World leaders are all worried about what Trump will do as President. With that in mind, that is exactly what we need as a Commander-in-Chief. We need a fearless commander-in-chief that is forceful but sensitized to the needs of human piety.
In capitals around the globe, leaders and foreign policy experts worry that Trump’s calls for radical change and brash style could produce instability or worse in a global crisis. In this tumultuous world, we live in, America needs to be brash with a brush stroke of human empathy. Trump does not depict empathy and wavers when the ocean currents shift.
Think Donald Trump wouldn’t do well in office? Think again. Yes, he has a tendency to speak without thinking and he’s embarrassed himself on more than a couple of occasions. Plus, we all thought this was just a publicity stunt. However, what we may not realize is that Trump may bring some needed change to the country. The changes he listed on his initial platform to get elected, we now find him hedging and making concessions. It is day four for POTUS who acknowledges that eyes of the world are upon him.
President Donald Trump has spent his first days using his executive authority to rewrite American policy and undo a string of decisions made by former president Barack Obama. Here’s a running list of the new president’s executive actions:
1. Providing “relief” from the Affordable Care Act
Trump’s first executive order on Inauguration Day involved “minimizing the economic burden” of the Affordable Care Act. This order allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the heads of other departments and agencies to waive or delay the implementation of any ACA provisions that would impose a financial burden or any state or a regulatory burden on any individuals.
Trump froze all pending regulations until they are approved directly by his administration or by an agency led by Trump appointees. The action, given in a memorandum from White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, delays all regulations apart from health, safety, financial or national security matters allowed by the Office of Management and Budget director.
3. Reinstating the “Mexico City” abortion policy
The president reinstated the so-called “Mexico City Policy”, which blocks the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund foreign non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortions. It was established by former president Ronald Reagan and has been rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents ever since.
4. Scrapping the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Trump’s next executive action withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which former President Barack Obama negotiated with 11 other pacific nations. The deal was never ratified by the Senate, so it had not gone into effect. Instead, the Trump administration says it plans on negotiating bilateral deals with individual nations.
5. Freezing the federal workforce
Trump issued a presidential memorandum Tuesday that prohibits government agencies from hiring any new employees, effective as of noon on January 22. The order does not apply to military personnel and the head of any executive department may exempt positions that include national security or public safety responsibilities.
6 & 7. Advancing the Dakota Access and Keystone XL Pipelines
Trump’s next actions encouraged the construction of two controversial pipelines, the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL Pipeline. The DAPL action instructs an expedited review and approval of the remaining construction and operation of the pipeline by the Army for Civil Works and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Keystone XL action invites TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the pipeline, to re-submit its application for a presidential permit to construct the pipeline. It also instructs the Secretary of State to reach a final determination within 60 days.
8. Expediting Environmental Reviews on Infrastructure Projects
On Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order to streamline environmental reviews of high-priority infrastructure projects. The action states that infrastructure projects in the U.S. “have been routinely and excessively delayed by agency processes and procedures.” The action instructs the Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality to create expedited procedures and deadlines for environmental reviews and approvals for high-priority infrastructure projects.
9. Promoting “Made-in-the-USA” pipelines
This memorandum instructs the Secretary of Commerce to create a plan for pipelines created, repaired or expanded in the United States to use materials and equipment produced in the country “to the maximum extent possible.” It establishes that all steel and metal used in such pipelines be completely produced in the United States, from the initial melting stage to the application of coatings.
10. Reviewing domestic manufacturing regulation
Trump issued an action that instructs the Secretary of Commerce to contact stakeholders to review the impact of Federal regulations on domestic manufacturing. After the review, the Secretary of Commerce is instructed to create a streamlined Federal permitting process for domestic manufacturers.
