Matt Margolis - Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us from Barack Obamas Legacy

CHAPTER 4

MILITARY AND FOREIGN POLICY

Where do I begin when dissecting Barack Obamas terrible record on foreign policy? There just arent enough bad things that can be said about it. In 2009, Obama went on what conservatives called the Global Apology Tour. He spent his days abroad telling the leaders of other nations throughout the world that he would govern Americas foreign policy differently; we would no longer be the worlds police. Obama renounced Americas claim to moral authority on the world stage and signaled his weakness to every tin pot dictator. And these werent idle words; Obama didnt see America as a beacon of hope for the world. He took the postmodern position that America was an immoral country and not an exceptional one.

Obama praised the Castro regime in Cuba, saying that America could learn from their record health care, education, and human rights. Only in Obamas bizarre worldview could America have anything good to learn from Cuba.

Without a coherent vision of America as a leading nation defending human rights and democracy around the world, Obama spent eight years insulting world leaders, alienating our allies, kowtowing to our enemies, and weakening our military, and the rest of the world took notice. He reluctantly killed Osama bin Laden, but Al-Qaeda grew massively as he took his victory lap. The vacuum created by his premature withdrawal from Iraq caused the rise of ISIS, whom he treated as such a non-entity that he referred to them as, the JV team.

But all that changed when Trump took office.

Pulling Out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an interesting case. The trade agreement among the United States and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam was signed on February 4, 2016. Obama never sought ratification for the treaty as required by the Constitution. The issue of TPP divided both the Republican and Democratic parties. Donald Trump opposed it. Mike Pence supported it. Barack Obama obviously supported it, but Hillary Clinton, despite helping negotiate TPP as Obamas Secretary of State, opposed it, while her running mate Tim Kaine supported it.

The reason Trump could do this was the lack of involvement of the Senate in the ratification of TPP. That alone was enough reason to pull out. While many on the right support freer trade, TPP was not a model of transparent free trade. The negotiations were held in secret, and the resulting document was a regulatory behemoth. Rather than a simple agreement to lower tariffs for mutual benefit, it morphed into a massive international regulatory regime over 5,000 pages long, explained Iain Murray, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

There are aspects of the released text that suggest very strongly that the benefits of approving TPP as is are not worth the costs, wrote Kevin Williamson in National Review in 2015 . Williamson pointed out a major issue is the incorporation of the then-yet-to-be-completed Paris Climate Treaty. It is one thing for a trade deal to incorporate changes to environmental practicesregulatory differences are an inhibitor of truly liberal tradebut there is a world of difference between incorporating specific environmental policies and incorporating environmental policies to be named later, especially another treaty Obama knew hed sign without Senate approval.

Williamson argued, at the time, that smaller bilateral free trade agreements were a preferable approach. Trump agreed and saiddespite his withdrawal from TPPif a better deal was offered, he would consider it. I dont want to go back into TPP, but if they offered us a deal I cant refuse, on behalf of the United States, I would do it. But I like bilateral better. I think its better for our country, I think its better for our workers and I much would prefer a bilateral deal. On that front, Trump has undoubtedly succeeded. As of this writing, hes already renegotiated NAFTA into the new USMCA with Canada and Mexico, and achieved new trade deals with South Korea, Japan, and the European Union.

Cutting UN Funding

The election of Donald Trump signaled a major shift in policy towards the United Nations. Barack Obama embraced the United Nations and showered it with American tax dollars while, on the campaign trail, Donald Trump was a fierce critic. The United Nations is not a friend of democracy. Its not a friend to freedom, Trump said while speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in March 2016. Its not a friend even to the United States of America, where as all know, it has its home. And it surely isnt a friend to Israel.

Donald Trump criticized the UN for its ineffectualness despite its lavish fundingfunding that disproportionately came from the American taxpayers. The United States is one out of 193 countries in the United Nations, and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes, he said when addressing the United Nations General Assembly for the first time on September 19, 2017. The United States bears an unfair cost burden, but, to be fair, if it could actually accomplish all of its stated goals, especially the goal of peace, this investment would easily be well worth it.

In his last year in office, Obamas administration gave the United Nations and its various suborganizations at least $9.2 billion. Fox News reported that total is based on a State Department document that summarizes U.S. government spending for international organizations, and is about 20 per cent higher than the $7.7 billion figure given out by State for 2010, before the Obama Administration abruptly quit providing any overall tally for its U.N. support.

President Trump was not so generous with your tax dollars. In December 2017, Trumps UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced a $285 million cut to the UN operating budget. The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known. We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked, Haley said. This historic reduction in spending in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable U.N. is a big step in the right direction. The announcement came just days after the UN voted to condemn the United States for moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.

Reversing Obamas Cuba Policy

The Castro regime in Cuba is a brutal, oppressive dictatorship, guilty of human rights abuses and the mass murder of its political opponents. But its a socialist country, so many on the political left in America harbor fantasies that Cuba is misunderstood and achieves far more for social justice than America with its evil capitalism. Obama proved he believed in this Utopian delusion by announcing, in December 2014, that he was opening up diplomatic relations with Cuba and establishing a new embassy in Havana. This followed eighteen months of secret talks that resulted in a prisoner swap of an American government contractor held prisoner in Cuba for three convicted Cuban criminals.

His announcement was met with bipartisan condemnation. Senator Bob Menendez, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Obamas actions vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government. Menendez, who was born to Cuban immigrants, added that the prisoner swap set an extremely dangerous precedent. It invites dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as bargaining chips. Senator Marco Rubio, also the son of Cuban immigrants, called Obamas plan to open diplomatic relations disgraceful. The White House has conceded everything, and called Obama the worst negotiator to occupy the White House. In restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Castro regime, and not the oppressed Cuban people, stood to benefit.