 think tech away civil engagement lives here okay we're back we're live it's Monday morning I'm Jay Fidel what else would we do but Monday morning now or some people say Monday morning mix up because we're going to mix it up a little today and the question before the house is let's see it's US foreign policy under Trump are we better off now this was a creative idea we had a few days ago and we have to map a cellar on the one hand I guess you're saying you're taking the position that foreign policy under Trump is not leaving us better off and Elise Elise Anderson what position are you taking I'm saying we are better off better off okay wow alright so we're broken it down to a bunch of issues around foreign policy and you know diplomacy under Trump let's begin with the beginning isolationism and global trade war we are going isolationist we are involved in a global trade war and Europe and China are both responding to us with counter counter tariffs and we are you know we are and in animosity with both of them now over trade and over our isolationist policies we have ceded abandoned our you know global leadership so let's see who wants to go first you can take the pro right so you have the burden of going first him why do you say that on this point anyway that that Trump under Trump we are not better off well first off any trade war is not good for the economy it's never been proven in the past in all the history trade wars tend to isolate the countries it tends to put a strain on the relationships with your allies and sooner or later it is you have higher interest rates potentially you have a falling dollar and what struck me odd was after the you know the tax breaks okay that's the big economic boost that's the one that's gonna get the GMP to where Donald Trump thinks we're gonna be you know five six percent GMP bottom line is he was recently criticizing the feds for wanting to increase the interest rate the short-term interest rates but did he not consider that things may slow down because of these tariffs and I asked the question is why hit the Fed when you don't look at your own trade tariff issues that you've instigated and now they've respond to also if you don't if you take interest rates too high for a given economy you wind up having inflation which is a real enemy to the American people on the federal react really also say I'm you didn't mention it but this is the first time in my lifetime that any president has tried to manipulate the Federal Reserve it's been sacrosanct all these years and it is by law sacrosanct so it's really interesting unusual and a little gross that he would try to manipulate the Fed doesn't know that it's a separate entity he doesn't understand okay let's let's give Elise a chance what do you think okay well I think it's a bit deceptive to even call it a war on a trade war because I mean the other countries have had tariffs higher tariffs than we have had by far for years it's kind of the status quo and so we're just matching you know what they've been doing not a trade war no what else you got um well I just think that you know if if he's are we better off are we better off why we better off we're okay so we're better off because we've been apologizing for the US for the last you know at least the last eight years possibly longer and Donald Trump's done with that and he is you know he's he's taking hard lines and it's not popular he's making the calls for instance he's you know getting on the case of Teresa May now with brexit and her soft broach to it and just in the last few days on David Davis and Boris Johnson and both resigned both of whom were allies of Trump and he'd met with them repeatedly I believe and you know there they were hard-liners on brexit and while I don't necessarily believe in brexit for Britain's sake I think it's probably good for America's sake competitively but you know I think that he his philosophy is to call it what it is and to make his decisions and and you know not to mess around with some middle ground and at least we know what to expect from the refocus on it though the question before the house is foreign policy more specifically yeah he's being decisive US foreign policy under Trump yeah he's following through with his word limited to economics or one country but in general foreign policy under Trump what do you think well let's that's what I just said I think that he's being decisive he's making the calls you know we talk about alienating our friends and the alienation doesn't bother you well I don't think we're alienating them you know we he's he's holding them to standards right now there are five NATO allies who are upholding their side of the agreement with to paying 2% of their GDP the rest of them are shirking that and then Angela Merkel just recently entered that pipeline with Russia where she's buying natural gas and energy from Russia when Trump offered her the natural gas now you don't have a friend who just you know rebukes their word and goes and sides with the enemy I don't know why we're not focusing on Angela Merkel and why we're blaming Trump for you know alienating NATO when when you know NATO is not entirely friendly to him or to us just a moment of rebuttal on the moment of rebuttal I've got a lot of moments but I'll keep it to a moment bottom line is you do not shirk NATO's response our responsibility with NATO that has been an institution put in place for a reason and that was to stop wars in Europe after World War two so we won't have World War three NATO is the cornerstone of our security and that's why we're up security and more than importantly than anything else you take these other things about pulling out of WTO or threats to pull out of WTO threats to pull out of the climate agreements all these threats to become an isolationist of a nation I don't think that's going to get us further ahead it's going to push us further back but we talk about shirking NATO I mean we're one of the five NATO allies that's actually been upholding the standards so who's been shirking NATO for the last couple decades or so you know not paying even to the 2% GDP I think we may have some difference on the facts here yeah as is often you know they need to pay their 2% and they haven't been they've been shirking that so you get full agreement but you do not threaten membership okay by the fact that they're a little past due you support them and you support and you tell the world we are