High stakes for state
In the San Gabriel Valley, some fear Trump’s rhetoric threatens economic ties with Beijing
As Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Trump forge a new future for U.S. and China policy after their first summit Friday, few places have more to gain or lose than California.
For several years China’s booming economy has poured money into California, thanks to healthy relations between the nations.
Chinese developers are reshaping downtown Los Angeles’ skyline, and buyers have kept the state’s real estate prices high.
Chinese students — and their elevated international tuition rates — provide important income for cash-strapped universities. And Chinese visitors — Los Angeles County saw 1 million last year — spent $1.2 billion in the county in 2015.
But in certain sectors, China’s robust contributions to California’s economy were already slowing in recent months. And some in the San Gabriel Valley fear that Trump’s tough rhetoric about trade and North Korea could make things worse.
At America Asia Travel Center, a Chinese tour company in Monterey Park, business hasn’t been this bad since 2009, said Assistant President Jonathan Ming Ren Liu.
“Hotels are
As a private citizen, Donald Trump eschewed any sort of intervention in Syria.
“We should stop talking, stay out of Syria and other countries that hate us, rebuild our own country and make it strong and great again-USA,” he boomed on Twitter in September 2013.
That “America first” philosophy energized far-right media to rally around his candidacy.
But that was before this week, when 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at a Syrian air base on Trump’s orders, days after images of people choking to death from a chemical weapons attack in Syria flooded international media.
Now some of Trump’s most ardent supporters — right-wing media and pundits, to name a few — are split over his decision to attack the country where a civil war had raged since 2011.
“He seems to betray his statements and he’s betrayed the meaning of his campaign,” Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader of the “alt-right” movement, said Friday.
Spencer, a staunch supporter of Trump throughout the election and into his fledgling administration, said in an interview that the president is “effectively risking a world war over people’s feelings.”
“He’s engaging in some sort of human rights dogma war. It’s insane,” said Spencer, who is reevaluating his support for Trump, adding that he is concerned about comments from the administration suggesting it may take other action against Syria in the future.
And he’s not alone on the far-right.
“He told us he would be the president of America, not ‘the world.’ Could somebody show him pictures of Americans raped & killed by illegals?” tweeted columnist Ann Coulter, who supported Trump largely because of his hard-line positions on immigration.
While Trump and U.S. intelligence officials have said they have no doubt that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons in an attack that killed at least 70 people, some of Trump’s backers even questioned whether such an attack ever occurred.
Mike Cernovich, the farright blogger who was among those touting the debunked “PizzaGate” conspiracy, which included stories about a nonexistent child sex operation involving Hillary Clinton at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, urged his Twitter followers to begin the hashtag #SyriaHoax. (Some of Cernovich’s work has, at times, been touted by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son.)
“#SyriaGasAttack was sponsored by deep state,” Cernovich tweeted earlier this week, alluding to a purported secretive, coordinated network inside the government dedicated to undermining the administration.
Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at the conspiracytheory site Infowars, assailed Trump on Twitter on Thursday night as a “deep state/neocon puppet.”
“I’m officially OFF the Trump train,” he added.
Still, the U.S. attack has gained Trump plaudits from more mainstream Republicans he battled throughout the 2016 campaign and in some cases beyond.
“President Trump has made it clear to Assad and those who empower him that the days of committing war crimes with impunity are over,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement.
And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Trump “deserves the support of the American people” for his actions.
“Missiles flying. Rubio’s happy. McCain ecstatic,” tweeted Laura Ingraham, a right-wing radio host. “A complete policy change in 48 hrs.”
In the hours after the attack, Trump, speaking before reporters, said the chemical attack was a “slow and brutal death for so many.” He added that “I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”
Some on the far-right urged their listeners and readers, essentially, to take deep breaths and remain calm in the days ahead. President Trump, they say, really hasn’t changed all that much.
“Calm down, it’s OK, we’re going to be OK,” said the alt-right blogger Tim Treadstone, who works under the pseudonym Baked Alaska, to his 32,000 Periscope video followers. (He also has 155,000 Twitter followers.) “The great thing about Trump supporters, we are different, we are diverse.”
For his part, Treadstone said he did not support the airstrikes.