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International Press - Russia May Benefit from TPP Collapse & More
Listed are links to stories related to business developments affected by President Trump's first week in office. They come from news organizations around the world. The President and his administration have not categorized all news agencies as "sleaze and slime" or liars, only those within the U.S.. Hopefully, these non-U.S. articles can be read and/or discussed without the vitriol that seems to have emerged on an earlier thread.
The list of countries is about the only similarity....I've seen quite a few conservative sites such as the one you linked to, try to rationalize the action taken by pointing to President Obama.
Sorry. Apples and oranges. Additionally, the ham-handed way his edict was rolled out last Friday should give everyone concern over his ability to carry out his duties.
While most of what Trump has said is nonsense, there is a (small) bit of truth. I'll quote the relevant section of the AP column, then discuss:
"TRUMP: In the same statement, he said, “The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”
"THE FACTS: That is misleading. The Republican-led Congress in 2015 voted to require visas and additional security checks for foreign citizens who normally wouldn’t need visas — such as those from Britain — if they had visited the seven countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. This was included in a large spending bill passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by Obama.
"As the law was enacted, the Obama administration announced that journalists, aid workers and others who traveled to the listed countries for official work could apply for exemptions. There were no special U.S. travel restrictions on citizens of those seven countries."
The Obama administration identified five countries; it was the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 passed by Congress that identified Iraq and Syria. VWP also also tasked the executive branch with identifying other countries or areas of concern within 60 days of signing (on December 18, 2015 as part of the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public Law).
To be clear, identifying these as high risk countries was a bipartisan effort, not something to be attributed exclusively to Obama. In addition, the fact that neither Congress nor the executive branch chose to include some countries may have been unrelated to the level of risk.
In particular, and this is pure speculation, Saudi Arabia may have been excluded for political reasons, viz. that it is considered an "ally" of the US. In contrast, the Trump administration has shown little regard for alliances, so its motivation in excluding Saudi Arabia (and other countries) may indeed have been pecuniary.
That is, while each administration may have elected to exclude the same countries from its respective list, the reasons may or may not have been completely different, and may in both cases have been unrelated to actual risk.
With all this said, the fact is that together, two branches of the US government had identified seven countries as high risk areas. Trump is correct in pointing out that these were designated as such, and that no others were.
However, at least regarding Saudia Arabia, that was then, and this is now. See JASTA (allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia).
The rest, as PRESSmUP wrote, is apples and oranges. Aside from the present executive order being ill designed (assuming it was "designed", i.e. thought out, at all), it is qualitatively different from the VWP. So one can't simply point to the VWP list and say: "see, they did it first."
For over a decade it's not really been speculative to consider and point to Saudi Arabia as politically sensitive, or something along those skewed lines. Right after 9/11 I asked a sib who'd left his second stint at the State dept months earlier (with the admin change) what the scuttle was, and he immediately said everyone he knew in WDC considered it probably freelancers w/ significant help / backing / other support from SA. Which pretty much turned out to be the case.
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According to the draft copy of Trump's executive order, the countries whose citizens are barred entirely from entering the United States is based on a bill that Obama signed into law in December 2015.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/01/29/news-bulletin-the-list-of-muslim-nations-in-trumps-socalled-muslim-ban-are-ones-obama-choose-n2278021
Sorry. Apples and oranges. Additionally, the ham-handed way his edict was rolled out last Friday should give everyone concern over his ability to carry out his duties.
Of course, that's just my opinion.
@PRESSmUP- From here, seems like a pretty darned good opinion.
https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2017/01/31/ap-fact-check-trump-claims-on-travel-ban-misleading-wrong
"TRUMP: In the same statement, he said, “The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”
"THE FACTS: That is misleading. The Republican-led Congress in 2015 voted to require visas and additional security checks for foreign citizens who normally wouldn’t need visas — such as those from Britain — if they had visited the seven countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. This was included in a large spending bill passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by Obama.
"As the law was enacted, the Obama administration announced that journalists, aid workers and others who traveled to the listed countries for official work could apply for exemptions. There were no special U.S. travel restrictions on citizens of those seven countries."
The Obama administration identified five countries; it was the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 passed by Congress that identified Iraq and Syria. VWP also also tasked the executive branch with identifying other countries or areas of concern within 60 days of signing (on December 18, 2015 as part of the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public Law).
To be clear, identifying these as high risk countries was a bipartisan effort, not something to be attributed exclusively to Obama. In addition, the fact that neither Congress nor the executive branch chose to include some countries may have been unrelated to the level of risk.
In particular, and this is pure speculation, Saudi Arabia may have been excluded for political reasons, viz. that it is considered an "ally" of the US. In contrast, the Trump administration has shown little regard for alliances, so its motivation in excluding Saudi Arabia (and other countries) may indeed have been pecuniary.
That is, while each administration may have elected to exclude the same countries from its respective list, the reasons may or may not have been completely different, and may in both cases have been unrelated to actual risk.
With all this said, the fact is that together, two branches of the US government had identified seven countries as high risk areas. Trump is correct in pointing out that these were designated as such, and that no others were.
However, at least regarding Saudia Arabia, that was then, and this is now. See JASTA (allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia).
The rest, as PRESSmUP wrote, is apples and oranges. Aside from the present executive order being ill designed (assuming it was "designed", i.e. thought out, at all), it is qualitatively different from the VWP. So one can't simply point to the VWP list and say: "see, they did it first."
@msf- Of course one can. It's an alternate fact.
Circumcisions do alter the case.