Talk:Donald Trump achievements: Foreign policy

World Bank women entrepreneurs fund

President Trump announced the U.S. would give $50 million to this fund.[1][2][3][4] This was widely reported in the media, but I don't see any good reason to add it to the article. Besides, that money could be used to fund the wall that leftists and RINO Republicans say is "too expensive." --1990'sguy (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2017 (EDT)

Please explain your observation "that money could be used to fund the wall that leftists and RINO Republicans say is 'too expensive.'" I understood that President Trump promised to make Mexico pay for it and that it will cost much more than $50 million. JDano (talk) 11:48, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

This is just a suggestion, and I do not plan on adding this to the article. But to reply to your comment, the establishment RINOs and leftist Dems in Congress do not like the idea of building a wall, nor do they like the idea of Mexico paying for it. It could easily be done (such as by passing Cruz's bill to use El Chapo's money). But if they don't want to do it, Trump needs to find other ways of securing funding. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:57, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Also, the wall was not my main reason for not adding it to the article. It does not seem very significant (unless you can show me otherwise). I was just pointing it out here. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:59, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Victory in Mosul

This is probably not appropriate to add as an achievement (and at the same time, it might be considered a military achievement), but Iraq, with U.S. help, retook Mosul,[5][6][7] and the Saudi king congratulated Trump for the takeover. It seems that at least some people are giving Trump some credit for this.[8] --1990'sguy (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2017 (EDT)

Misleading bullet item about "Meeting with 50% more foreign leaders"

The bullet point references a Breitbart item that lists President Trump meeting with 28 "foreign leaders" through July 6 vs. 19 for Obama. It notes that this excludes phone calls or meetings held around the G-8 or G-20, and "excludes Obama’s June 2009 meeting with Zimbabwe’s then-Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, since President Robert Mugabe held real power, and the position of prime minister was later abolished." It is further selective because it discounts Obama's trip to Europe and Africa: on July 7, Obama met with Putin, on July 8, Obama met with the Prime Minister of Italy, on July 9, Obama attended the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in L’Aquila, Italy; on July 10, Obama met with the Pope, and on July 11, Obama flew to Ghana. So, if we took today as the cut off point, the results would be significantly different. In any event, face-to-face meetings without results is not a good way to measure a President's "achievements", so this metric is both silly and mismeasured. Thanks, JDano (talk) 11:40, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Thanks for the message. I changed the bullet point to make the mention more accurate. I still think it should stay, because it dispels the notion that Trump is an "isolationist" or that he does not have an active foreign policy. And besides, I don't think the Breitbart article counts Trump's meetings with foreign leaders at the G7 summit. Noting these things is enough. People come up with different criteria for things like this, this article accurately reports one of them. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:53, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Do you have other sources that discuss the number of Trump vs. Obama foreign meetings so far? --1990'sguy (talk) 12:04, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

I listed https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov which does report on all Presidential meetings. The point is that when Obama went to Europe and Africa, he announced various initiatives and agreements, much like Trump announced a new truce in Syria. So, we should be counting "achievements" not "face-to-face meetings." JDano (talk) 12:59, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

No, I meant sources reporting on the number of Trump meetings as opposed to Obama meetings. Breitbart, or whoever counted the number of meetings, also left out Trump phone calls and summit meetings in addition to Obama. You seem concerned about how Obama's meetings are not counted, but the article does not seem to count Trump's G7 meetings, and it was published just before he went to the G20 summit, which would have greatly increased Trump's number of meetings if those met the criterion to be included. Bottom line: the Breitbart article has consistent criteria, and it is thus appropriate to cite, and it is not misleading because it identifies the criteria for how it counts the number of meetings. If you have another source that uses different criteria, I will most likely also add it. --1990'sguy (talk) 13:36, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Other than the one Breitbart article, I have not seen anyone think that counting the number of in-person meetings with foreign leaders is a meaningful exercise. If you include the G-20 meetings and the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, the two counts are very close. If you exclude the G-20 meetings but go through July 18, rather than July 6, Obama moves ahead on this artificial metric. I am saying that this one author was cherry-picking his data. Why not focus of achievements rather than face-to-face meetings? Should we give bonus points for address the nation's Parliament? How about a half-point for a phone call? Nobody I have asked thinks that "keeping score" in this fashion makes any sense. The bullet does not "dispel[] the notion that Trump is an 'isolationist' or that he does not have an active foreign policy." Rather it feeds the false narrative that Trump is trying to touch as many bases as possible for future hotels instead of achieving foreign policy successes. I would delete it as having no encyclopedic value. Perhaps others have views? JDano (talk) 21:33, 18 July 2017 (EDT)

That bullet point does not feed into any narrative that Trump is running foreign policy to build more hotels. Besides, Breitbart News has a pro-Trump editorial stance -- the article makes clear the significance of this fact, and it has nothing to do with hotels. The criteria are clear and consistent. Politicians can call each other whenever they want. Actually going to another country to meet its leader (or vice-versa) face-to-face is a big deal because it shows serious interest in forming good national relations. The bullet point will stay, and I have already changed it to note the criteria it used and the significance of it. Please, stop targeting Breitbart articles. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:50, 18 July 2017 (EDT)

