Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Some Trump flip-plops and waffle.

"Trump’s tweets ripping London's Mayor Khan veer from idiotic to odious"

Embassy move to Jerusalem, Islam, NATO

Donald Trump's 3 big flip-flops
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 2100 GMT (0500 HKT) May 22, 2017
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/donald-trump-jerusalem-nato/index.html

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Trump defends about-face on labeling China a currency manipulator
Kevin Liptak-Profile-Image
By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer
Updated 1451 GMT (2251 HKT) April 16, 2017
Trump appears to flip-flop on China, Russia
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/16/politics/donald-trump-china-currency-manipulators/index.html

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Syria .. Ex-CIA head: Trump has done 'remarkable flip' on Syria
By Mark Hensch - 04/10/17 09:48 AM EDT
http://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/328063-ex-cia-head-trump-had-remarkable-flip-on-syria

Saudi Arabia .. Trump increases Pentagon support for Saudi war on Yemen
Posted on March 28, 2017
https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/trump-increases-pentagon-support-for-saudi-war-on-yemen/

That link in this one

Qatar .. Donald Trump flip-flop on Qatar
Posted on June 6, 2017
https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/donald-trump-flip-flop-on-qatar/

Trump said Qatar long time friends should buy our beautiful weapons!

Then .. Donald Trump has taken credit for the rift between Qatar and its Arab neighbours. picture: AFP.
Felicia Schwartz The Wall Street Journal 5:57AM June 7, 2017
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/donald-trump-takes-credit-for-qatar-split-with-arab-neighbours/news-story/093f67cba9851db11cdd863e56763414

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NAFTA .. Now, Trump flips on NAFTA
Varghese K George
Washington, April 27, 2017 21:17 IST
Updated: April 27, 2017 21:17 IST
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/now-trump-flips-on-nafta/article18260102.ece

Not to late for TPP, Cuba, Ukraine and Mexico.

Where Will Trump Flip-Flop on Foreign Policy Next?

After NATO and Chinese currency, here are a few good candidates.
Trump gives thumbs-up.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Matt Peterson Apr 14, 2017 Global

Donald Trump is nothing if not flexible when it comes to his policy positions. He knows how to seize the limelight, as he did with a surprise strike on Syria, and has been moving along what has charitably been referred to as the “learning curve” on a host of other issues. No issue shows Trump’s willingness to transform more than NATO: “I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete,” he said recently. The challenge in analyzing this president is in predicting where he’ll land in his game of global spin-the-bottle. It’s impossible to know how likely his shifts are, but a number of foreign-policy issues could be described as soft spots—areas where he is amenable to sudden changes in position. Here are five issues that Trump could easily swing on.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership. The proposed Asia-Pacific trade deal took a thumping in the Trump campaign, and the new president made withdrawing from the deal one of his first acts. Yet the forces opposed to trade on the campaign are on the downswing. Nationalist adviser Steve Bannon is reportedly on the rocks, while Gary Cohn, an advocate of trade deals, is ascendant. Japan and other TPP countries are keeping hope alive for a deal even without the United States, and Tokyo has just declared it’s not interested in the bilateral deal Trump wants to pursue instead. As geopolitical tensions rise in Asia, Trump is likely to hear from his allies and his more traditionalist advisers that a regional strategy to bind America to the region is desirable. There’s nothing stopping Trump from renegotiating a few aspects of the TPP text and declaring a new deal—he wouldn’t even need to change the acronym. Just call it the Trump Pacific Partnership.

Cuba. Few issues illustrate Trump’s lack of a core foreign-policy ideology like his dealings with Cuba. During the campaign, Trump mused about opening hotels there, saying, “I think it’s okay to bring Cuba into the fold.” But he blasted the Castro government after Fidel’s death, and indicated that he would reverse Obama’s normalization if Cuba didn’t meet “our demands.” But the Castro era is quickly drawing to a close, with Raul, Fidel’s brother and the current president, having promised to resign in February. Assuming that happens, Trump could easily declare Obama’s policy a failure and replace it with his own—a fresh start of a new normalization. Especially if his family can get a new hotel out of the deal.

