♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought North and South Korea together away from the table of conflict. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought Serbia and Kosovo together away from the table of conflict. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy rallied the Gulf Cooperation Council to stop Qatar’s support for Islamic extremists via the Muslim Brotherhood. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Turkey and the Kurdish forces together away from war and conflict. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy created a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed in Syria. President Trump mediated a cessation of hostilities between India & Pakistan in the Kashmir region. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Israel and the UAE together… and then Bahrain… and now Sudan.
(White House) President Donald J. Trump, Sudanese Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke today to discuss Sudan’s historic progress towards democracy and opportunities to advance peace in the region.
[Note: The chain of allied mid-east nations normalizing ties with Israel is in-line with the same sequence of nations who President Trump previously assembled to confront Qatar extremism in June 2017. That coalition effort is now close to achieving regional peace.]
(White House cont..) “After decades of living under a brutal dictatorship, the people of Sudan are finally taking charge. The Sudanese transitional government has demonstrated its courage and commitment to combating terrorism, building its democratic institutions, and improving its relations with its neighbors. In light of this historic progress, and following President Trump’s decision to remove Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, the United States and Israel agreed to partner with Sudan in its new start and ensure that it is fully integrated into the international community.
The United States will take steps to restore Sudan’s sovereign immunity and to engage its international partners to reduce Sudan’s debt burdens, including advancing discussions on debt forgiveness consistent with the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. The United States and Israel also committed to working with their partners to support the people of Sudan in strengthening their democracy, improving food security, countering terrorism and extremism, and tapping into their economic potential.
The leaders agreed to the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations. In addition, the leaders agreed to begin economic and trade relations, with an initial focus on agriculture. The leaders also agreed that delegations will meet in the coming weeks to negotiate agreements of cooperation in those areas as well as in agriculture technology, aviation, migration issues and other areas for the benefit of the two peoples.
The leaders also resolved to work together to build a better future and advance the cause of peace in the region. This move will improve regional security and unlock new opportunities for the people of Sudan, Israel, the Middle East, and Africa.
This historic agreement is a testament to the bold and visionary approach of the four leaders. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Chairman al-Burhan, and Prime Minister Hamdok expressed their appreciation for President Trump for his pragmatic and unique approach to ending old conflicts and building a future of peace and opportunity for all the people of the region.” (more)
All of these currently visible results tie directly back to the original President Trump strategy when he took office in 2017. Immediately after taking office Egyptian President Fattah Abdel al-Sisi became the fulcrum for the shift toward peace. In the background al-Sisi had been working on a peace coalition for three years; with President Trump to support the initiatives things began rapidly changing.
It is important to remember President Trump and President al-Sisi in 2017:
No leader in the region holds more anti-terrorism credibility than Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. President Sisi has challenged all Muslim leaders to denounce the hate within Islamic extremism and rise up to confront evil.
Al-Sisi is a Muslim leader who steadfastly supports the entire Egyptian population regardless of their religious faith. Sisi has stood firm to support Christians in Egypt.
WHITE HOUSE – President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt. The two presidents agreed on the importance of all countries implementing the agreements reached in Riyadh to fight terrorism, counter extremism, and stop the funding of terrorist groups. President Trump also emphasized the importance of maintaining unity among Arab countries. (Link)
EGYPT – President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has praised President Donald Trump for his role in “the formation of a united front to combat terrorism” after he called on Qatar to stop its financial support of extremist groups.
Al-Sisi’s praise-filled phone call on Saturday came after the US president echoed accusations made against Qatar by a Saudi-led group that cut diplomatic ties with the small oil-rich country earlier this week.
Al-Sisi thanked Trump for his participation in a counter-terrorism summit in Riyadh last May, in which he abandoned some of the harsh anti-Muslim rhetoric of his presidential campaign and vowed to fight terrorism in partnership with Middle East leaders. (Link)
[…] I want to call on all other nations to stop immediately supporting terrorism. Stop teaching people to kill other people. Stop filling their minds with hate and intolerance. I won’t name other countries, but we are not done solving the problem, but we will solve that problem. Have no choice.
