Trump's foreign policy

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Foreign policy by tweet:

On Wednesday morning, Trump declared victory against ISIS in Syria in a tweet after The Wall Street Journal, followed by The Washington Post, reported that he was preparing an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Trump tweeted. The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the news reports or Trump’s tweets, other than to say the military campaign was continuing “at this time.”

Anger, confusion greet Trump’s surprise decision on Syria | TheHill

• Nobody knew, nobody was consulted
  
• John Bolton had just traveled to reassure allies that the US was going to stay in Syria until the Iranians leave.
  
• Even his inner circle was completely surprised
  
• ISIS is most definitely not defeated
  
• High ranking government officials argued last week the US was in for the long-haul
  
• This was after a phone call with Turkish President Erdogan, who wants to go after the Kurds
  
• The Kurds have done most of the actual fighting against ISIS, so once again the US betrays them
  
• Another victory for Russia, and Iran as well as those 2000 US troops prevent them from establishing a corridor to Libanon.
  

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Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two officials briefed on the matter told The Associated Press.
The Dec. 14 call, described by officials who were not authorized to discuss the decision-making process publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, provides insight into a consequential Trump decision that prompted the resignation of widely respected Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. It also set off a frantic, four-day scramble to convince the president either to reverse or delay the decision.

The White House, State Department and Pentagon all declined to comment on the account of the decision to withdraw the troops, which have been in Syria to fight the Islamic State since 2015. Despite losing the physical caliphate, thousands of IS fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, and the group continues to carry out insurgent attacks and could easily move back into territory it once held if American forces withdraw. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arranged the Dec. 14 call a day after he had unsuccessfully sought clarity from Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu about Erdogan’s threats to launch a military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in northeast Syria, where American forces are based.

Pompeo, Mattis and other members of the national security team prepared a list of talking points for Trump to tell Erdogan to back off, the officials said. But the officials said Trump, who had previously accepted such advice and convinced the Turkish leader not to attack the Kurds and put U.S. troops at risk, ignored the script. Instead, the president sided with Erdogan. In the following days, Trump remained unmoved by those scrambling to convince him to reverse or at least delay the decision to give the military and Kurdish forces time to prepare for an orderly withdrawal. “The talking points were very firm,” said one of the officials, explaining that Trump was advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and Turkey work together to address security concerns. “Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey) something that’s a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that.”

Trump call with Turkish leader led to US pullout from Syria

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President Donald Trump’s views are well known to anyone who cares to look. In his speeches over the past two years, he has consistently identified four threats to America—immigrants, alliances, trade deficits, and terrorism. (He used to talk a lot about North Korean nuclear weapons, as well, but appears to have since struck a de facto bargain with Kim Jong Un. North Korea has ceased testing missiles and nuclear bombs, and relations between the two countries have warmed.) Over three decades, Trump has consistently expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders, especially in Russia. But above all, Trump wants the freedom to do as he wants, when he wants, free from constraints. He wants to be indulged. He wants to be a king.

The Trump Administration After Mattis - The Atlantic

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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is expressing concerns after President Trump tweeted that he did “not know” his top envoy in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Brett McGurk. “Uhhhh...you don’t know your own coordinator of the anti-ISIS campaign?” Murphy tweeted late Saturday. “Over the past 5 years, no one has done more to put ISIS on its heels than Brett. We all know and rely on him.” “The fact that our President has no clue who Brett is should scare the hell out of every American.” Uhhhh...you don’t know your own coordinator of the anti-ISIS campaign? Over the past 5 years, no one has done more to put ISIS on its heels than Brett. We all know and rely on him. The fact that our President has no clue who Brett is should scare the hell out of every American. McGurk abruptly resigned on Friday over disagreements with Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

Dem senator: Trump saying he doesn’t know his top ISIS envoy ‘should scare the hell out of every American’ | TheHill

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Trump announces the US will leave Syria after a phone call with Erdogan, exposing allies like the Kurds and snookering all his generals and other staff, even leading to his defense secretary Mattis to resign. Now it has to be walked back..

Turkey has asked Washington to hand over its bases in Syria as the Trump administration appeared to reverse plans to withdraw from the country’s north-east on Tuesday, jeopardising Ankara’s plans to launch a widespread military operation targeting Kurdish groups. The fresh row between the two Nato allies broke out as the US national security adviser, John Bolton, was in Ankara to row back on a surprise announcement by

Donald Trump in December that US forces would leave imminently, abandoning Kurdish proxies who had led its ground war against the Islamic State terror group. Turkey views those same Kurdish groups as mortal foes. In a scathing speech to parliament, delivered while Bolton was still in the Turkish capital, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the US envoy had “made a serious mistake” and that Turkey would never agree to a compromise that protected the Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, whose members helped a US-led coalition push Isis out of most of Syria’s east.

Erdoğan chides Bolton and calls on US to hand over Syria bases | World news | The Guardian