U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley is structuring a U.N. Security Council resolution toward North Korea by targeting a ban on DPRK exports.  This approach is in line with the larger Trump strategy to leverage economic sanctions as pressure on North Korea to stop advancing military expansion and nuclear weapons.
However, how President Trump has set Nikki Haley up for success on this resolution is something for the history books to write about:

♦First: A review of the possible enhanced sanctions against N-Korea should be incorporated with the larger issue of policy toward the DPRK’s enabler, China.  President Trump, Secretary Mnuchin and Secretary Ross have positioned a severely consequential trade reset between the U.S. and China.  [Trump and Ross delayed an announcement on trade sanctions against China which was scheduled for today.]
♦Second: The enhanced U.S. energy export initiatives, in conjunction with lower oil prices, an outcome of U.S. energy policy and a mutually beneficial relationship between President Trump and Arab states in the GCC, have severely weakened the economic position of Russia.
Russia’s energy export economy is dependent on energy prices remaining high. President Trump has brilliantly worked the geopolitical economic relationships to leverage influence over a large portion of the Russian economy.
Combine these two points and you discover the leverage President Trump’s team has created.
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There is a considerable amount of visible internet and social media angst surrounding the National Security Council and staffing decisions made by National Security Advisor HR McMaster.   CTH has no insight into the inner workings of disagreements within the current NSC, however, with a modest amount of both skepticism and cynicism the current level of alarm appears over indulged.

Within any work group there’s going to be differences of opinion.  Within any national security working group there’s going to be ideological differences of opinion.  The issues are important and very complex.  The differences should never be dismissed or marginalized in their potential consequence.  That said, it’s not the differences of opinion that present problems – it’s when those differences become entrenched in opposition to the reason for the groups primary function.  That’s when differences become problems.
Consider the foreign policy proposals, and worldviews therein, of candidate Donald Trump and candidate Ted Cruz.  Now think about taking the foreign policy/NatSec principals from both candidate camps, and the outlooks carried therein, and put them into the same council chamber to hammer out papers of recommended action toward policy.
Can you see the structure for an underlying problem?  Now overlay the ideological interests of the institutional military with a healthy dose of both deep state and religious (centered principle outlook) career ideology, and you’ve got a recipe for disagreement.  Well, that’s essentially what I see when reviewing various media reports of internal group conflict points. (more…)

Today Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted events over the past six months.  T-Rex takes another stroll around the globe discussing regional policy, specific state policy, and ongoing challenges.  Secretary Tillerson then takes questions from the media at the conclusion of his remarks.
Very informative. Very well worth watching (T-Rex Begins at 03:40):

Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan admits the only reason for being in the Paris Climate Treaty was to get money from the U.S. and other more wealthy nations.  Now that the U.S. has pulled out of the treaty, there’s no reason to expect the financial benefits.
Proving yet again, for the eleventyth time, that the entire construct of the Paris Climate Treaty had nothing to do with the actual climate (ie. weather), and everything to do with economic wealth distribution.

(Reuters)  The U.S. decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement means Turkey is less inclined to ratify the deal because the U.S. move jeopardizes compensation promised to developing countries, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

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The people of Poland are preparing a warm welcome for U.S. President Trump as he arrives for a visit ahead of the G20 summit in Hamburg Germany.  A welcoming production video presentation:

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For the past three days we’ve been assembling a great deal of research on visible back-channel communication amid numerous nations and their economic teams.  There are tectonic plates shifting just below the Geo-political surface, and we will be outlining many of them, along with the predictable economic outcomes (bigly), in the next few days.

In the interim, it’s useful to review the latest information from NatSec McMaster and NEC Cohen as it relates to the upcoming objectives from the next segment of foreign travel.

National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn pre-brief the media on President Trump’s upcoming trip to Poland and Germany for the G20 Summit.  An important read:

[Transcript] 1:21 P.M. EDT – AIDE: Hi. Just want to restate the ground rules. Today’s briefing is off camera, on the record, and the audio is not for broadcast. It is embargoed until the end of the briefing.

And with that, I will turn the podium over to —

Q Can you make this on — can you make the audio available? Because it puts radio at a disadvantage.

AIDE: It is off camera, not for broadcast. Those are the ground rules.

And now I’m going to turn it over to General H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn. Thank you.

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President Trump is scheduled to visit Poland on July 6th prior to the upcoming G20 Summit in Germany.   According to a new Reuters report several top-level EU politicians are concerned Polish leadership and President Trump might just get along swimmingly.

2016: “I pledge to you a Trump Administration will be a true friend to Poland and to all Polish Americans.”  ~ Donald Trump

Poland is one of the few EU countries that actually spends the agreed upon amount of 2% GDP for NATO defense.  One of the concerns amid the non-compliant EU nations, is that the visit will present another opportunity for vulgarian President Trump to embarrass the superior EU intellectuals over their ongoing lack of financial support; while simultaneously engaging in fellowship with like-minded vulgarian poles.

(Reuters) […] Brussels diplomats view the July 6 gathering, dubbed the Three Seas summit because the countries involved border the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, as a Polish bid to carve out influence outside the European Union with which the nationalist government has repeatedly clashed.

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There are people on all sides of the political continuum entirely missing the reason for President Trump to threaten Bashir Assad publicly.   Key word to understanding the Trump motive is: “publicly“.

President Trump, according to all high-brow punditry, is breaking diplomatic and national security norms by announcing the threat of punishment publicly instead of directly to Assad via a back-channel like Russia.  However, that approach appears entirely by design; not by some arbitrary dispatch or happenstance breech of security protocol.

Here’s the big picture.

♦ FIRST – Who benefits from the U.S. attacking, weakening or taking out Assad?

Four primary groups:

• #1) Assad’s political opposition.
• #2) Islamic Extremist groups (ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra et al) ie. The Muslim Brotherhood.
• #3) Turkey and Recep Erdogan; and
• #4) John McCain, Evan McMullin, Adam Kinzinger, the industrial war complex and neo-cons etc.

♦ SECOND – President Trump doesn’t want to engage in Syria beyond the elimination of ISIS (al-Qaeda, al-Nusra) etc.  Trump’s announced strategy is to defeat the Islamic extremists, ISIS; and then work on a regional governorship type structure toward a diplomatic internal political solution (Rex Tillerson).

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Oh, hellz to the yeah.  This is going to be BIGLY bilateral winning on historically epic proportions.

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(Via Reuters) The United States has started distributing arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters battling to help retake the city of Raqqa from Islamic State, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, as the United States moved ahead with a plan despite concerns by ally Turkey.

The official said distribution of the arms had started in the past 24 hours, based on authority given by President Donald Trump earlier this month. (read more)

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