- President Trump goes to the G7 summit and basically turns the world upside down. The US had just imposed – with a few exceptions – a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminum. The EU, Mexico and Canada have said that they will respond with more tariffs of their own. So is Trump going after a trade war? Hardly! He’s all about creating a level playing field. These countries have tariffs in place on selected American goods already. He didn’t like the communique that came out afterward, so he left without signing. Furthermore, he proposed to the summit the eliminating tariffs altogether. FOX News reported: “Trump said his ultimate goal was the elimination of all trade duties. ‘Ultimately that’s what you want.’ You want a tariff free. You want no barriers. And you want no subsidies. Because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries and that’s not fair.’”[i] [The art of negotiation, I guess.]
- Robert De Niro goes to the Tony Awards….and makes an fool of himself. His opening: “I’m only going to say one thing. F*** Trump.” Then he raised both fists in the air as the celebrity audience exploded with applause and got to their feet. His finish: “It’s no longer ‘Down with Trump,’ it’s ‘f*** Trump.’” That sad thing about all of this is that it’s embraced by the entertainment community. “Professing to be wise, they became fools…. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind.” (Romans 1:22, 28) [Please pray that God would open the eyes and save all of the lost, leftist, Hollywood crowd.]
- President Trump goes to Singapore and meets with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un. After 5 hours of direct negotiation with the North Korean leader, they emerge having signed a promising, if vague agreement, in which the North agreed to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” This is not pie-in-the-sky diplomacy. It seems to have built in to it the Reagan-era principle of “trust but verify.” By the agreement, Kim is required “to destroy his entire nuclear weapons and missile programs.” The lifting of sanctions now in place “depends on Kim’s follow-through on denuclearization.” The President also brought up the issue of human rights. Again, sanctions will remain in place until human rights abuses end. For its part, the US will no longer conduct joint military exercises with South Korea.[ii]
[i] Trump calls for elimination of tariffs, FOX News, June 9, 2018
[ii] ‘We’re ready to write a new chapter between our two nations’: Trump declares victory, Daily Mail, June 12, 2018
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