TRUMP: NO ONE KNOWS IF HE WILL CHANGE HIS MIND, AGAIN & AGAIN

…..NATO Forces at work...

 

Is Trump just another politician going against his promise to reform the government?

 

Well, as expected, Trump, who never looks into issue below its surface, he’s doing 180’s on all kinds of issues.

 

Yep, the outsider who spent years saying that he would up-end all the Washington orthodoxy.  Trump's approach helped him build the coalition that ultimately won him the US presidency, but now he has changed his mind....again.

 

Trump has now voiced his support for NATO, which he had called “obsolete” during the campaign. He has walked back his pledge to label China a currency manipulator and he ­has endorsed the Export-Import Bank, which he had opposed.

 

These and other recent flip-flops have actually settled the nerves of many traditional Republicans who had worried he was looking to upend too much of the status quo. But Trump has also lost some of his supporters, who see their new president as just another politician going against his promise to reform the government.

What is so bizarre is that his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, is spinning all these changes the other way.

 

Instead of the president doing the 180’s, Spicer is saying that others are changing to the president’s views….huh?

 

“If you look at what’s happened, it’s those entities or individuals in some cases, or issues, evolving towards the president’s position,” Spicer said. “I think you look at the president’s position, where he wanted to see NATO in particular evolve to, and it’s moving exactly in the direction that he said it was in terms of its goals of increasing the amount of participation from other member countries; and two, it’s having a greater focus on terrorism.”

 

Now on that one issue, as with many of the things that Trump tries to take credit for, NATO had been moving toward greater burden-sharing for years.  There was a goal set some time ago that the other NATO nations would increase their participation to a full 2% of their GDP by 2024.  They have long been involved in counterterrorism, particularly since our 911 attacks  in 2001. Spicer also pointedly declined to explain why Trump changed his position on a slate of other issues that had previously remained essentially unchanged since he was a candidate.

The new administration had continued to slow-walk any moves for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite his continuous complaints against the trade deal as a candidate.  Finally, both Canada & Mexico got him off the dime to agree to re-negotiate the treaty.  

 

 

In addition, the Trump administration has now offered hawkish stances overseas on issues and actions against Syria, the Islamic State (ISIS) and North Korea.  But during the campaign, Trump was always the non-interventionist.

 

The former critic, Elliott Abrams, who was considered for a post at the State Department, he was rejected for a senior post in Trump’s State Department because he was considered too much of an “establishment Republican.” 

But Abrams was delighted by these latest changes in the “Trumpster”.  “I would say this is looking more now like a more conventional Republican administration,” said Abrams, who served as a foreign policy adviser in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. “To me, that’s a very good thing.”

 

The ­Export-Import Bank is a government agency that subsidizes US exports, and Trump’s opposition to the E-I Bank endeared him to those “movement conservatives” who labeled the bank as “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism.”  It fit well with the campaign message when Trump talked against the “global elite” that was “conspiring against the common man”.  However, to the thrill of the establishment Republicans, and the corporate leaders and even some Democrats, Trump once again has reversed course, solidifying this shift that he had first signaled back in February.

 

Almost immediately, this move drew praise from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).  That’s because his state gets an economic boost from that bank.  “Well done, Mr. President,” Graham said in a statement.

 

The negative attitude toward Trump by the conventional Republicans started to change when Trump, faced with his first major foreign policy test, sided with the use of military force in Syria. That decision, which totally contradicted Trump’s stance dating back to 2013.  But this endeared him to those hawkish members of Congress such as Senator Graham and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who had criticized Trump’s isolationist campaign rhetoric.

 

“I think it’s a product of the fact that he didn’t understand foreign affairs,” presidential historian Tim Naftali said of the president. “His business career didn’t afford him much information on foreign affairs. He’s learning on the job.”

 

The rift between Jared Kushner-backed aides such as National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Republican hard-liners in the administration, particularly the president’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, that has only grown in recent weeks.  That raises the question as to whether Trump will abandon the "economic populism" that got him elected.

 

Will all of these changes be more in favor of a traditional platform influenced by, God forbid, Wall Street.

 

Yes, Trump’s latest shifts have been linked to the growing influence of a group of advisers led by son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and many of those whom are political moderates and who came to the administration from guess where……Wall Street.

But if you recall, Trump had promised his supporters a coalition that would include large numbers of non-college educated, working-class voters and that he would pursue populist policies that put the interests of American workers first. It remains to be seen whether these changes will be viewed as moving toward that goal, or is Trump just moving the Goal Posts?

 

“This represents that Trump is a New York City liberal returning back to form,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist sharply critical of Trump. “People should not be surprised.”

But Trump, he added, “because he has a short attention span, could easily flop back.”

 

That is so true because with Donald J. Trump, his allies and adversaries alike are never sure he won’t change his mind again…and again….and again.

Copyright G.Ater  2017