Trump wades into more hot water
Chat with Taiwanese leader signals a foreign policy pivot and upsets China
WASHINGTON — Republicans rallied around Donald Trump Saturday after the president-elect reversed four decades of U.S. policy on China following a phone call with Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese president.
The U.S. does not officially recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty, and Beijing lodged a complaint over the call, the first such communication with a Taiwanese leader since 1979.
But Trump won the praise of prominent Republicans for declining to bow to diplomatic norms.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was Trump’s fiercest rival during the primaries, called the decision an “improvement” over President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.
“I would much rather have Donald Trump talking to President Tsai than to Cuba’s Raul Castro or Iran’s Hassan Rouhani,” he said.
Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator who serves on the armed services committee, was even more forthright in his praise: “I commend president-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ingwen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil,” he said.
Trump did not signal whether he planned to further upend U.S.-China relations, but he did contradict reports from Taiwan that he had initiated the call. “The president of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the presidency, ” he tweeted.
Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to George W. Bush, expressed alarm after the incident, saying, “So long as Trump called knowing it would change the status quo, I’m fine with it. I hope it was by design.”
The consensus among many Democrats was that Trump did not understand the ramifications of his conversation with the president of Taiwan, as well as the leaders of Pakistan and the Philippines. Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator, said Trump’s “radical temporary deviations” from established U.S. policies would weaken America’s alliances and could lead to war.
“These are major pivots in foreign policy without any plan,” said Murphy. “That’s how wars start.”
Trump also spoke with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, praising him profusely and appearing to accept an invitation to visit Pakistan, ruffling feathers in India.
The president-elect also spoke with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and praised his violent anti-drug campaign, which has claimed more than 1,000 lives.