The recent assault by Turkey’s military on Kurds in northwestern Syria has presented a conundrum for the administration: Turkey is our (strained) NATO ally while the Kurds have been one of America’s most important friends in the region, with Kurdish forces fighting valiantly alongside Americans in Iraq against al Qaeda and in Syria against ISIS. The White House has expressed disapproval but did not outright condemn Turkey’s incursion into the Kurdish-controlled Syrian city of Afrin. “We hear and take seriously Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders Monday.
And a senior administration official emphasized on Tuesday that the U.S. military draws a distinction between the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in the northeastern Syria from those Kurds in the parts of the country north of Aleppo, who have fought against the ruling Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War. Those forces in and around Afrin have “never been advised by the United States, equipped by the United States, trained by the United States, and have never had any U.S. forces embedded with them,” the official said.
That’s the sort of careful line-drawing the administration has to do as it tries to emphasize its stated primary mission in Syria—defeating ISIS—while not antagonizing the Turks, who say they have concerns about Kurdish rebellions in their own country. But the White House is mincing fewer words when it comes to the malign influence of Russia, a staunch ally of Assad in Syria, in the situation in Afrin.
“We’ve seen allegations, particularly from Russia, in the last few days blaming the United States for the situation in northwest Syria,” said a senior administration official, who said claims from Turkey and Russia that the United States was planning to train a Kurdish “border force” along the Turkish border were incorrect.
“There was never such a plan that had any policy approval,” the official said. “In fact, it wasn’t even considered here, in D.C., at the policy level. There may have been some blue-sky type thinking by the military planners at a tactical level based on the mission parameters that they had. But that was never put forward as a policy option.”
In fact, the official continued, “if there’s a proximate cause outside of Turkey for the launch of that operation, it is Russia.” The official cited a statement from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he had an “agreement” with Russia related to the move on the Kurds in Afrin. The Russian defense forces near Afrin were repositioned away from the city shortly before Turkey’s invasion, which began on January 20.
“You will note that there has been no engagement of Turkish aircraft by Syrian regime air defenses,” the official said. “So we think the implication there is that the agreement that Russia made with Turkey was to guarantee that the Syrian regime air defenses would not prevent Turkish aircraft from flying missions over Afrin. So the conditions under which the operation kicked off, including large-scale air operations, that’s the result of Russia’s greenlighting the operation for Turkey, we believe.”
Afrin is not the only recent bad action in Syria that the administration has laid at Vladimir Putin’s feet. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday said Russia’s “shielding” of Assad is to blame for the Syrian regime’s recent chemical attack on its own people.
2018 Watch—Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, very nearly decided not to run for reelection to the Senate this year. The New York Times has the story here.
President Trump will leave Washington Wednesday to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos to boast of his administration’s economic successes and represent his America First trade agenda in a forum often seen as a hotbed of globalism.
Trump plans to spend Thursday and Friday discussing policy and international security issues with world leaders, including Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. On Friday, the White House says he will deliver a speech arguing that “when the United States grows, so does the world.”
Trump will be joined on the trip by a large delegation of U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and several others others.
“We want the world to invest in America and to create jobs for hardworking Americans,” Gary Cohn, the chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House, told reporters Tuesday. “The president will continue to promote fair economic competition, and will make it clear that there cannot be free and open trade if countries are not held accountable to the rules.”
Trade Watch—Trump’s trip to Davos comes as his administration begins the penultimate round of trade talks with Mexico and Canada to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the president has said is insufficiently favorable to U.S. interests.
And on the intercontinental stage, the White House took its first trade actions against a fellow superpower Tuesday, slapping a 30 percent tariff on solar panel and washing machine imports in an action that was meant to be seen as a snub to China (but in reality is a greater slap at South Korea). CNN reports:
Here’s a slightly different shine on trade from within the Trump White House— specifically, from Gary Cohn, on Tuesday: “America first is not America alone. When we grow the world grows; when the world grows, we grow. We’re part of a world economy, and the president believes that. He’s going to talk to world leaders about making sure we all respect each other, we all abide by the laws, we all have free, fair, open, and reciprocal trade. And if we live in a world where there are not artificial barriers, we will all grow and help each other grow. And the president truly believes that.”
The new tariffs will punish American consumers, our editors argue in an online editorial Wednesday. “Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to issue duties when an imported product becomes ‘substantial cause of serious injury’ to the corresponding domestic industry. Just so, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer argued that ‘increased foreign imports of washers and solar cells and modules are a substantial cause of serious injury to domestic manufacturers,’ reads the editorial. “Another word for ‘substantial cause of serious injury’ is competition.”
Things That Make You Go Hmmmm—From the Washington Post: “Trump asked the acting FBI director how he voted during Oval Office meeting”
Song of the Day—“Last Child” by Aerosmith
