EVERYTHING to Trump is a line item on the budget. Trump does not understand diplomacy or the value of strong alliances which does not show up as a line item on the budget. . http://www.businessinsider.com/mattis-state-department-funding-need-to-buy-more-ammunition-2017-2 Mattis once said if State Department funding gets cut 'then I need to buy more ammunition' . "US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his budget plan for fiscal year 2018 would include a historically-high $54 billion bump on defense spending ,while cutting a similar amount from the State Department and foreign aid — but his own Secretary of Defense James Mattis may not agree with that strategy. The budget plan reflects Trump's often expressed desire to rebuild a military that he categorizes as "crumbling" and "depleted," but may go against wisdom expressed by Mattis, who said in 2013 that funding to the State Department prevents war. ..." . "“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately," Mattis said, before members of Congress at a National Security Advisory Council meeting, the US Global Leadership Coalition notes. ..." . . AND, let it be noted, the "2% of GDP" NATO agreement was negotiated during the Obama administration and member nations were already increasing their contributions to NATO under Obama. The target date to reach the 2% threshold was 2025. Most members are getting there. . It is not clear what Trump's "public shaming / baseball bat diplomacy" did to that agreement other than to undermine NATO's 70+ year faith in US Leadership.
Posted By: Laffy
Re: About the only thing he was right about Of course, that didn't make up for the fact he thought we didn't need NATO anymore while sucking Putin's cock.
People in 16 countries were recently polled regarding global approval of the United States since Trumpezoid left office. The results: a 28% upward spike in favorability, from 34% under Stump last year to 62% under Biden this year. The last time that level of approval was reached: when a U.S. president by the name of Barack Obama was in the White House. The increases were most notable among our European allies, with over 75% expressing confidence in Biden. In comparison, confidence in Trumpolini last year registered only in the teens.
It's amazing what competence & cooperation with allies will do for a country's world image.
Cause they know how loony and misguided we can be. If we elected a nut like trump once, we can do it again. trumps set us back years and destroyed our standing. Will we recover, probably but not anytime soon.
with Biden. Trump was making them pay their fair share. Biden is picking up the tab again. The Dem's are always magnanimous and generous with money that isn't theirs.
Trump was making them pay their fair share. Biden is picking up the tab again.
It has long been the goal that each nation will contribute 2% of their GDP to NATO but most members were contributing below 2%. Trump encouraged member nations to contribute more to the NATO budget to reach that 2%. That number contributing 2% has increased from 3 to 10 and the remaining nations have been increasing their contributions on a schedule set to reach 2% within a few years. Biden did not cancel or reduce those commitments. (What did happen is that Covid battered GDPs to that dollar amounts (or Euro amounts) are lower even tho' the percentages are up.)
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