11. Increasing border security measures
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that directed the secretary of homeland security to:
·Begin planning, designing and constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, including identify available federal funds and working with Congress for additional funding
·Construct and operate detention facilities near the border to make adjudicate asylum claims, subject to the availability of existing funding,
·Hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, subject to the availability of existing funding,
·End “catch and release” policy
·Quantify all “sources of direct and indirect Federal aid or assistance to the Government of Mexico on an annual basis over the past five years”
·Act to empower state and local law enforcement to act as immigration officers
12. Pursuit of undocumented immigrants
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that directed the secretary of homeland security to:
·Prioritize certain undocumented immigrants for removal, including those with criminal convictions and those who have only been charged with a crime
·Hire 10,000 additional immigration officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, subject to the availability of existing funding,
·Prohibit federal funding, with the help of the attorney general, to “sanctuary” jurisdictions, where local officials have declined to help enforce federal immigration laws
·Reinstate the Secure Communities program, which was terminated in 2014 and enables state and local law enforcement to effectively act as immigration agents
·Sanction countries, with the help of the secretary of state, that refuse to accept the return of undocumented immigrants deported from the U.S.
·Create a list, updated weekly, of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary jurisdictions
·Create an “Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens” to “provide proactive, timely, adequate and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and family members of such victims”
It hasn’t helped that many of Trump’s designated Cabinet members, especially his choices for Defense and State, as well as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, distanced themselves from Trump on the threat from Russia, the future of NATO, the need to keep the Iran nuclear deal, the danger of global warming and other issues.
Oprah Winfrey said in an interview with the Associated Press that the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States was not so much a repudiation of President Barack Obama as it is evidence that millions of his supporters felt that they had been ignored until now. I believe that main stream media should not be looking for remarks, quotes or statements from celebrities as they have absolutely no experience in politics nor leadership strengths except for their pompous egotistical mindset that blinds their right to free speech and the imbeciles in the media who even turn to them.
She’s not coming over your house,” Winfrey continued. “You don’t have to like her. Do you like this country? Do you like democracy or do you want a demagogue?” I was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show some time ago. She’s an enigma and since the time we spent together I can certainly state Oprah is as close to Hillary Rodham Clinton as one can get. She rules with a tight fist at times, but exactly what she stated, a demagogue wearing the Emperor’s robe.
Hard change is hard to accept and for some hard change is frightening and see that in the make-up of a Donald Trump.
Europeans also are nervous about Trump’s repeated praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is widely viewed with alarm for sending his troops into Ukraine and up against NATO’s borders, and for trying to interfere with Western elections. However, no one knows what Trumps actions will be so lambasting POTUS for what he might do is criminal stupidity.
It has been said that President Trump seems likely to escalate tensions abroad and to create unnecessary and dangerous hostilities, while hollowing out our values so that we are no longer the beacon of the free world. Earlier in his campaign, he endorsed torture “much worse” than waterboarding, prompting former CIA director Michael Hayden last month to suggest that military and intelligence officers might “refuse to act” on Trump’s orders. A recipe for chaos.
However, it does not mean anything what Hayden has to say as former congressman Mike Pompeo is now sworn as the new CIA Director.
The second danger is that the demagogue will surround himself with incompetent and dangerous advisers. Huey Long famously recruited political operative Gerald L.K. Smith to help run his populist “Share Our Wealth” campaign. After Long’s assassination, Smith became known as one of America’s most notorious anti-Semites. We must step up our game unless we want to continue to stand in the line of global terrorism and demise.
Trump regularly encourages his six million-plus Twitter followers to harass his critics. And of a protester at one of his recent rallies, Trump said: “I’d like to punch him in the face.” He wants to “open up” libel law to make it easier to cow journalists unfriendly to his cause.
Trump did not win based on experience or ideology like Obama. Trump won because he stood tough on the very issues that made America an economic disaster and one filled with divisiveness and fear. Polls showed that voters gravitated toward him because they are convinced he’s the candidate who “tells it like is,” despite the fact of his rhetoric that turned millions of Americans against him and left them horrified.
On the most important questions about he’d govern, he’s managed to sidestep voters’ and journalists’ questions. He’s said little that suggests he’d new to constitutional norms. And he’s conducted himself in a manner not befitting a leader of the free world. In a vacuum, we’re left to assume that he’d govern much like demagogues who’ve come before. However, out of these mouths it appears that America now has millions of soothsayers that already know the outcome of his presidency.
