Who are you consulting with consistently so that you're
ready on day one I'm speaking with myself
number one because I have a very good
brain and I've said a lot of things
stabilizing dangerous, dangerous to United States dangerous
to the world order if you will
Here to explain at Donald trump's foreign policy
Oh boy, don't do that to me
it's very easy think about trump as basically
just saying incoherent things we talk about the
world in part because he often does
I would bomb the shit out of em
the issue though is that when you look underneath all
of that he had he has a world
it's actually fairly clear for donald trump his
worldview is transactional
if you pay a lot of money the
US will help you if you don't pay
a lot money US won't and really is
that simple we are being ripped off by
everybody in there with defending other countries
we are spending a fortune doing it they
have to bargain of the century you need
to take those ideas seriously and to engage
with them and say let's assume it's president
trump
let's look at the fact that of all
the things a president can and cannot do
foreign affairs foreign policy is the area where
he has the freest hand
he doesn't need Congress
when I heard that we were first
going into Iraq
some very smart people told me
well we're actually going for the oil
I said alright I get that I get
that
there's nothing else I get it we should
take it
and pay ourselves back
what what are we doing
Trump's idea of taking the oil speaks to
two things really about the way that he
views the world
the first one is that he sees basically
everything through the lens of what does America
get out of it
they pay us peanuts we're defending them the
second part is that trump thinks of good
for the United States as controlling stuff
I say
keep the oil
I mean we could theoretically do it but
Iraqis wouldn't just give the oil to Americans
almost certainly would fight a war thousands of
people would die it would be an immensely
complicated and dangerous occupation dwarfing even the
2003 Iraq invasion
the two years I've been telling you take
the oil hit the oil bomb the oil
he thinks of things in this narrow mercantilist
what's good for me is when
I own stuff and sell it to you
good deals versus bad deal
are we gonna take the oil how are
we going to do that just we would
leave a certain group behind and you would
take various sections where they have the oil
that foreign policy is about managing your relationship with other countries
it's not just about dominating them more to
the point we don't believe in imperialism as a mode of governance
in the old days when we won a
war
to the victor
belong to the spoils
the twenty eight countries of NATO many of
them aren't paying their fair share one that
bothers me because we should be... were
defending them that they should at least be
paying us what they're supposed to be paying
the issue of the NATO countries promised to
pay certain out their GDP towards defense
other than the U. S. almost no countries
doing
so trump says they're not paying their fair
share he's right
and it is too expensive because we can't
afford this anymore
and people are being brought in for a free ride
where it's dangerous is how we take
that to an extreme
and extreme isn't therefore NATO should pay more
therefore if Russia invades or we'll rethink when
we come to the defense of NATO countries
if they don't make us whole they may
have to defend themselves in the NATO charter
itself is one article in particular called article
five I don't think he knows what article 5 is
which says that if you attack any NATO
member the other twenty seven NATO countries have
to come to its defense
What Donald Trump is saying is that that
core mission of NATO
not only doesn't necessarily matter as much
but it's something that can be tossed aside
NATO exists solely to deter Russia I believe
an easing of tensions and improved relations with
Russia
from a position of strength only is
possible absolutely possible
for Vladimir Putin this is his top strategic
goal in many ways they have spent twenty
years
trying to weaken NATO and what Donald Trump is saying
is I'll give that to you he's not
going into Ukraine okay just so you understand
he's not going to Ukraine
you can mark it down you can put
it down you can take it anyways are
Well he's already there isn't he?
What you have Donald Trump saying about Vladimir Putin
it is astounding if he says great things about me
I'm gonna say great things about him with
Vladimir Putin
is to Donald Trump is a model of
a good leader
a model of an effective leader and a model
the popular leader he's running his country and
at least he's a leader you know unlike
what we have in this country it's a
very scary model and any aspect of it
that Vladimir Putin does right now that Donald
Trump would like to do would mean an America that
we would not recognize.
well he does have an eighty two percent
approval rating he's also a guy who annexed
Crimea invaded Ukraine supports Assad in Syria supports
Iran
North Korea's has nukes Japan has a problem with
that I mean they have a big problem
with it maybe they would in fact be
better off if they defend themselves from North Korea
with nukes? we would be better off
including with nukes yes including with nukes and
South Korea with nukes
South Korea is right next door instead of
having South Korea Japan and other allies
develop their own nuclear weapons programs they
rely on our nuclear forces
if they're attacked they don't have to worry
about having their own nuclear weapons because they
know for a fact that we will come
to their aid we extend our nuclear umbrella
over them what trump is saying is that
we should withdraw that for decades one of
the bedrock of American foreign policy has been
stopping nuclear proliferation and specifically providing security to
some of our allies in exchange for at
least in part that they not seek nuclear
weapons
that's been true under all the administrations Republican
and Democrat Donald Trump is promoting a new
policy with Trump you have him wanting to
withdraw nuclear umbrella which means that our allies
Japan and South Korea are more likely to
want to try to develop their nuclear weapons
because they feel threatened and they don't have
that guarantee anymore our alliance with Japan
and the Republic of Korea has prevented
the possibilities of
a nuclear escalation and conflict it would
completely destabilize
the kind of security structure that we've had
in East Asia for the last
several decades the person who made the
statements doesn't know much about
foreign policy or nuclear policy or
the Korean peninsula or the world generally
that also means that we no longer really
have influence there so we can use the
fact that we are your security guarantee we
are your backers
and we have your back
we can use that to say okay but
we need you to do X. Y. and
Z. with this long hellish election finally coming
to a close it's been easy throughout I
think this is a reason Donald Trump has
done as well as he has done to
just laughed at his funnier comment seems a
bit of a buffoon and a clown and just
not engage with what he says any serious
level and that's a disservice that's dangerous especially
in foreign policy because that's where president
trump would have to freest hand to do
what candidate trump says he would do