a unified organization called NATO and we are going to uphold our commitments well how how likely is it that we can pull them back in order let's go to the next topic I was a wonderful piece on PBS last night when they parsed the the new Colossus poem remember that I am a Lazarus which is engraved in the statue of Liberty now the operative language has given me your tired your huddle your poor weak your humbled masses learning to be yearning to be free it's very touching this was very touching program to see it again you take a look anyway so let's start with you Elise the question before the house is the wall with Mexico and immigration policy in general it's part of the isolationism but it's more specific to exclude people and to throw them out of the country has this this this improved our diplomacy in the world our foreign policy in the world our position in the world under say you know the the long American dream the American dream for 150 years or more about give me your tired huddled masses and so I ask you we better off now or worse because of the positions that this administration has taken over the past 18 well I think it's more complex than Donald Trump versus Emma Lazarus I mean this is we're not anti-immigration and I and you know I'm not and you hear the horror stories of what's going on in these detention centers and that's just you know inexcusable I will not stand for you know in defense of some of those atrocities but you know what we're doing with with the wall and the wall is I don't think the best strategy I think that walls can be broken and climbed and that's kind of ridiculous personally but but we need we need stronger borders and you know it's it's not anti-immigrant to make immigrants to help immigrants understand what the process is you know the this is it's not fair to let you know all these you know what do you call them the dreamers and all these new people in that don't follow it don't abide by the rules when we have well the four-year-olds are the children of the adults you know you can't just send a whole lot of babies over the lines and expect them to fend for themselves you know you've got a the people who have been waiting in line for decades one of my good friends just became an American citizen after having worked and started multiple companies in Silicon Valley for the last 10 years he just got his American citizenship like a couple weeks ago he's celebrating you know he really did it the right way went through all the loopholes now it's not fair to people like that they're not really addressing the question of how it looks for us to the world to follow rules to to make it clear that our rules are yeah okay that's the position yours Tim I'm gonna straddle a little bit here cuz we number one we are a nation of laws number two is we do have to secure our borders and make sure that we're not a laughing stock that we don't enforce our laws however the optics the optics that the world is looking at of us incarcerating children okay not a good world image but we really have to go to the heart of the problem that's what's happening in Guatemala what's happening in Honduras what's happening in Nicaragua okay they're leaving those countries because of basically mafia type death squads I mean if you had a family that was subject to a mafia death squad once you get your family out of there and they're coming through Mexico and they're trying to apply for legal asylum so let's make a distinction between legal asylum and you know illegal immigration and right now we're dealing with legal asylum applicants and you take away the children from legal asylum applicants is criminal as far as I'm concerned I haven't mentioned the Muslim man okay well you know the state of Hawaii has challenged that that law more than once and we clearly saw in the presidential campaign his intent to label people trying to immigrate from those countries those identified countries that is heavily laden with Muslim population into the United States as a banned country because it was popular to his base to do so is that a basis you better have specific reasons in my world you have specific reasons why someone is a threat to the United States before you deny them so are we doing background checks now they're taking the position that all this makes us look bad to the point of affecting our relationship and our image in the eyes of the world well when Canada takes tens and thousands of people from Syria and the United States says we're gonna keep it down to a thousand okay or hundreds of thousands of people from Syria trying to you know under refugee asylum okay and we say we're taking a thousand because what's the message we don't want Muslims in this country well that list of countries was made by Obama so I mean it's not entirely you know here we are we don't want Muslims get out every country that has Muslims in it or that's Muslim dominate I mean the vast majority of Muslim dominated countries are not on that list so I think it's more than simply a one last one what's the message we send to all Muslim based countries in this world about our reluctance to entertain refugees asking for asylum from Muslim based countries okay let's go on to the next one and Tim you're up so we're talking about efforts to make peace in the Middle East have we achieved any anything with our diplomacy our foreign policy in the Middle East and Syria and Yemen and for that matter Israel well you know a lot of a lot of that's been under under wraps we really don't know what's going on we don't know where Jared is on his discussion said he was gonna he's gonna back out of attempts to make peace in Israel that's the last statement from Jared okay so where are we then the bottom line is I think it's a dismal failure I think our you know our interaction to not participate with trying to help out refugees from Syria's are trying to flee that you know the war that's a dismal failure I just don't see any you know the moniker of success trying to develop a presence in the Middle East well we are apparently backing out so where does that leave us vis-à-vis Russia as as an influence in the Middle East well it becomes a basically a center for Hamas to participate in their attacks against Israel I mean becomes an open door policy if you will that we're not engaged we're not involved there because when we create the vacuum the vacuum will always be filled by someone and in this case it's someone