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Donald Trump on Foreign Policy
2000 Reform Primary Challenger for President
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China is our enemy; they're bilking us for billions
China is bilking us for hundreds of billions of dollars by manipulating and devaluing its currency. Despite all the happy talk in Washington, the Chinese leaders are not our friends. I've been criticized for calling them our enemy.
But what else do you call the people who are destroying your children's and grandchildren's future? What name would you prefer me to use for the people who are hell bent on bankrupting our nation, stealing our jobs, who spy on us to
steal our technology, who are undermining our currency, and who are ruining our way of life? To my mind, that's an enemy. If we're going to make
America number one again, we've got to have a president who knows how to get tough with China, how to out-negotiate the Chinese, and how to keep them from screwing us at every turn.
Source: Time to Get Tough, by Donald Trump, p. 2
, Dec 5, 2011
When you love America, you protect it with no apologies
I love America. And when you love something, you protect it passionately--fiercely, even. We are the greatest country the world has ever known. I make no apologies for this country, my pride in it, or my desire to see us become strong and rich again.
After all, wealth funds our freedom. But for too long we've been pushed around, used by other countries, and ill-served by politicians in Washington who measure their success by how rapidly they can expand the federal debt,
and your tax burden, with their favorite government programs.American can do better. I think we deserve the best. That's why I decided to write this book.
The decisions we face are too monumental, too consequential, to just let slide. I have answers for the problems that confront us. I know how to make American rich again.
Source: Time to Get Tough, by Donald Trump, p. 7
, Dec 5, 2011
By 2027, tsunami as China overtakes US as largest economy
There is a lot that Obama and his globalist pals don't want you to know about China's strength. But no one who knows the truth can sit back and ignore how dangerous this economic powerhouse will be if our so-called leaders in
Washington don't get their acts together and start standing up for American jobs and stop outsourcing them to China. It's been predicted that by 2027, China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy--much sooner if the
Obama economy's disastrous trends continue. That means in a handful of years, America will be engulfed by the economic tsunami that is the People's Republic of China--my guess is by 2016 if we don't act fast.For the past thirty years,
China's economy has grown an average 9 to 10 percent each year. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, China's economy grew a robust 9.7 percent. America's first quarter growth rate? An embarrassing and humiliating 1.9 percent. It's a national disgrace.
Source: Time to Get Tough, by Donald Trump, p. 30
, Dec 5, 2011
Criticized Buchanan’s view on Hitler as appeasement
In Buchanan’s book, he actually said the Western allies were wrong to stop Hitler. He argued that we should have let Hitler take all of the territories to his east. What of the systematic annihilation of Jews, Catholics, and Gypsies in those countries?
You don’t have to be a genius to know that we were next, that once Hitler seized control of the countries to his east he would focus on world domination. Pat Buchanan was actually preaching the same policy of appeasement that had failed for Neville
Chamberlain at Munich. If we used Buchanan’s theory on Hitler as a foreign policy strategy, we would have appeased every world dictator with a screw loose and we’d have a brainwashed population ready to go postal on command.
After I [wrote
an article on this for] Face the Nation, Buchanan accused me of “ignorance.” Buchanan, who believes himself an expert, has also called Hitler “a political organizer of the first rank.” Buchanan is a fan.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.267-68
, Jul 2, 2000
Post-Cold War: switch from chess player to dealmaker
In the modern world you can’t very easily draw up a simple, general foreign policy. I was busy making deals during the last decade of the cold war. Now the game has changed. The day of the chess player is over. Foreign policy has to be put in the hands
of a dealmaker. Two dealmakers have served as president-one was Franklin Roosevelt, who got us through WWII, and the other was Richard Nixon, who forced the Russians to the bargaining table to achieve the first meaningful reductions in nuclear arms.
A dealmaker can keep many balls in the air, weigh the competing interests of other nations, and above all, constantly put America’s best interests first. The dealmaker knows when to be tough and when to back off. He knows when to bluff and he knows
when to threaten, understanding that you threaten only when prepared to carry out the threat. The dealmaker is cunning, secretive, focused, and never settles for less than he wants. It’s been a long time since America had a president like that.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.111-12
, Jul 2, 2000
Support Russia, but with strings attached
I don’t understand why American policymakers are always so timid in dealing with Russia on issues that directly involve our survival. Kosovo was a perfect case in point: Russia was holding out its hand for billions of dollars in IMF loans
(to go along with billions in aid the U.S. has given) the same week it was issuing threats and warnings regarding our conduct in the Balkans. We need to tell Russia and other recipients that if they want our dime they had better do our dance,
at least in matters regarding our national security. These people need us much more than we need them. We have leverage, and we are crazy not to use it to better advantage.Few respect weakness.
Ultimately we have to deal with hostile nations in the only language they know: unshrinking conviction and the military power to back it up if need be. There and in that order are America’s two greatest assets in foreign affairs.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.134
, Jul 2, 2000
China: lack of human rights prevents consumer development
Why am I concerned with political rights? I’m a good businessman and I can be amazingly unsentimental when I need to be. I also recognize that when it comes down to it, we can’t do much to change a nation’s internal policies. But I’m unwilling to shrug
off the mistreatment of China’s citizens by their own government. My reason is simple: These oppressive policies make it clear that China’s current government has contempt for our way of life. We want to trade with China because of the size of its
consumer market. But if the regime continues to repress individual freedoms, how many consumers will there really be? Isn’t it inconsistent to compromise our principles by negotiating trade with a country that may not want and cannot afford our goods?
We have to make it absolutely clear that we’re willing to trade with China, but not to trade away our principles, and that under no circumstances will we keep our markets open to countries that steal from us.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.119 & 123
, Jul 2, 2000
Be tougher on China-we’re too eager to please
Our biggest long-term challenge will be China. The Chinese people still have few political rights to speak of. Chinese government leaders, though they concede little, desperately want us to invest in their country.
Though we have the upper hand, we’re way to eager to please. We see them as a potential market and we curry favor with them at the expense of our national interests.
Our China policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush has been aimed at changing the Chinese regime by incentives both economic and political. The intention has been good, but it’s clear that the Chinese have been getting far too easy a ride.
Despite the opportunity, I think we need to take a much harder look at China. There are major problems that too many at the highest reaches of business want to overlook, [primarily] the human-rights situation.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.117-18
, Jul 2, 2000
Page last updated: May 31, 2012