Trump warms to China, NATO

‘US-Russia relations may be at all-time low’

WASHINGTON, April 13, (Agencies): After less than three months in office, President Donald Trump has abruptly shifted his stance on an array of foreign policy issues from the US relationship with Russia and China to the value of the NATO alliance.

Trump, who ran for the White House on a pledge to shake up the status quo in Washington, repeatedly lashed out at China during the campaign, accusing Beijing of being a “grand champion” of currency manipulation.

Candidate Trump also dismissed the NATO military alliance as obsolete and said he hoped to build warmer ties with Russia.

But at a White House news conference and in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, he offered starkly different views on those issues, saying his relationship with Moscow was souring while ties with Beijing were improving. He also lavished praise on NATO, saying it was adapting to changing global threats.

“I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete,” Trump said as he stood at a news conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the White House East Room on Wednesday.

The reversals on Russia and NATO could reassure US allies in Europe who were rattled by Trump’s overtures toward Moscow during the campaign. But the president’s talk of “bonding” with Chinese President Xi Jinping could sow confusion in Asia, where US allies are fearful of a rising China.

Shifts

Trump’s apparent shifts toward a more conventional foreign policy came amid infighting within his administration that has lately seen a decline in the influence of political operatives, mainly his chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

Six months ago, candidate Trump suggested he was eager for an alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about

Manafort as ‘foreign agent’:

US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort will register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for lobbying work he did on behalf of political interests in Ukraine, led at the time by a pro-Russian political party, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Manafort is the second Trump campaign adviser to have to register as a foreign agent since the election. The confirmation that he intends to register him,” Trump said last September.

On Wednesday, however, Trump said he had growing concerns about Russia’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia,” said Trump, who ordered the firing of US cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield last week to punish Assad for suspected use of poison gas in Syria’s civil war.

While criticizing Russia on Wednesday, Trump said he and Xi had bonded during the Chinese president’s visit to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they dined together with their wives and held talks.

Ahead of that visit, Trump had predicted “difficult” discussions on trade.

The improving ties with Beijing were underscored when Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday that he would not declare China a currency manipulator as he had pledged to do on his first day in office.

Vow

Trump, a former real estate developer, took office in January as a government novice whose foreign policy mantra during was a vow to keep America safe and build up the US military.

Christine Wormuth, former undersecretary of defense in the Obama administration, said Trump had a “steep learning curve” on foreign policy when he came into office but that it was beginning to even out.

“He’s starting to have a more nuanced and deeper understanding of a lot of issues,” said Wormuth, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The evolving Trump foreign policy appears to reflect less of the influence of his campaign team and more the views of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, all of whom are deeply skeptical of Russia.

Trump’ former national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on Feb 13 for contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States before Trump took office.

The new tone on foreign policy comes as Trump has been trying to settle the palace intrigue inside the White House, where Bannon, former chief of the conservative Breitbart News organization, has been at odds with the more mainstream Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser who is Trump’s son-in-law.

In an interview with the New York Post on Tuesday, Trump offered only lukewarm support for Bannon.

Remember

“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emerged from a nearly two-hour meeting with Putin saying the two countries had reached a “low point” in relations.

The dim view of US-Russia ties from both Trump and Tillerson reflected the former Cold War foes’ inability to forge better relations, as Trump until recently has advocated.

Allegations of collusion between Russian officials and Trump campaign associates also have weakened Trump’s ability to make concessions to Russia on any issue, lest he be accused of rewarding bad behavior. Russia wants the US to eliminate sanctions on Moscow related to its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Until the chemical attack, the Trump administration had sought to step back from the US position that Assad should leave power. But Tillerson repeated the administration’s new belief that “the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end.”