Withholding money from Pakistan

The Trump Administration is withholding $50 million in military aid from Pakistan because the country was not taking enough action against the Haqqani network.[9][10] Interesting to note, but probably not significant enough to add to the article. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:50, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

Trump is now threatening to stop funding Pakistan entirely.[11][12][13] We'll see what ultimately happens. --1990'sguy (talk) 16:19, 1 January 2018 (EST)

The U.S. is withdholding $255 million from Pakistan: [14] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:34, 1 January 2018 (EST)

Apparently, the money hasn't already been withheld yet, but is planned to be withheld rather than giving it this coming year: [15] --1990'sguy (talk) 00:16, 3 January 2018 (EST)

It seems to be official now: [16][17][18] Might be good to add now. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2018 (EST)

Very nice! Yes, this seems like a good one to add. --David B ^(TALK) 00:38, 5 January 2018 (EST)

Other "withholding money" news (incl. Palestine)

More articles on the U.S.'s Palestine funding cuts (that I didn't add to the article): [19][20][21][22][23][24] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:06, 16 January 2018 (EST)

The Trump Administration may take further actions against Palestine and the UN refugee agency: [25] --1990'sguy (talk) 10:55, 1 February 2018 (EST)

The Administration may end funding for several UN agencies and conventions that recognize the Palestinians: [26] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:50, 26 May 2018 (EDT)

President Trump reportedly has frozen $200 million set to go to recovery efforts in Syria,[27][28][29][30][31] with this news coming as Trump stated that he wants to pull out of Syria.[32][33] It's probably best that we wait to see how this plays out before adding it, since these are only reports and the State Department decided to spend the money only shortly before this decision was made. Regardless, this is a good development. --1990'sguy (talk) 14:52, 31 March 2018 (EDT)

More news and commentary on Syria: [34][35][36][37][38] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:41, 4 April 2018 (EDT)

Increasing foreign aid

The U.S. will give $16 million to refugees fleeing Venezuela: [39][40][41] Not only is this wasteful, but the money will be given indirectly -- going through the UN before ever reaching the refugees. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2018 (EDT)

Failure: State Dept. still supporting anti-Israel report

I am not adding this, at least yet, because I'm not sure how significant it is, but the State Department still endorses an anti-Israel report that essentially blames the nation for terrorist attacks against it and claims that Palestinians only rarely incite violence.[42] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2017 (EDT)

Venezuela sanctions

The Trump Administration enacted sanctions on Venezuela's president and labeled him a dictator.[43][44][45][46][47] While I support the move, I don't see how it is significant enough to add here as an achievement. --1990'sguy (talk) 00:13, 1 August 2017 (EDT)

The Trump Administration is planning more sanctions against Venezuela: [48] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:14, 8 August 2017 (EDT)

The additional sanctions have been imposed: [49][50] --1990'sguy (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

Is our criteria to label as an "achievement" when Trump defines a policy and then carries it out? Or does that policy have to achieve the intended results? Is it a success or a failure when the Trump administration adopts a policy that is counter to what Trump promised during the campaign? --Unsigned comment by JDano

We already went through this. We are not going to create any silly bureaucratic "criteria" which would result in half of Trump's (significant, noteworthy, and very well-sourced) listed achievements being deleted. If an achievement advances conservative policies/ideals (generally, as defined in the conservative article), it can be included. Presumably, it must be well-sourced. There is no further requirement. If an action is clearly a dud, we can note this. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:21, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

The Trump Administration added more sanctions on Venezuela: [51][52][53][54][55][56][57] --1990'sguy (talk) 13:05, 25 August 2017 (EDT)

Citgo Petroleum Corp., which is owned by the Venezuelen government, was exempted from the sanctions, however, even though it still will not be able to send its profits to the Venezuelen government: [58] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2017 (EDT)

More Venezuela sanctions: [59] It seems like these sanctions are being enacted a lot, but in smaller pieces at a time. Maybe they should be added, but the small portions at a time make it difficult. --1990'sguy (talk) 17:12, 5 January 2018 (EST)

More sanctions, this time against Venezuela's digital currencies: [60][61] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:32, 19 March 2018 (EDT)

More sanctions again, among other news: [62][63][64][65][66] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:26, 9 May 2018 (EDT)

I added these sanction from 2017 and 2018 to the article, including a few others such as the ones enacted today.[67][68] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:23, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

Military option?

President Trump is not ruling out a military option in dealing with Venezuela.[69][70][71][72] It is good to see the Trump Administration take strong foreign policy stances -- however, hopefully, this does not indicate any shift towards a neoconservative foreign policy. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:07, 11 August 2017 (EDT)

Other Venezuela news

It's good to note that despite the prisoner release yesterday, there are still five Americans held in Venezuela: [73] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:13, 27 May 2018 (EDT)

Interesting op-ed on it: [74] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:34, 28 May 2018 (EDT)

Defunding the Syrian rebels: confirmed?

