Tag: Donald Trump

Trump's call with Taiwan's president broke decades of diplomatic protocol. Why isn't Beijing more angry? https://t.co/Kc68V19EVP

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) December 3, 2016

Some readers may remember that General James Mattis was the person that an anonymous collective of conservatives were supposedly trying to recruit for a third party run for President.  Instead he is now going to be the next Secretary of Defense for the soon to be President Trump:

“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense. But we’re not announcing it until Monday, so don’t tell anybody,” Trump told his supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Keep it inside the room,” he added jokingly.

Mattis, who served in the Marines from 1969 until his retirement in 2013, represents a big change from the current secretary of defense, the bookish Ashton Carter, a former Harvard professor who was trained as a physicist.  [Yahoo News]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like more people are beginning to realize that the North Korean problem is really a Chinese problem.  Here is what journalist Gordon Chang thinks should be done by the incoming Trump administration to address the Chinese backing of North Korea:

North Korea looks impossible to solve, and it is if we see China as on our side. It is not.  But if we treat China as part of the problem, which it most certainly is, then we can begin to craft solutions, like secondary sanctions. Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, will stop supporting North Korea only when the costs of doing so are too high. So far, his country has suffered almost no penalty.

To impose costs, Trump’s administration could, among other things, cut offending Chinese banks off from the global financial system, sanction every Chinese proliferator, and impose his threatened 45% across-the-board tariff on China’s goods. He could end negotiations on the Bilateral Investment Treaty and treat Chinese businesses like Beijing treats American ones.

And Mr. Trump, starting January 20, will have the tools to raise the costs on Beijing. The Chinese will surely retaliate, but they have few effective options for a long-term struggle. After all, last year they ran a $334.1 billion trade surplus in goods and services against the United States. Trade-surplus countries are vulnerable in trade wars, and that is especially true of a China with an already fragile economy that is dependent on the American market.  [Forbes]

You can read the rest at the link.

I did not realize that the only Asian who spoke at the Republican National Convention was a Korean-American that was part of Donald Trump’s National Diversity Coalition.  She recently gave an interview to the Joong Ang Ilbo about the election of Donald Trump:

Among the speakers for the 2016 Republican National Convention in July was Lisa Shin, a Korean-American ophthalmologist. She was the only Asian-American who spoke at the event. Dr. Shin has served as one of the 60 advisers to the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, the U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump’s campaign organization established with the stated aim of reflecting the will of ethnic minorities in America.“I think for Hillary, she had a lot of paid people,” said Dr. Shin during a phone interview with the JoongAng Ilbo. “But I didn’t hear a lot about grass-roots activists like I did with Trump. I believe that there was so much momentum, energy and enthusiasm with Trump. Hillary was disconnected from the people. She was what we call elite. She thought she was privileged.”

Dr. Shin is expected to play an advisry role representing Korean-Americans in the Trump administration, although she has not received any formal requests from the transition team yet. The following is an excerpt from the interview.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest of the interview at the link.  It will be interesting to see if she receives an appointment somewhere within the Trump administration.

U.S. North Korea policy under Trump could have latitude https://t.co/SDBwQIKwxP via @upi

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) November 21, 2016

Considering Rhee’s very controversial background running the Washington, DC school system that included allegations of a widespread cheating scandal, she seems an odd choice to run the Department of Education:

President-elect Donald Trump will meet Saturday with Michelle Rhee, a Democrat and former District of Columbia public schools leader who is considered in the running for secretary of education.

Rhee will meet with Trump, a Republican, at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is also meeting with former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, purportedly being considered for secretary of state.

Jason Miller, Trump communications director, confirmed the Rhee meeting Saturday morning with FoxNews.com.

Like Trump, Rhee has been a supporter of school choice, backing some public money for charter schools while the D.C. schools chancellor from 2007 to 2010.

Trump’s School Choice Policy released in September calls for his incoming administration to “immediately” redirect $20 billion in federal funds to school choice — in the form of block grants for an estimate 11 million school-age children living in poverty.  [Fox News]

You can read more at the link.

I don’t see how South Korea can be considered a low cost manufacturing country especially considering the KORUS FTA has made it cheaper for them to manufacture in the US compared to South Korea:

Trump hasn’t spelled out how he wants to rearrange NAFTA, but the basic idea is to encourage or compel more production in the United States, which would mean less production in places like Mexico. But that would be highly disruptive and would penalize American automakers more than their foreign rivals. Trump could probably rewrite the rules in a way that limits Mexican imports to the United States, for instance. But that doesn’t mean automakers would simply move Mexican factories north of the border. They might look for other low-cost countries instead, such as South Korea, India or China. The Trump administration could pursue trade restrictions on those countries as well, but that becomes a game of free-trade whack-a-mole in which the government is trying to tell multinational companies where to invest their money—hardly the lightly regulated pro-growth environment Trump says he wants to create.

If Trump tries to stop US automakers from producing in Mexico, that doesn’t mean he can stop foreign automakers from operating there. So the government would essentially be raising costs for American firms by forcing them out of Mexico, but not for their global competitors.  [Yahoo Finance]

You can read more at the link.

Donald Trump doesn't seem to have a North Korea plan. And that's very worrying https://t.co/mhUl8iZUGw

— DPRK Watch (@dprkwatch) November 18, 2016

I don’t see this happening considering Trump has already pledged his support for the US-ROK alliance after being elected:

If a U.S. administration of Donald Trump withdraws troops and equipment from South Korea and secures a peace treaty ending war on the peninsula, it could lead to normalizing relations with North Korea, a Pyongyang envoy told Reuters on Thursday.

But for now North Korea will pursue its policy of “simultaneous development” of both its nuclear program and the economy, So Se Pyong, North Korea’s Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva said. “It will be continued.”  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the North Koreans are taking a wait and see approach in regards to how they will respond to the election of Donald Trump:

North Korea has made its first indirect comment on the result of the US presidential election, one week after American voters went to the polls.

The first mention of Donald Trump’s victory appeared in a news report on a different matter entirely – and then only as a means to attack Pyongyang’s sworn enemy, South Korea.

Hidden deep down in a commentary calling for the resignation of embattled South Korean President Park Geun-hye, state news agency KCNA refers to her ruling Saenuri Party making use of a “Trump emergency system” to divert the public’s attention away from the current cronyism scandal threatening Ms Park’s leadership.

In the same report, headlined “South Korea leader ‘bound to get buried’ over scandal”, KCNA goes on to make its first mention of last week’s election, saying Ms Park and her followers were making a “bid to use even the US presidential election as an emergency measure” to escape impeachment.

Mr Trump is mentioned entirely without context, with no explanation to readers who or what “Trump” might be, and Korea-watchers will have to go back to June this year to find his last meaningful mention by Pyongyang.  [BBC]

You can read more at the link.