Ukraine. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Crimea, Ukraine occupies a middle-ground of U.S. policy set by former President Barack Obama. Washington led Europe to enact sanctions on Russia, but, despite supportive rhetoric, has not provided lethal military aid to Ukrainian forces fighting Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east. Trump’s policy could easily swing either way. A deal with Russia over Syria could lead him to recognize Moscow’s claim to Crimea—a subject the Ukrainian president raised on a call with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week—or Trump could follow the lead of his UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, and go full-bore against Russia on Ukraine.

Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. Another option for Trump is to grab quick wins in the press by taking a low-cost but unexpected position. One option to confound his foreign-policy critics would be to turn up the pressure on Bashir, the Sudanese president, who is wanted for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Sudan hasn’t featured much on Trump’s radar, despite landing on his various travel bans. But Bashir seemed to expect that Trump would treat him as well as he has treated nearly every other authoritarian, sending congratulations on his election and saying he would be much “much easier” to deal with. But if Americans know anything about Sudan, it’s that the word “Darfur” is synonymous with human rights violations. For a president who clearly enjoys the glow of being the world’s policeman, Trump could make a meal of interfering with Bashir’s freedom of movement or even help him find his way to the ICC.

Mexico. A softening on Trump’s harsh rhetoric on Mexico is already in the works. After calling Mexicans rapists and declaring NAFTA a “catastrophe,” the Trump team has started to engage with Mexico as an actual country and not just as a political punching bag. An anonymous Mexican official told the Wall Street Journal, “we’ve gone from panic to concern,” while the plans for revisiting the trade pact look more like a modest modernization than the wholesale withdrawal Trump threatened. Should that go through smoothly, there’s nothing stopping Trump from newly embracing President Enrique Pena Nieto ... so long as he pays for the wall. .. with links .. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/trump-flip-flop-foreign-policy-tpp-russia-ukraine-sudan-japan-china/523008/

There are so many more .. Tracking Donald Trump’s flip-flops in his first 100 days
By Lauren Carroll on Thursday, April 27th, 2017 at 11:30 a.m.

1. On whether NATO is obsolete
2. On White House transparency
3. On whether he will have time to play golf
4. On presidential travel
5. On attacking Syria after a chemical weapons attack
6. On attacking Syria without congressional approval
7. On whether China is a currency manipulator
8. On whether he will keep Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair
9. On whether the Export-Import Bank is good
10. On "insider" influence
11. On making cuts to Medicaid
. some detail on each .. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/apr/27/tracking-trumps-policy-reversals-his-first-100-day/ ..

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15 Trump Flip-Flops in 15 Days
The president-elect has made changing his mind a way of life. Why would his young presidency be any different?
By Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna
November 22, 2016
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/trump-flip-flops-president-elect-214478

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Tracking President Trump’s Flip-Flops
May 12 2017, 12:10 pm ET
by Jane C. Timm

When it comes to James Comey, President Donald Trump has flipped and flopped and flipped yet again on the former FBI director.

Overall, Trump has taken 32 new stances on 13 different issues since his election. The president’s shifting agenda has established him as one of the most unpredictable American leaders in modern history.

Call it the post-platform era: The president-elect ran and won a campaign in which he took 141 policy positions on 23 issues over the course of 510 days. Trump defended this as being "flexible" and unpredictable, something he argued would make him a better leader.

Most recently, the abrupt firing of the director of the FBI was bungled when the president contradicted the White House's official explanation of the surprising decision.

In order to better understand the president, we've tracked Trump's new policy pronouncements and flip flops on big issues from Election Day forward.

FBI Director James Comey's Performance and Firing
.. continued .. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/president-trumps-first-100-days/here-are-new-policy-stances-donald-trump-has-taken-election-n684946

On .. Putin .. war of choice .. Export-Import Bank .. so many positions move, depending on the way he feels and
where the spotlight is .. it's less flexibility than blowing in the wind .. so much is 'history' according to Trump ..

All of Trump’s campaign statements just vanished from his website. So let’s remember them.
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