President Trump appeared to confirm it: [75][76] If/when it is confirmed, I would appreciate it is someone would notify me. --1990'sguy (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2017 (EDT)

Killing ISIS

It might be that the Trump Administration killed more ISIS members in the past eight months than during the entire Obama Administration.[77][78] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:57, 11 September 2017 (EDT)

Not related to the above, and it's not solely an achievement by the Trump Administration, but this article on efforts against ISIS is interesting: [79] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:33, 27 April 2018 (EDT)

More on the capture of five senior ISIS leaders: [80] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2018 (EDT)

UN reforms: attempt to stop Trump

According to Fox News, some UN leaders are now open to reforming the UN, but only to help protect the organization from the Trump Administration and any actions it might take against the UN.[81] Hopefully these attempts will not succeed. --1990'sguy (talk) 18:59, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

If the UN adopts reforms that address US concerns or criticisms, then the UN, our nation, and the world are better off. It is better to fix problems without having to spend political capital. JDano (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

Only if it addresses U.S. concerns. These reforms are clearly not intended to address U.S. concerns. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:17, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

Trump proposing reforms

It is being reported that Trump will call for reforming the UN in a few weeks: [82] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:04, 1 September 2017 (EDT)

It is also being reported that Trump will promote his America First agenda in his UN speech, along with national sovereignty in general.[83][84] Hopefully, this will be the case. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:58, 15 September 2017 (EDT)

And more reports of reforming the UN,[85] even though John Bolton doesn't think much of it.[86] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:23, 17 September 2017 (EDT)

More UN developments

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is pledging that the U.S. will not pay more than 25% of the UN budget: [87] Hopefully, this pledge will come to fruition. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:05, 28 March 2018 (EDT)

The State Department just released a list of the top 10 countries that vote both most often and least often with the U.S.: [88][89] Interesting list. --1990'sguy (talk) 13:48, 1 May 2018 (EDT)

North Korea sanctions?

Here is an interesting article discussing how the North Korea UN sanctions might not be so effective after all. However, I won't add this to the article because it is far too early to know whether the sanctions were ineffective after all. If good articles do come out, I will probably add them, at least, as a footnote. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:30, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

The U.S. softened some new proposed sanctions on North Korea, proposed in the UN, to gain the support of China and Russia.[90] --1990'sguy (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2017 (EDT)

These new sanctions were approved: [91][92][93][94][95] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:35, 11 September 2017 (EDT)

The Treasury Department sanctioned two high-ranking North Korean officials today.[96][97] While a good move, I probably won't add this because it doesn't seem significant enough by itself to include. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:16, 26 December 2017 (EST)

Interesting article on Voice of America's analysis on the Trump Administration's North Korea policy: [98] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2017 (EST)

According to Reuters, the U.S. is preparing to crack down on ships travelling to North Korea in the form of intercepting them: [99][100] --1990'sguy (talk) 19:41, 23 February 2018 (EST)

The Associated Press and the Heritage Foundation are not impressed with the latest sanctions against North Korea and dispute the administration's assertion that they are the largest-ever: [101] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:53, 24 February 2018 (EST)

North Korea travel ban

The Trump Administration will ban travel to North Korea. It is probably most appropriate to add it to this article (as opposed to the immigration article), and I will do so once it goes into effect.[102][103][104][105][106] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:44, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

The ban will go into effect on September 1.[107][108] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:41, 2 August 2017 (EDT)

Weapons to U.S. allies

The U.S. probably will start selling more weapons to its allies around North Korea. something Trump recently tweeted about: [109] --1990'sguy (talk) 10:42, 6 September 2017 (EDT)

That sounds like a good plan. If he goes through with it, that might be worth adding. --David B ^(TALK) 11:23, 26 February 2018 (EST)

Thaw in relations?

Trump agreed to hold a meeting with N.K.'s leader Kim Jong-un in May: [110][111][112][113] This will be interesting, and we'll see what comes out of it. Trump's policies likely played a big role in these developments: [114][115] --1990'sguy (talk) 14:39, 9 March 2018 (EST)

Another interesting article on this meeting: [116] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2018 (EST)

I love how the left would have called him unreasonable if he was not doing this, but are now claiming that this is a risky step because it "legitimizes" N.K. Rush Limbaugh made a great point today about how the news media was actually congratulating Trump for the first hour or so, before they all "got the memo" and started saying this was terrible. --David B ^(TALK) 01:47, 10 March 2018 (EST)

Now, the NK media is claiming the country will stop nuclear tests and close a testing site: [117][118][119][120][121] Time will tell what will ultimately come out of this. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:00, 21 April 2018 (EDT)

