Monday, February 25, 2019

The Mike Pence Role in the Aggressive Part of Trump's Foreign Policy

The Preisdent and Pence
Axios is out with a very important piece, How Mike Pence wields foreign policy power.

It turns out that Pence is quite the warhawk with a lot of influence.

Jonathan Swan reports:


For the past two years, the vice president has done more than arguably any other senior administration official to propel President Trump's most hawkish foreign policy positions. He's done so consistently in private and, increasingly, in public.
Nobody has had more influence over Trump's Venezuela policy than Pence.
National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Marco Rubio also play pivotal roles, but from the first days of the Trump presidency, Pence has dominated the issue.
  • It was Pence who ushered the wife of a Venezuelan political prisoner into the Oval Office for a historic meeting with Trump.
  • It was Pence who made the administration's first tour of Latin American countries, in the summer of 2017, soon after Trump threatened to use military force in Venezuela.
  • It was Pence who phoned Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, in January, and told him Trump would back him if he declared himself Venezuela's interim president. (Guaidó did so the next day, and Trump kept Pence's promise.)
  • Pence has rallied Venezuelan expats at churches throughout Florida and Latin America, making the faith-based case for overthrowing Maduro.
  • On Monday, Pence will give a speech in Bogotá, at the invitation of Colombia’s president, touting the U.S.'s "unwavering support" for Guaidó, who he will also meet with. It will be Pence's fifth trip to Latin America as VP.
The big picture: Pence also exerts power on other critical foreign policy issues. He publicly — and controversially —attacked European allies in a recent Warsaw speech for not supporting Trump's maximum pressure campaign on Iran.
  • He infuriated Turkish officials while working with Trump to secure the release of Pastor Andrew Brunson from a Turkish prison.
  • He also gave the toughest speech on China by any American leader in recent history, and has worked with key officials, including John Bolton, to shape the administration's China policy.


1 comment:

  1. And the #RESIST morons still want to dump Trump. Gee, who'd replace him??

    ReplyDelete