheduled to land in South Korea on Tuesday for a summit with President Moon Jae-in during his two-day visit.

Trump has engaged in a war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, referring to Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea.

In the report carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Rodong Sinmun argued Trump must heed assertions from other U.S. experts that he must “halt the reckless blackmail and take hands off the Korean affairs.”

“Nobody can predict when Trump does a reckless act. The only and one way for checking his rash act is to tame him with absolute physical power,” the report said in English. “If the U.S. misjudges (North Korea’s) toughest will and dares to act recklessly, the latter will be compelled to deal a resolute and merciless punishment upon the former with the mobilisation of all forces. The U.S. has no energy to prevent it. Then its regret is too late.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I am really curious to see if President Trump will use this trip to South Korea to make a “tear down this wall” type of speech towards North Korea?

It seems the US President has received a very warm welcome in Japan:

Landing in Japan on the first stop of his marathon five-nation tour of Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the nation a “treasured partner” and “crucial ally” of the United States while asserting that “no dictator” and “no regime” should ever underestimate America — a not-so-veiled rebuke of nuclear-armed North Korea.

After paying a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii on Friday, Trump on Sunday marked the start of his trip to Asia by disembarking from Air Force One at the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. Cheers erupted as he appeared on stage with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, prompting thousands of U.S. military personnel there to welcome the pair with enthusiastic chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

 “Japan is a treasured partner and crucial ally of the Unites States,” Trump told a packed aircraft hangar after changing into a bomber jacket. “Today we thank them for decades of wonderful friendship between our two nations.”

It was the first visit by Trump to Japan since his astonishing rise to the presidency last year. The trip will give him and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — touted as one of his best friends among world leaders — a chance to reaffirm their shared strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on the North while also demonstrating anew the strength of the two nations’ alliance.

After delivering his speech, Trump flew to Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama Prefecture for two hours of golf diplomacy with Abe — an informal setting that also involved 25-year-old professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama.

Before hitting the links, Abe presented Trump and Matsuyama with white baseball caps, each embroidered with the message “Donald & Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.”  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but President Trump gave a nice speech to US troops at Yokota Airbase as well.

Via a reader tip comes this news that President Trump’s first stop in South Korea will be to Camp Humphreys:

U.S. President Donald Trump will visit Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, as the first destination during his visit to South Korea from Nov. 7 to 8, officials said Tuesday.

It will be the first visit of a U.S. president to the headquarters of the Eighth U.S. Army which relocated there in July.

The Eighth Army moved to the post after more than 60 years at Yongsan, central Seoul, as part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s relocation project for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) following more than a decade of planning since 2003.

Camp Humphreys is the largest U.S. Army Garrison overseas. It occupies 14.68 square kilometers of land ― three times the size of the Yongsan garrison ― with 513 buildings including schools, shops and banks as well as other facilities such as gyms, theaters and a water park for USFK personnel and their families.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if 8th Army senior leaders will mention all the anti-US protests, fraud, corruption, delays, and the fact units are moving into incomplete buildings that occurred to get this expansion project complete?  No probably not, but it would be great to see President Trump’s reaction to if he saw pictures like this from a past protest to stop the expansion project:

It will be interesting to see how far these anti-US groups are willing to go to protest President Trump during his visit to South Korea.  I suspect the Moon administration will keep them in check in order to not embarrass themselves during President Trump’s visit, but I guess we will see:

Saturday night was supposed to be a time to celebrate the first anniversary of the massive candlelit protests that eventually helped oust corruption-tainted former President Park Geun-hye. But some anti-U.S. groups used the gathering as an opportunity to promote their own propaganda.

“No Trump, no war,” was one of the key messages shouted at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square by some anti-U.S. groups. Led by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the country’s second-largest umbrella trade union, they vowed to do all they can to mar U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to Korea next month.

They called Trump a threat to peace on the Korean peninsula, saying they will follow him and stage protests during his visit.

Trump is scheduled to meet with his Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, Nov. 7, and deliver a speech at the National Assembly the following day.

The groups said they plan to stage a protest in front of Cheong Wa Dae when the two are supposed to have dinner there and hold another rally when Trump speaks at the Assembly.

The KCTU has a history of anti-U.S. protests. On Oct. 14, its members gathered near a Busan hotel, where the U.S. Navy held a party to celebrate its 242-year history, chanting messages like “U.S.troops go home!”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

My latest for @nknewsorg— The Trump administration's ambiguous North Korea policy keeps DPRK-watchers guessing https://t.co/SRiAgigrFP

— Andrei Lankov (@andreilankov) October 31, 2017

Here is the latest criticism from Senator Corker against President Trump:

A U.S. Republican senator called out President Donald Trump again on Sunday, saying the commander-in-chief is hampering diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis with North Korea.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who has recently been involved in a personal feud with Trump, reiterated his argument as the president prepares for his first official visit to Asia later this week.

“When our secretary of state is sitting down with a partner that matters most — China — trying to negotiate something that would resolve and keep us from going into military conflict with North Korea, which brings in South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, and he’s knee-capped by the president, it hurts our nation. It hurts our efforts,” the senator told CBS.

“It leads us more fully towards the conflict that most of us would like to see resolved in another way. The tweets that are sent out mocking a leader of another country raises tensions in the region,” he added, referring to Trump’s references to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “Little Rocket Man.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I think President Trump is just trying to change the dynamic that has been missing from past diplomatic efforts that the threat of a military strike this time is very real.  Does anyone think the robust UN sanctions and so far China’s efforts to implement them would have happened if there wasn’t a real concern that President Trump was serious about a military strike?