Kim Jong-un became the first North Korean leader to step into South Korea. This seems like big news, and as some of the sources show, Trump definitely deserves some credit for this: [122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129] This might be something to add, especially if we get an official treaty or agreement. --1990'sguy (talk) 17:31, 27 April 2018 (EDT)

There were some reports that North Korea had freed some American prisoners, but these reports appear to remain unconfirmed: [130][131][132] If they are confirmed, we should definitely add this. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:56, 3 May 2018 (EDT)

More on the prisoners, who we now know have been freed: [133][134][135] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:26, 9 May 2018 (EDT)

Trump cancelled the meeting because of the North Koreans' behavior in the past few days, and he made clear that the U.S. military is ready in case it is needed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Contrary to an edit that I reverted, the meeting being cancelled was not a Trump Administration failure, since the Trump Administration is persuing a good peace agreement that won't repeat past administrations' failures -- North Korea's behavior in the last few days showed that such a meeting would not help advance that goal (also, a *real* peace agreement is not dependent on some meeting that's on North Korea's terms). --1990'sguy (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2018 (EDT)

The Trump Administration stopped new sanctions against NK while the talks for a potential summit are still happening: [136][137] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2018 (EDT)

Summit

This is big news, and I will most likely add this to the article, though I want to wait a little bit before doing so particularly because everything's moving so fast. Trump and Kim meeting: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Sources on the agreement signed: 123456,7,891011,12 Sources on the possible ending of military drills and the Pentagon's reaction: 1,2,3,4 Other interesting sources: 1,2,3 Reaction from Japan and South Korea: 1,2,3 Potential images to upload: 1,2,3,4 This is a lot of info, but I will probably add this soon, and I won't have to do internet searches for sources again with this. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:30, 12 June 2018 (EDT)

Cuba

Some Cuban diplomats were kicked out of the U.S.[138] Interesting story. I'm not sure if there is any connection to Trump's Cuba policies. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:55, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

Interesting article on Trump's June 2017 executive order on Cuba: [139] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:25, 29 November 2017 (EST)

Trump admin. failure? Definite stalling

The Trump Administration has still not made official the partial rollback of Obama's Cuba "thaw." It appears that the reason for this is that the Office of Foreign Assets Control does not have many workers and has a lot of other work.[140] Hopefully, this rollback will become official soon (or at all). --1990'sguy (talk) 23:40, 27 September 2017 (EDT)

Russia non-immigrant visa suspension

In response to Russia's cutting of U.S. embassy staff, the U.S. announced it would stop non-immigrant visas for a week.[141][142][143][144] This seems like a good move, but I don't see how it is significant enough to add. Also, the suspension has not gone into effect yet. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:39, 21 August 2017 (EDT)

More actions against Russia

The U.S. government is forcing Russia to dramatically reduce its diplomatic presence in the U.S.[145][146][147][148] It may be a good thing that the U.S. is tough on Russia, but considering that liberals can be very tough on people they disagree with politically, this may not necessarily be an achievement (although I am still inclined to favor it). --1990'sguy (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2017 (EDT)

I removed this info because it doesn't seem like a substantive achievement. For one, this list was already required by a law Trump signed in 2017 (which I added to the article), and he took less action against Russia than was expected of him (he didn't institute sanctions against Russia yet). Here are other sources on this: [149][150][151][152][153][154] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:21, 3 February 2018 (EST)

Here's a potential achievement: an alleged Russian hacker who was in the Czech Republic has been extradited to the U.S. despite the fact that Russia tried hard to get him extradited to their own country: [155][156][157][158][159] This seems like good news for the U.S., but it might be too insignificant to add. --1990'sguy (talk) 17:26, 4 April 2018 (EDT)

Interesting article about Trump's foreign policy

Voice of America did an article on what it thinks Trump's foreign policy principles are: [160] I'm probably not going to add it, and what this article says might be debatable, but it is still interesting. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:45, 30 August 2017 (EDT)

VoA made another article, calling Trump's foreign policy "conventional", which probably is true in some regards, though I won't add it: [161] --1990'sguy (talk) 20:57, 20 January 2018 (EST)

I found an interesting USA Today article about Trump's foreign policy during his first year: [162] It's interesting to read, but I won't add it to the article because it's quite biased against Trump, as it portrays many of his actions as harmful and quotes several anti-Trump foreign policy people. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:27, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

Apparently, UNESCO was plagued by more than simply anti-Israel bias -- is also supported abortion and homosexuality: [163] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2018 (EST)

This article, on the benefits of Trump's meeting with Nigeria's leader, is interesting: [164] --1990'sguy (talk) 12:19, 8 May 2018 (EDT)

Countering China

It appears that the U.S. Navy will now have regular patrols in the South China Sea.[165][166][167][168] This appears to be something which is still scheduled to happen, rather than already has happened (so I'm reluctant to add it), but it is good that the U.S. is taking steps to counter China. It is a bigger long-term threat than Russia. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:46, 4 September 2017 (EDT)

