The credibility gap between Mike Pompeo’s pronouncements and Trump’s reality
July 13: “The [People’s Republic of China] has no legal grounds to impose its will on the region and claim resources off the coasts of Southeast Asian states.” Trump has often said he wants to seize Iraqi and Syrian oil.
July 12: “The [Chinese Communist Party] has an enormous credibility problem.” Trump has made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements, and Pompeo has his own credibility gap. For example, he pretended not to have been a participant in Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president, and he defamed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly after she asked him a question he didn’t like.
July 10: “We welcome Germany’s [European Union] and UN Security Council presidencies and look forward to working closely with Germany to address global challenges at a critical time for the West.” Trump is an avowed enemy of globalism who regularly trashes our allies, including Germany. He announced his intention to withdraw one-third of the U.S. troops stationed in Germany in a fit of pique with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
June 26: “This is all about whether Iran is honoring its own legally binding safeguards obligations. If Iran fails to cooperate with its [International Atomic Energy Agency] obligations, the international community must be prepared to take further action.” You would never know Trump was the one who withdrew from the nuclear deal, not Iran. This is only one of many international obligations — including the Paris Climate Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Open Skies treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the World Health Organization — that Trump has abandoned.
June 26: “On the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, we honor and support victims and survivors of torture around the world. The U.S. is committed to using all available tools to promote accountability for those who engage in these abhorrent practices.” Trump, who has often expressed his support for torture, is sanctioning the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes torturers, and has tried to closed America’s doors to asylum seekers, including victims of torture. Moreover, the president promotes human rights abuses at home by sending security forces to attack unarmed demonstrators, threatening to shoot looters, pardoning war criminals, and encouraging cops to rough up suspects.
June 25: “The [U.S.-Republic of Korea] alliance was formed in the crucible of war, and our bond remains ironclad in the defense of peace and security.” Former national security adviser John Bolton revealed in his book “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” that Trump does not understand why the United States fought the Korean War or has stationed troops in South Korea ever since. Trump has now caused a fissure with South Korea by stopping U.S.-South Korea military exercises without consulting Seoul and by demanding that South Korea pay $5 billion a year for the cost of stationing U.S. troops there — which would allow Washington to turn a profit.
June 23: “Whether it’s freedom for the people of Hong Kong, human rights for the Royingya, all across the world, @realDonaldTrump has understood that it’s important to be a true beacon for freedom and liberty and human rights around the globe.” According to Bolton, Trump told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he approved of China’s prison camps for the Uighurs. That’s in character for a president who supported the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre (“That shows you the power of strength”).
June 21: “We . . . believe the Chinese people deserve the truth, not propaganda.” Trump’s appointee to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media is purging professional journalists in an apparent bid to turn hallowed organizations such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty into pro-Trump propaganda organs.
June 14: “My best wishes to all soldiers and Army veterans at home and abroad on the occasion of the @USArmy’s 245th Birthday! May we continue to live the values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.” Is there anyone whose behavior is more at odds with these values than the commander in chief? Pompeo hasn’t exemplified those values, either. He has placed loyalty to Trump above loyalty to the country — hence his unwillingness to protect Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, from the president’s political goon squad.
And that’s only one month’s worth of tweets. You can find more hypocrisy and howlers the longer you look.
Most of the sentiments Pompeo expresses would be anodyne coming from any other administration but are risible from this one. Does he know who he works for? He acts as though someone else is president — Barack Obama perhaps? That makes U.S. diplomacy nearly worthless, because the whole world can see the Grand Canyon-size gap between Pompeo’s rhetoric and Trump’s actions and beliefs. U.S. credibility has become a joke, and Pompeo keeps producing more punchlines.
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