that's not in our best interest certainly not in the best interests of Israel and that's what happens at least well in the last couple days you know the media has gotten so overwhelmed with the Trump's Twitter wars you know the this thing with President Rouhani of Iran and you know have threatening the mother of all peace the mother of all war and then Trump's response to that part of that that question yeah that was just yesterday actually last night late last night like midnight he's threatening the same kind of threat that that he threatened well he was responding he was retaliating against another thing I'm gonna blow you up I'm gonna use nuclear weapons yeah which is saying which is exactly what Rouhani said to him he said you know you're gonna see the mother of all peace the mother of all war but we've gotten so distracted by this silly Twitter stuff that it brings us closer to war doesn't it well you know it's it look at what happened to Kim Jong-un somehow you know I've avoided that so far well we are not we're talking about it more overtly well look at what happened with the rescues you know Trump rescued the three guys before any of these talks occurred in North Korea whereas Obama got the guy sent back and and you know he died a couple days later much less you know the beheadings that we all witness so whether we're making progress or not as relevant but threats the threats of nuclear holocaust yeah well we had those with North Korea you know six months ago whether or not we still have them serious I'm sorry Iran so my question is whether they're real threats or not I don't think we're closer to nuclear war I'm not any closer than we would have been under this you know how much time about this sort of thing the nuclear time clock so I don't know where that hand is now forward or backwards but the bottom line is these comments to Iran is nothing when you said it you said the word it's nothing more than a distraction what is he distracting from the Helsinki disaster that he's trying to backpedal from and he can't seem to backpedal because he keeps putting himself back it's not a disaster you know that his approval ratings have gone up an entire percentage point overall not just with Republicans from 44 to 45 percent in those three days so the PR distraction seems to be alienating people are distractions are working but I would observe that every day since the disaster in Helsinki there has been another distraction and so what we have is every day distracts us from the problems and we have a new problem every day but I want to go into the nuclearization in North Korea I want to mention something else first that I think is important that the media is completely skipped over just in the last two days we've we we rescued 422 white helmets and that was through cooperation with Netanyahu and Justin Trudeau of Canada Netanyahu credits both Trump and Trudeau for jointly you know making sure that Israel would help them get through Jordan and get out so they rescued 422 rescue workers who have saved a hundred thousand lives since 2014 and that just happened two days ago who's trying to pick them off who's trying to pick them off Russians our friends Donald Trump's friends you mean he could have called his friend Putin and says stop that well we still have the strongest sanctions against against Russia that we've had it in seem like several presidents anyway let's go Korea I think we you know it's around this area out you know one thing that after the meeting was in a month maybe five weeks ago in Singapore it strikes me that nothing nothing has happened at least it meets the eye probably a good thing but why don't you start this well one thing happened as we agreed to without you know Donald Trump is such a great dealmaker and negotiator well he negotiated war games in South Korea and he got nothing in return except for giving high esteem to King Gangung I mean that's all we gave we gave North North Korea a denuclearization well we gave them we gave them a platform now on the world stage there's something that you know this desperate never had before and all we gave up was the war games we haven't gotten any agreements from them there's nothing signs there was a time a few days after the meeting when Kim Jong-un called Mike Pompeo gangster that didn't sound like it was all her mom just went there and couldn't even meet with them yes that's true and the other thing that happened is there was a report from intelligence agencies intelligence agencies are all you know all all up front these days to the effect that in fact the nuclear facilities in North Korea were being built since the meeting in Singapore so what you're coming well I think you know we're making progress and you know we can't expect to walk out and have Kim Jong-un you know hand over all his his you know what I do I do I feel much safer that I did on what was it January when we were here in the studio January 13th I feel safer than that as far as North Korea goes for sure and you know we promised he Kim Jong-un promised future talks and that's progress you know that's that's not we're not there but it's progress in the right direction he also promised to release all the remains of American dead since the Korean War and that's you know that's a gesture that's a consequential for veterans families and their ancestors yes but has it happened no well I was promised a month ago okay we're gonna take a short break you guys we'll come back and we're gonna talk about let's see oh yeah insulting our friends complimenting our enemies that's the title of our next session we'll be right back after this short break oh you didn't see my email my name is Stephanie muck and I'm one of three hosts of think-tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pomei Weigert and we talked to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system we talked to farmers chefs restaurant tours and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii we are on at Thursdays at 4 p.m. and we hope we'll see you next time hello hi I am Howard wig I am the proud host of cold green for think-tech Hawaii I appear every other Monday at 3 and I have really really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency hope to see you there hi I'm Ethan Allen hosts on think-tech Hawaii of Pacific partnerships in education every other Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. I hope you'll join us as we explore the