The Trump Administration is also reviewing its policy toward China in an attempt to form a unified and organized policy. However, it's still too early to tell which direction the review will support going.[169][170] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2017 (EDT)

The Philippines is moving back toward a pro-U.S. foreign policy, a big reason for that being to reduce it dependence on China: [171] --1990'sguy (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2017 (EDT)

There has been some discussion on China's help (or lack thereof) in confronting North Korea. China's government is stating that they are cutting off oil and steel imports to the country: [172] Hopefully, it is being honest in this announcement. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2018 (EST)

The State Department reportedly approved a marketing license that allows American companies to sell technology to Taiwan that would allow the country to build its own submarines: [173] --1990'sguy (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

This is a good article showing why China is probably the greatest threat the U.S. faces: [174] --1990'sguy (talk) 20:18, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

Setback to tough-on-China policy?

Admiral Scott Swift, who is very anti-China, was dropped from consideration to command Pacific Command, mainly due to his views on China (the Pentagon is still more liberal and supports working with China): [175] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2017 (EDT)

Comprehensive Economic Dialogue

David Malpass, a high-ranking Treasury Department official, stated that the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue between the U.S. and China would end and be replaced with private/informal discussions,[176] but the Treasury Department reversed itself and retracted that statement: [177][178][179] Hopefully, the talks will end soon. --1990'sguy (talk) 09:22, 21 March 2018 (EDT)

Appointments

The Trump Administration is nominating Randall Schriver, a China hawk, to an important Defense Department position dealing with issues related to China, and the Senate confirmed Daniel Krintenbrink, someone who spoke out against China during his confirmation hearing, as the ambassador to Vietnam.[180] Hopefully, this shows that the Trump Administration will be harsher toward China. --1990'sguy (talk) 18:23, 1 November 2017 (EDT)

I seriously considered adding Schriver to the article as a personal achievement due to his stance on China, but I didn't find many articles on him, and the more I read about him, he doesn't stick out as an exceptional appointee, at least to the point where we should single him out (though he's clearly still a very good appointee). Thus, I don't think I'll add him to the article. Regardless, here are decent articles related to him that I did find: [181][182][183][184] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2018 (EST)

Andy Harris has been formally nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, having been moved from Australia, and he seems like someone who can help take a tough stance against China: [185] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:09, 25 May 2018 (EDT)

Brexit and the EU

Woody Johnson, Trump's ambassador to the UK, is promising U.S. support for Britain in its Brexit talks: [186][187][188][189] Hopefully, the Trump Administration will adopt a Euroskeptic approach to the EU, or at least one that's friendly to the Euroskeptics. --1990'sguy (talk) 16:47, 13 September 2017 (EDT)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson voiced the same support: [190] --1990'sguy (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2017 (EDT)

Same for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross: [191] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:07, 7 November 2017 (EST)

Ross is warning that EU regulations could hurt trade between the U.S. and UK: [192] --1990'sguy (talk) 10:48, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

Israel military base

The U.S. opened its first permanent military base in Israel: [193] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:38, 18 September 2017 (EDT)

Other Israel stuff

UN Ambassador Haley stated that the UN is taking less of an anti-Israel stance since the Trump Administration took office, and if true, it's good news: [194] Of course, this is just Haley's claim, so I am not confident to add it to the article, at least yet. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2017 (EDT)

Yeah, UNESCO and other parts of the U.N. have been really slandering Israel--I don't think a brief lull can count as an achievement, unless it was caused by Trump outright saying that Israel owns its land, and will be protected by the U.S. from anyone trying to say or do anything to the contrary. Still, I hope it's true. --David B ^(TALK) 13:04, 19 September 2017 (EDT)

These articles might be useful in the future, if we choose to discuss the potential (and desirable) embassy move to Jerusalem.[195][196] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:25, 10 October 2017 (EDT)

Some more interesting articles on Niki Haley and Israel: [197][198] --1990'sguy (talk) 10:21, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

The Israeli government just posted signs directing people to the new Jerusalem embassy location: [199][200][201] --1990'sguy (talk) 12:16, 7 May 2018 (EDT)

Jerusalem will also reportedly name a square near the new U.S. embassy after Trump: [202][203] --1990'sguy (talk) 12:04, 8 May 2018 (EDT)

Interesting article on what should be done with the old Tel Aviv embassy and why: [204] --1990'sguy (talk) 11:11, 9 May 2018 (EDT)

The embassy just moved its Twitter location to Jerusalem: [205] --1990'sguy (talk) 08:29, 10 May 2018 (EDT)

Trump is being honored in other ways as well: [206][207] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:09, 13 May 2018 (EDT)

More interesting articles on the move: [208][209][210] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:24, 14 May 2018 (EDT)

These articles show that in addition to good relations with Trump, Israel is developing friendlier relations with many of the Sunni Gulf states, since they share the same enemy: [211][212] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:25, 20 May 2018 (EDT)

