What did President Trump accomplish on his 12-day, 5-nation trip through East Asia? Not much, at least not substantively—and that’s judging by the president’s own remarks at the White House on Wednesday. Speaking to cameras and the press pool from the Diplomatic Room, the president provided a 27-minute-long account of what he called an “historic” trip.
“Everywhere we went, our foreign hosts greeted the American delegation, myself included, with incredible warmth, hospitality, and most importantly respect,” Trump said. “And this great respect showed very well [to] our country is further evidence that America’s renewed confidence and standing in the world has never been stronger than it is right now. When we are confident in ourselves, our strength, our flag, our history, our values—other nations are confident in us. And when we treat our citizens with the respect they deserve, other countries treat America with the respect that our country so richly deserves.”
There was no announcement of concrete developments on trade, as he implied there would be earlier this week in Manila. And if there were any substantive breakthroughs, the president didn’t mention them. “We have established a new framework for trade that will ensure reciprocity through enforcement actions, reform of international organizations, and new fair trade deals that benefit the United States and our partners,” he said.
But a “new framework” doesn’t cut the trade deficit with countries like China “very quickly and very substantially,” as the president had once promised.
North Korea Watch—And what about the threat of a nuclear North Korea? Trump said on Wednesday that he asked the leaders of the nations to “support our campaign of maximum pressure” on Pyongyang. “And they are responding by cutting trade with North Korea, restricting financial ties to the regime, and expelling North Korean diplomats and workers,” he said.
That’s a start, but the most important factor in this effort is China—and the response from Beijing has come in fits and starts. Here’s one example: In April, following Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Mar-a-Lago, there was an agreement that China would continue its ban on importing coal from North Korea as a way to strain the country’s rickety economy. But by September, China was purchasing coal from North Korea again.
In June, Trump tweeted his frustration, saying that while he “appreciated” Xi and China’s efforts to deal with a nuclearized North Korea, “it has not worked out.”
So what sort of assurances did Trump get from Xi last week? “During our visit, President Xi pledged to faithfully implement United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea and to use his great economic influence over the regime to achieve our common goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” he said.
We’ll see if it works out this time.
Another topic the president did not broach in his remarks Wednesday was the question of Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama who has been accused by multiple women of unwanted sexual contact with them when they were teenagers. Trump ignored questions from the press about Moore as he left the podium. His only candid comment on the issue has been referring back to a prepared statement, issued while he was overseas, saying that the allegations would “disqualify” Moore if they are true.
Moore, meanwhile, is facing new allegations from other women who say that in the late 1970s he spent time at the local mall in Gadsden, Alabama, asking out teenage girls. One woman in a new Washington Post article claims the 30-year-old Moore pestered her for a date—even calling her high school while she was in her trigonometry class—and she eventually relented. She says he gave her an unwanted kiss while in his car.
Read more of the new allegations here.
On the President’s Schedule—Trump will travel to Capitol Hill on Thursday, where he will deliver remarks to the House Republican conference. Shortly thereafter, House leadership expects to hold a floor vote on the tax bill. As the president tweeted Wednesday night, he believes “tax cuts are close”—though the future of the bill in the Senate looks uncertain.
With Trump spending the bulk of his Wednesday readjusting to Eastern Time, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Texas to give a pep talk to the Republican Governors Association at their annual meeting.
After a week in which Democrats shellacked the GOP at the polls in Virginia and New Jersey, Pence shared a message of optimism with America’s 38 Republican governors: The Trump administration has excelled in hurricane relief. The Trump administration will get tax reform passed. And the Trump administration will continue to make America great again.
“We’re going to take a decisive step, before the end of this year,” Pence said. “Rest assured: Before President Trump and I get done, before we get to this summertime, we’re going to cut taxes across the board for working families, small businesses, and family farms, and get this economy moving again.”
Pence also met with Texas governor Greg Abbott for a briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as Texas continues to rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. Pence said that the federal government has already distributed more than $1 billion to victims in housing assistance, and that the National Flood Insurance program has paid out more than $4.4 billion.
“We’ve made the full resources of the federal government available,” Pence said.
Judiciary Watch—One of President Trump’s nominees for federal judge got a tough grilling in his Senate hearing Wednesday over a pair of pretty harmless dad-joke tweets. Read more from my colleague Jenna Lifhits on Don Willett’s offending gags:
This review of the new Justice League movie from National Review’s Kyle Smith is brutal: “We’ve seen bad DC movies and bad Marvel movies. But Justice League is something new: It’s a bad DC movie and a bad Marvel movie at the same time.”
Song of the Day— “I’m One” by the Who
