With North Korea growing increasingly belligerent as China turns the other way and Russia’s Putin finding Trump to be far less pliable than he thought, the Trump administration has set out on a course to push back on the Russia-China alliance.
In a move that sets up a direct diplomatic clash with Russia and China, the US is pushing for the UNSC to discuss the possibility of focusing more on human rights. This has angered both the Russians and Chinese who have threatened to block the initiative.
Russia holds that human rights are already discussed on the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the General Assembly.
“Human rights are addressed by various peacekeeping missions, by special political missions, if we can just try to liaise those mandates with human rights then maybe we can agree (on a meeting),” Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Petr Iliichev told reporters. “But (the) general statement that international peace and security are threatened by human rights violations is not true.”
US Ambassador to the UN former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said the following concerning America’s proposed discussion on human rights:
“It will be a broad debate, not intended to single out any countries, but more just to talk about the topic and how that relates to conflict and if there are things that we can be doing going forward.”
Trump is Pushing Back on the Democrats Phony Russian Narrative
With everyday that goes by investigations to the Trump team’s alleged “collusion” with Russian officials before and after the 2016 elections turn up zero evidence of any wrong doing on the part of the Trump team. The Democrats’ McCarthy style weapon to bring down their enemy number one is turning out to be a dud. This, given the fact that Trump has taken a surprisingly tough stance against Russia has thrown much of the Democrats’ talking points out the window.
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This of course does not mean that Trump has followed Obama’s strategy against Putin, which for the most part saw the Russian autocrat as a serious enemy to the West. Trump has been less critical of Putin than others, but the tone is as far as the change goes. Trump has always been a mastermind in throwing out statements that are meant to misdirect. With Russia we are seeing this tactic on steroids. One day, Trump hints he would like to partner with Putin against ISIS and just days after that, Nikki Haley throws out the following statement on ABC:
“I am beating up on Russia,” Haley said. “[The president] has got a lot of things he’s doing, but he is not stopping me from beating up on Russia… He’s not stopping me on how we’re working together [with Russia] to defeat ISIS.”
“There’s no love or anything going on with Russia right now,” Haley also said.
Watch the interview below:
Where is this Headed?
With Trump set to meet the Chinese President in Marlo Largo this week, the President wants to firmly establish the USA as the preeminent leader of the world. Part of his strategy with Russia is to find out where Putin stands on issues of importance when it comes to the growing conflict between the USA and China over North Korea and the South China Sea. After all, he has clearly stated that he would be prepared to face North Korea alone, if “China fails to rein them in.”
By playing Russia and China off each other, he wants to test if it is the Russia-China “alliance” that is the true paper tiger.