The Trump Administration may recognize Israel's control of the Golan Heights soon: [213][214] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:39, 26 May 2018 (EDT)

The U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel's use of force in gaza due to the Anti-Israel riots there: [215] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:16, 2 June 2018 (EDT)

Potential failure: State Department and Jerusalem

The State Department is refusing to implement the practical effects of the U.S. recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, such as recognizing that fact in passports and on the Jerusalem consulate address: [216][217][218] Hopefully, that will change, but if not, it is a failure. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:49, 8 December 2017 (EST)

Countering Iran

The Trump Administration will crack down more harshly on Hezbollah: [219] --1990'sguy (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2017 (EDT)

More sources for Trump's support for Iranian anti-government protestors: [220][221] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:45, 31 December 2017 (EST)

Hopefully, this will actually be the last time President Trump waives the Iran deal: [222][223][224][225][226] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2018 (EST)

The Trump Administration is making contingency plans in case it chooses to leave the Iran Deal: [227][228] Trump's comments on the deal indicate, at least to some observers, that he is willing to leave, which is good if true: [229][230] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:21, 21 March 2018 (EDT)

I haven't used these articles for the entry in the article, but they are still interesting to read: [231][232] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:07, 8 May 2018 (EDT)

More interesting articles on the Iran deal that I haven't added: [233][234][235] I removed this ref about oil prices in reaction to the Iran deal withdrawal, since I read that oil prices rose this morning: [236] Prices go up and down, so if there isn't a clear reaction, better to just leave it out. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:10, 9 May 2018 (EDT)

It's good to see that Mattis is publically supporting the decision, despite his apparent previous opposition to leaving: [237] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:26, 9 May 2018 (EDT)

More on Iran: [238][239] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:48, 10 May 2018 (EDT)

Trump harshly criticized Iran in his Nowruz message: [240][241] I'm not sure if this should be added (it's only words, not action), but it indicates that the administration is taking a tough line against Iran. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:10, 20 March 2018 (EDT)

Iranian rial

The Iranian rial, the country's currency, hit a record low because of the Trump Administration's policies (not directly, but because of market forces reacting to them): [242][243][244] --1990'sguy (talk) 15:20, 30 March 2018 (EDT)

Possible failures on Iran

The Trump Administration is reportedly going to allow Iran to produce and test missiles that could hit Israel per the Iran nuclear deal renegotiations: [245][246] Hopefully, Trump will reject the deal. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2018 (EDT)

Since Trump chose to leave the Iran deal, he appears to have presumably abandoned this part too, meaning it's not a failure. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:07, 8 May 2018 (EDT)

Closing the "Taliban Embassy"

The Trump Administration may put pressure on its Middle Eastern allies to close the Taliban's "political office" in Qatar.[247] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:24, 24 October 2017 (EDT)

Closing the Palestinian D.C. office

The Trump Administration originally wanted to close the Palestinian representative office in Washington D.C. due to a law ordering this if the Palestinians try to get the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israelis,[248] but it apparently backtracked on this.[249][250][251][252] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:30, 24 November 2017 (EST)

Qatar and terrorism: potential achievement

The Trump Administration and Qatar have agreed to have Qatar strengthen its efforts against terrorism.[253][254] While agreements like these can be hard to determine how strongly enforced they will be, this might be worth adding as an achievement. This article is also of note: [255] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2017 (EDT)

U.S. sovereignty

The recently confirmed nominee to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration voiced support and confidence in the new international organization that controls internet domains. This used to be something controlled exclusively by the U.S., but the Obama Administration handed it over.[256] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:30, 8 November 2017 (EST)

The nominee, David Redl, apparently made a deal with Ted Cruz to at least look into regaining U.S. sovereignty over internet domains: [257][258] Hopefully, this deal was serious/factual, and hopefully it is actually possible to regain U.S. control over internet domains (and if so, hopefully, there's a will to do it). --1990'sguy (talk) 23:32, 23 January 2018 (EST)

This article gives an interesting take on Trump's decision not to attend the Summit of the Americas, since it argues the organization is another leftist/globalist international organization: [259] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:23, 11 April 2018 (EDT)

The leaders at the summit signed another one of those statements pledging adherence to globalist principles: [260] This may not be significant enough to add to this article (since only Pence was present and most international organizations make statements like this), but this article is interesting and might have useful info for other articles in this series or for CP in general. --1990'sguy (talk) 12:22, 18 April 2018 (EDT)

Trump and globalists

Not only did Trump reserve his first state dinner for Macron, but he allowed Macron to address Congress and give an ultra-globalist speech: [261][262][263][264][265][266] Hopefully, Trump won't adopt Macron's policies, as it would be a 100% reversal from his campaign promises. Regardless, this article on the current U.S.-French relationship is interesting: [267][268] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:52, 25 April 2018 (EDT)