This is my great priority because it is my first duty as President to keep our people safe. Defeating ISIS and other terror organizations is something I have emphasized all during my campaign and right up until the present. To do that, stop funding, stop teaching hate, and stop the killing.
For Qatar, we want you back among the unity of responsible nations. We ask Qatar, and other nations in the region to do more and do it faster.
I want to thank Saudi Arabia, and my friend, King Salman, and all of the countries who participated in that very historic summit. It was truly historic. There has never been anything like it before and perhaps there never will be again.
Hopefully, it will be the beginning of the end of funding terrorism. It will, therefore, be the beginning of the end to terrorism.
No more funding.
President Trump has been executing a foreign policy, a clear doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power. It is a fundamental shift in approaching both allies and adversaries; summarized within the oft repeated phrase: “economic security is national security.”
The Trump Doctrine of using economics to achieve national security objectives is a fundamental paradigm shift. Modern U.S. history provides no easy reference.
“Peace is the prize” ~ President Donald Trump
The nature of the Trump foreign policy doctrine, as it has become visible, is to hold manipulative influence agents accountable for regional impact(s); and simultaneously work to stop any corrupted influence from oppressing free expression of national values held by the subservient, dis-empowered, people within the nation being influenced.
There have been clear examples of this doctrine at work. When President Trump first visited the Middle-East he confronted the international audience with a message about dealing with extremist influence agents. President Trump simply said: “drive them out.”
Toward that end, as Qatar was identified as a financier of extremist ideology, President Trump placed the goal of confrontation upon the Gulf Cooperation Council, not the U.S.
The U.S. role was clearly outlined as supporting the confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates needed to confront the toxic regional influence; the U.S. would support their objective. That’s what happened.
Another example: To confront the extremism creating the turmoil in Afghanistan, President Trump placed the burden of bringing the Taliban to the table of governance upon primary influence agent Pakistan. Here again, with U.S. support. Pakistan is the leading influence agent over the Taliban in Afghanistan; the Trump administration correctly established the responsibility and gives clear expectations for U.S. support.
If Pakistan doesn’t change their influence objective toward a more constructive alignment with a nationally representative Afghanistan government, it is Pakistan who will be held accountable. Again, the correct and effective appropriation of responsibility upon the influence agent who can initiate the solution, Pakistan.
The process of accurate regional assignment of influence comes with disconcerting sunlight. Often these influences are not discussed openly. However, for President Trump the lack of honesty is only a crutch to continue enabling poor actors. This is a consistent theme throughout all of President Trump’s foreign policy engagements.
The European Union is a collective co-dependent enabler to the corrupt influences of Iran. Therefore the assignment of responsibility to change the status is placed upon the EU.
The U.S. will fully support the EU effort, but as seen in the withdrawal from the Iran Deal, the U.S. will not enable growth of toxic behavior. The U.S. stands with the people of Iran, but the U.S. will not support the enabling of Iranian oppression, terrorism and/or dangerous military expansion that will ultimately destabilize the region. Trump holds the EU accountable for influencing change. Again, we see the Trump Doctrine at work.
Perhaps the most obvious application of the Trump Doctrine is found in how the U.S. administration approached the challenging behavior of North Korea. Rather than continuing a decades-long policy of ignoring the influence of China, President Trump directly assigned primary responsibility for a reset to Beijing.
China held, and holds, all influence upon North Korea and has long-treated the DPRK as a proxy province to do the bidding of Beijing’s communist old guard. By directly confronting the influence agent, and admitting openly for the world to see (albeit with jaw-dropping tactical sanction diplomacy), President Trump positioned the U.S. to support a peace objective on the entire Korean peninsula and simultaneously forced China to openly display their closely-guarded influence.
The success of this approach continues…