President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive in Tokyo Japan and will take part in an event at Yokota Air Base. The President is expected to deliver remarks to the awaiting audience at approximately 10:00pm EST.
UPDATE: Video and Pictures Added
President Trump and First Lady Melania depart Hawaii at 7:20am (local) / 1:20pm (EST) Saturday for their flight to Japan. This should be an enjoyable portion of the 12-day trip as President Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are good friends, and Mrs. Melania Trump and Mrs. Akie Abe have met several times and have a good relationship.
On Sunday morning, President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will arrive in Tokyo, Japan. The President and the First Lady will participate in a Yokota Air Base event. In the afternoon, the President will have lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and professional Japanese golfer Mr. Hideki Matsuyama. The President will then golf with Prime Minister Abe and Mr. Hideki Matsuyama. In the evening, the President and the First Lady will have dinner with Prime Minister Abe and Mrs. Akie Abe.
(more…)
United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was interviewed by Fox News host Laura Ingraham ahead of his important participation in the Asia trip.
Within the interview Ambassador Lighthizer shows his wolverine attitude toward the ongoing trade deals and his role within the larger geopolitical strategy of the Trump Doctrine. There’s solid, affirming and unwavering economic insight within this interview.
Interestingly Lighthizer mentions the national security aspects inherent within the administration’s economic trade strategy. He details how his role, within the larger policy, is to focus intensely on achieving the best ‘America-First‘ trade deal possible. “Killers”.
Secretary Wilbur Ross (commerce), Secretary Steven Mnuchin (treasury), Secretary Rex Tillerson (state) and Secretary James Mattis (defense) then collate the outcome and ultimately President Trump makes the final decision. Working in concert, together they map how to use the leverage within the Lighthizer’s deals to achieve national security objectives.
Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks while departing the White House with First Lady Melania Trump and Chief-of-Staff John Kelly en route to Hawaii for the start of the 10-day trip to Asia.
While the general position will be to applaud President Trump and CIA Director Mike Pompeo for their commitment to transparency, CTH considers the release against the backdrop of the Trump Doctine.
Right before President Trump heads off to Asia for an extremely important economic and national security visit with wide-ranging implications; and knowing the larger adversarial economic geography surrounding China and their allies (hint, Pakistan); and knowing the Indo-Pacific engagement strategy carried by Trump and Tillerson; and knowing the Trump doctrine is based on brutally righteous sunlight and leverage upon various international deceptions therein… the CIA releases 470k files on the Bin Laden raid highlighting the duplicity between Pakistan and terrorists.
CIA Abbottabad Compound Material – In an effort to further enhance public understanding of al-Qa’ida, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on 1 November 2017 released additional materials recovered in the 2 May 2011 raid on Usama Bin Ladin’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
(more…)
The White House shares that President Donald Trump called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Sunday to congratulate him on his overwhelming victory. PM Abe had called a snap election and his ruling coalition won a clear majority with more than two-thirds of the Japanese parliament’s 465 seats.
President Donald J. Trump spoke yesterday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to congratulate him on his recent electoral victory. The two leaders underscored the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and a strong United States-Japan alliance. President Trump reaffirmed his desire to continue working closely with Prime Minister Abe, and said he looks forward to visiting Japan in early November. (link)
Prime Minister Abe is a key strategic ally in the region from a national security and economic perspective. As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson outlined extensively last week, the regional Indo-Pacific alliances are repositioning strategically against both the direct threat of the DPRK and the influence of China.
(more…)
Just because western media doesn’t understand how President Trump executes a geopolitical strategy based on economic leverage, that doesn’t mean adversaries are not fully aware of the effectiveness of the approach.
The Trump Doctrine has two avenues toward dealing with national security adversaries.
The first route is direct assignment of responsibility toward the enablers: see China for North Korea; The Gulf States for Qatar (Sunni extremism); Russia for Syrian terrorism (Assad); and Pakistan for Afghanistan (Taliban); as recent examples.
However, when the geopolitical threat stems directly from the enabler, and not the enabled, the Trump Doctrine has a distinctly different and far more encompassing, approach. Route two goes through leveraging regional allies and partners: See ASEAN and India for ¹China; and France, Poland, Baltic States for ²Russia. And now President Trump is beginning to shift toward ³Iran.
In each case: China, Russia and Iran, unlike Western media, these powers assemble volumes of research to assist them in understanding the most likely sequence of events President Trump will take.
When we say volumes of research, we indeed mean hundreds of people researching and drafting position documents based upon every scintilla of every deal Donald J Trump has engaged in. No expenses are spared as these state actors assemble information toward their own strategy to counter the most unpredictable adversary they have faced.
(more…)
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue is now engaged in a direct fight with U.S. President Donald Trump. As would be expected, and as we specifically predicted, Tom Donohue is now specifically aligning himself with Canada and Mexico against the interests of the United States economy.
Tom Donohue gives hundreds of millions to Mitch McConnell and the crony UniParty capitalist ilk that infect Washington DC. Donohue owns the vast majority of U.S. politicians. This battle is the epicenter of lobbying usurpation, and how multinational corporations own U.S. politicians. This battle will be epic.
MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The most powerful U.S. business lobby accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of making “poison pill proposals” to sabotage talks aimed at modernizing NAFTA, as negotiators began gathering in Washington for fresh trade talks.
[…] Speaking in Mexico City, Thomas Donohue, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s president and chief executive, listed several U.S. proposals that he said would undermine $1 trillion in annual trilateral trade, including a “sunset clause” to force regular negotiations.
For those who have followed the months-long strategy of President Trump toward North Korea and China, the latest words from China fall squarely into place. Unfortunately for those who have not followed the approach, the consequential nuance will be lost.
What is happening publicly is entirely predictable when we accept what is happening privately, against the backdrop of activity that has taken place since February of this year.
Remember the Trumpian objective of creating the “Magnanimous Panda” as you read these latest words from Beijing:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Reacting to remarks by North Korea’s foreign minister on Monday, China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi told Reuters the escalating rhetoric between North Korea and the United States was getting too dangerous and the only solution was negotiations.
North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that President Donald Trump had declared war on North Korea and Pyongyang reserves the right to take countermeasures, including shooting down U.S. bombers even if not in its air space.
Jumping ju-ju bones, now that we’ve read the stunning content of this executive order it is completely obvious why Beijing took action today with their central bank instructions.
President Trump and Secretary Mnuchin have structured this executive order in such a way that the downstream consequences from any economic engagement with the DPRK effectively cuts off that entity from engaging in commerce or economic activity with the United States.
It’s a jaw-dropping, and effective, way to blockade any economic engagement with North Korea. That reality, and accepting that POTUS Trump gave a heads’ up to Xi Jinping, is obviously what precipitated Beijing to get out ahead of the executive order lest any Chinese entity be directly impacted and blocked from trade with the U.S.
[I bullet pointed the sections below]:
(more…)