This is interesting to watch: [269] Poland's request was in the news recently, but what many media outlets appear to have missed is that its request would bypass NATO and the EU. If the Trump Administration accepts, I hope the deal will be bilateral. --1990'sguy (talk) 00:16, 30 May 2018 (EDT)

On the other hand, building a base there would bring us into even more foreign entanglements: [270] --1990'sguy (talk) 21:35, 30 May 2018 (EDT)

Some good news: the Trump Administration is finally taking a more friendly stance toward Hungary, with the nation's government having recently held meetings with high-ranking Trump Administration officials, including Pompeo (note that some of the following sources are left-wing and strongly biased against this, despite being interesting to read): [271][272][273][274][275] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:53, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

While the following sources are left-wing and oppose Orban's government, it does appear that the U.S. State Department had a less friendly perspective on the meeting: [276][277][278] Also, this is a good article on this general topic: [279] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2018 (EDT)

More good news: the State Department is criticizing some laws in Canada which restrict religious liberty (and criticisms like that don't happen often).[280] --1990'sguy (talk) 00:17, 4 June 2018 (EDT)

In bad news (and a possible failure), the U.S. Treasury Department is urging Italy to remain in the Euro currency: [281] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:16, 30 May 2018 (EDT)

However, Trump did (reportedly) say that the EU is even worse than China (though the context appears to have been on trade): [282][283] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2018 (EDT)

Interesting commentary by Pat Buchanan on Trump's reshaping of the world order: [284] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:10, 12 June 2018 (EDT)

Bad appointments

Despite conservatives asking Trump not to appoint Joseph MacManus, who served with Hillary Clinton and has a history of advancing liberal causes,[285][286][287] the Trump Administration nominated him anyway to be the ambassador to Colombia.[288] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:37, 24 November 2017 (EST)

Conservative Senators will try to block MacManus's nomination: [289][290] --1990'sguy (talk) 10:46, 1 December 2017 (EST)

Fortnately, they're still blocking MacManus: [291] --1990'sguy (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2018 (EDT)

Also, Trump's ambassador to India, who was confirmed earlier this year, Kenneth Juster, is probably the epitome of a deep state party-of-Devos globalist, who is not only a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, but also of the Trilateral Commission.[292] --1990'sguy (talk) 14:35, 19 December 2017 (EST)

This article lists some bad Trump Administration appointments in the State Department. --1990'sguy (talk) 11:24, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Good personnel developments

Tom Shannon, a career diplomat and the State Department's #3 official, will be retiring -- one less establishment official at State: [293][294][295][296] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2018 (EST)

Unfortunately, Adam Lerrick, a conservative Treasury Department nominee, was withdrawn, though he may become a senior advisor in the department: [297][298][299] --1990'sguy (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2018 (EDT)

Trump just appointed Tomás Regalado, a strong opponent of Cuba, to run the U.S. government media that counter's Cuba's state media: [300] --1990'sguy (talk) 16:11, 6 June 2018 (EDT)

NATO spending

About half of all NATO members are expected to meet the organization's spending goals by 2024, which the Trump Administration is advocating for: [301] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:11, 13 February 2018 (EST)

More articles on Europe's NATO spending: [302][303][304] --1990'sguy (talk) 12:12, 23 April 2018 (EDT)

Military interventionism

The U.S. Senate rejected a proposal to force the U.S. military to withdraw from Yemen (and Congress didn't even authorize military intervention in the first place): [305][306][307][308][309] Hopefully, the Trump Administration will withdraw from some of these foreign conflicts. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:41, 21 March 2018 (EDT)

Regardless of what one thought of the Syria strike yesterday, this comment from the White House today sounded like something a moralist neocon would say. Hopefully, the Trump Administration isn't going that route. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2018 (EDT)

Hopefully, Emmanuel Macron's statements are untrue: [310][311] It's unfortunate that the world leader that Trump arguably has the best relationship with is a globalist leftist. --1990'sguy (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2018 (EDT)

Macron appeared to "walk back" those comments: [312] --1990'sguy (talk) 11:10, 16 April 2018 (EDT)

A somewhat interesting (if outdated) article on Syria: [313] --1990'sguy (talk) 23:25, 19 May 2018 (EDT)

The U.S. might pull out some troops from South Korea: [314] Also, the State Department froze funding to a humanitarian organization: [315] --1990'sguy (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2018 (EDT)

Apparently, both Trump and Bolton denied planning on withdrawing, though Trump did indicate he wants to eventually leave: [316][317][318] --1990'sguy (talk) 11:59, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

Would it be appropriate to respond militarily if a globalist organization like the EU forced one or more of our allies to surrender control of their militaries to unelected bureaucrats who have the capacity to use those armies to enforce that organization's policies? Would it be appropriate to consider such an event to be an act of aggression against those allies? --Geopolitician (talk) 14:42, 22 April 2018 (EDT)