Trump on the other hand is a street-smart individual that knows how to accomplish things. That is exactly why the republican establishment fears Trump because he may achieve something without the usual republican incalcitrant.
Post inauguration, President Donald Trump will inherit complex issues that will require tremendous intellect, subtlety and heart. Seemingly intractable problems of mounting refugee crises and ongoing humanitarian disasters in places like Syria and the Sudan persist. We should give support to our commander-in-chief and that he studies and emulates the approach of the great leaders of not just the United States but the world.
In his final press conference of the year, President Barack Obama was asked what personal moral responsibility he felt, as president and leader of the free world, watching the carnage in Aleppo, Syria. His response portrayed the weight that will soon rest on Trump’s shoulders:
“I always feel responsible. I felt responsible when kids were being shot by snipers,” Obama said. “I felt responsible when millions of people had been displaced. I feel responsible for murder and slaughter that’s taken place in South Sudan that’s not being reported on, partly because there’s not as much social media being generated from there. … I ask myself every single day, is there something I could do that would save lives and make a difference and spare some child who doesn’t deserve to suffer?” These departing statements classically demonstrate his inabilities to lead this country, ensure national security and foreign diplomacy. He stated that he wished there is something he could do to save lives. Well, he had 2,920 days to figure that out.
The president must balance the desire to help with a full understanding of the limits of U.S. power. Stopping the slaughter in Syria, Obama noted, would have involved putting “large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground uninvited, without any international law mandate, without sufficient support from Congress, at a time when we still had troops in Afghanistan and we still had troops in Iraq.” I was unaware we needed an invitation to invade but he was stigmatized by NATO countries when we were poised to take a ground attack to ISIS.
If he had done those things, America might have stopped the slaughter, or it might have provoked direct armed conflict with Russia and Iran. The international ramifications of action require careful analysis followed by discerned action.
Obama’s measured approach has left him open for criticism from hawks who want to confront enemies forcefully or to those who agonize over reports of the slaughter of civilians. But he rather pushed for diplomatic solutions as his most realistic strategy, bringing to bear international pressure on Russia and Syria to get civilians to safety and with this approach, it would most likely to bear fruit without unintended consequences that could lead to even greater humanitarian disasters. Seems like a contradiction of his former statements.
Even if the new president takes these lessons to heart and pursues a similarly measured approach to diplomacy and military intervention, the global refugee crisis will continue and likely worsen. The number of refugees is growing, but safe havens for taking them in are shutting their doors — including the United States.
Some have feared that Trump’s campaign rhetoric regarding refugees was harsh, isolationist fear-mongering. When he sits in the Oval Office, reality and the United States’ long, compassionate history of welcoming refugees, especially those facing persecution or threat of death in their home countries, should temper his rhetoric and his decisions. What is in the nation’s best interest given Obama’s statement that he wishes he could have done something to save lives. I can assure you that as a counter terrorism expert, diplomacy has its place but not with the lives of millions of Americans at stake. Terrorism has no boundaries. ISIS. Al Qaeda, Taliban, etc. have no desire to negotiate. They are simply killing machines.
The world is increasingly unstable, with geopolitical tensions and humanitarian crises mounting in more and more places. We must remember one principle of thought. Trump is NOT a politician and that is why he was voted in as your Commander-in-Chief. He is not the most eloquent and have a silver tongue like great Presidents of the past but we do not need a politician in the White House. We need a man of action who recognizes the woes of the world and is looking for real solutions putting action before rhetoric. The United States of America was the global world leader and superpower. We need our enemies to fear us with a reverent hand and unify this nation. Not one who sells out his/her country.
About the author: Scott Bernstein is the CEO of Global Security International LLC headquartered in NYC. He has extensive experience as a Counter Terrorist Consultant, International Apprehension Operative, Human & Sex Trafficking Expert and a Military and Law Enforcement Trainer. He is available as a Consultant, Expert Witness and as a Speaker. In addition to his LinkedIn profile, you can also interact with Scott on his LinkedIn group http://bit.ly/1LMp2hj.
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