Syrian strikes

Quick question. Why are the Syrian strikes listed as achievements? If all they end up doing is empowering Sunni jihadists AND, as the front page of this wiki indicates, they have no moral justification, shouldn't they be listed as failures, as the lack of replacements for Obama holdovers currently are? --Geopolitician (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2018 (EDT)

This wasn't an easy decision to make, but Trump apparently chose the most limited option -- the airstrikes only his three targets directly involved with the chemical weapons program, and they did not hurt Syrian military capabilities in any other way (and they didn't even destroy the entire chemical weapons stockpile). They sent a message on using chemical weapons on innocent people while not doing anything to weaken the Syrian government's position in the war and not doing anything to militarily confront the Russians. And while many conservatives opposed the strike, some like Sebastian Gorka (who is not a neocon) supported them. It wasn't easy to decide where to put this, but with it all considered, I think there's a much better case for listing it as an achievement (and I still mentioned that many conservatives opposed the move in order to tell the whole story). --1990'sguy (talk) 13:40, 22 April 2018 (EDT)

While it appears that fears of WWIII haven't been realized (yet), I am still concerned about Sunni jihadists. Although ISIS has been (almost) totally defeated, another wannabe Sunni caliphate is rising: Turkey, under the leadership of Erdogan. Right now, Erdogan is playing a double game. He's remaining in NATO and calling for Assad's ouster, but has also entered into a pact with Russia and Iran to allow his troops to have a presence in Syria (against Assad's wishes) in order to expel American influence from the region. His end goal is to make sure US-Russian relations are as bad as possible while his own country keeps its relations with them as friendly as possible. That way, while the US and Russia are going at it, he can expand his caliphate south towards Mecca.

These strikes seem to play right into Erdogan's hands. US-Russia relations are now worse than ever, while both remain friendly to Turkey due to Erdogan's double game. And in the end, Sunni jihadists come out victorious. --Geopolitician (talk) 14:33, 22 April 2018 (EDT)

It's obviously debatable, and I won't argue it further. When debatable achievements like this come, I try to note both sides of the arguments while still weighing whether the good outweighed the bad (or vice-versa).

Not related to the above, I'm saving these articles on Syria here, for future reference: [319][320][321][322][323] (articles on earlier incidents: [324][325][326][327][328]) --1990'sguy (talk) 23:54, 22 April 2018 (EDT)

Peace with Russia?

Here's an article from the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/c1721646-4d51-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493 --Geopolitician (talk) 17:49, 5 May 2018 (EDT)

Are we about to lose Poland?

I'm becoming increasingly worried that President Trump will go down in history as "the President who lost Poland."

Over the past five months, the goodwill that was brought about by Trump's speech in Warsaw has slowly been evaporating. Problems began in January when the Polish Parliament decided to pass a law that would criminalize public statements claiming that Poland was responsible for Holocaust-related crimes committed on Polish soil.[329] This elicited a very harsh response from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Poland of Holocaust denial, while both Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and opposition MP Yair Lapid outright stated that Poland as a country bore responsibility for the Holocaust. [330][331][332]

Since then, Poland and Israel have been engaging in an increasingly bitter diplomatic dispute. This diplomatic dispute has led to a dramatic increase in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments and rhetoric among Poles, including among state-owned media and politicians.[333][334][335] Things only got worse when Poland -- who prior to this incident was a staunch ally of Israel in the anti-Israel European Union -- refused to either participate in the effort to block the EU's motion to condemn President Trump's embassy move to Jerusalem or send an envoy to the opening ceremony of the embassy. [336][337]

Meanwhile, the United States has made it clear that it supports Israel over Poland in this dispute. It has condemned Poland's law as infringing on freedom of speech and academic inquiry [338], and President Trump has signed a bill requiring the State Department to monitor and encourage countries affected by the Holocaust to either return land stolen from Jews by the Nazis to their rightful owners or provide substitute compensation -- including but not limited to property never owned by Holocaust survivors or victims -- to Holocaust survivors or their heirs as fair play and substantial justice may require. [339] This bill is deemed highly controversial, and some claim that it violates international law. Furthermore, I have met multiple Poles online (on Twitter and on Breitbart's comment sections) that have stated that they now consider the US and Israel to be enemies of Poland in response to this crisis. Some have gone as far as advocating severing diplomatic ties or even going to war with the US and Israel over what they see as a malicious attack on Polish sovereignty. Either way, they used to admire President Trump. Now, they despise him.

Although we haven't reached that point yet, I'm becoming increasingly worried that President Trump will go down in history as "the President who lost Poland." Poland has already demonstrated on at least one occasion that it is willing to side with the globalist EU over the United States, if President Trump does not side with Poland over Israel in this diplomatic dispute. Poland has already demonstrated on at least one occasion that despite the migrant crisis, it would consider the globalist EU to be the lesser of two evils if the United States engages in behavior that Poland deems to be infringing on Polish sovereignty. I fear that unless we fix this diplomatic crisis, we can forget the possibility of an alliance with Poland against globalism and Islamism. -- --Geopolitician (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2018 (EDT)