value the accomplishments and the challenges of education here in the Pacific Islands hey mixing it up mixing it up at think-tech Monday Monday morning when now Monday morning mix-up and we have to my left of Lisa Anderson one of our Saturday hosts and Tim Appichella one of our regular show hosts and they're still friends we're all still friends but we are making points that are not necessarily an agreement good for us okay and the proposition we're discussing is US foreign policy under Trump are we better off or what and the next subject I'd like to throw out for discussion is this problem about Europe about insulting our allies long-time allies since the war before I mean the Second World War and at the same time complimenting our enemies you want to start on that I will because nations are not unlike individuals it takes years to foster and form a relationship and it can only take an incident or two to just not damage but potentially destroy a solid solid relationship and I hate to say it but our commander-in-chief seems to do it at ease and with just like to add a thought I had this morning when I saw the thing about Montenegro about he said that Montenegro is they were very aggressive people and really I didn't know any Montenegro people who are aggressive I don't know any Montenegro people and then it made some comment that suggested that wars start that way and I think he was confusing it with Sarajevo what happened in 1914 and so I mean but the point is the point I take his point the point is you can have a war and your point but you can have a war over nothing you have a war over the Tonkin Gulf incident that last for years and years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives and so you know that the comment about Montenegro is somehow it informs us on this on this question go ahead sorry to interrupt it well that's okay because you know again nations can be like people because nations are composed of human beings and the bottom line is one of components of human nature is passive aggressive behavior so if you insult me I may not react openly as far as a defense but maybe my trade policies shift or maybe my cooperation when it comes to security shifts maybe I don't share enough information as I used to about Homeland Security issues you see what I'm saying is nations we need nations to cooperate if they think they trust you and you are on their side and they are on your side your point is that this this kind of diplomacy this kind of foreign policy leads to war it leads to strange relationships and strange relationship and you will have a better chance of conflict with either that nation directly or or your ally just doesn't step in when they need to so you want to foster positive relationships and that takes diplomacy of which Donald Trump has not engaged that department you know the State Department is you know down to a bear shell and we need a proactive State Department not a minimal stay in your backyard State Department is all about loyalty to our long long time friends anyway at least so what are you gonna say I think every every country is gonna act in their own best interest and whether you trust another another party or not you're you know these leaders aren't gonna be just throwing that to the wayside and just saying you know Donald Trump okay you guide us Obama you guide us that's that's not what happened we were kind of pushovers for the last eight years and and you know certain things are showing it like what I was saying about Angela Merkel earlier and how she just entered into this pipeline agreement with Russia to get their oil and natural gas from them even though Trump had offered as a NATO ally you know why he she rejected his deal why something I just said maybe we don't act directly but we would now we're acting passively aggressive so she so she trusts Putin more than she trusts us now that is right sense to you know keep insulting me I'll show you I can get the oil from somewhere we're getting now that is treason number talking about yeah why would they not because they're ticked off at us why would they not see you was ticked off at us and we're gonna see more of that that's my pick anyway okay so you think we're not if they're if they're ticked off at us off but are we better off are we better than the insults our insults gratuitous here well or they serve a purpose I mean they're they're hard lines they're not we haven't declared war against Germany or against okay somebody to be hardline yeah you do if their interest is anti-american I mean yeah I think I have to call them shit whole country okay I'm not gonna defend that okay his verbiage is not mine but I just don't think that the emphasis needs to be on that I you know I don't think he's a terribly articulate guy but it is helpful for him electorally I mean you gotta I you might not admire the guy but how he won that election with such a minority of voters and such a huge mystery well no he won who he needed to win he went to the right and that's where his house you just hit a really crucial point is you try not to play politics with foreign relations and he you said it yourself he has bolstered his base at the expense of our relationships with Europe and the rest of the world in order to keep his base happy because he's throwing raw meat out there and insulting those countries which they really don't even know about or care about its politics at the expense of our diplomacy and our relationships with the rest of the world not a good strategy yeah I also let me go to you on China for a minute we didn't have in the title but you know there was a time when it seemed like things were warming up with China it seemed like doesn't seem that way now although Trump was putting his hand around Xi Jinping at the golf course back when it's not like that now and in China there are people who are very angry at us including people on the street and they are responding to our tariffs tit for tat this does not lead for better relations look at Chinese tariffs so you feel that Trump is making effectively making a point and is it is it better to have that made than to preserve some sort of you know good relations with China I mean what's what's the balance there well you know yeah he's making a point he's he's saying that you can't you can't take us for you know for fools economically and you know we haven't declared war on China we're still working with them they might mock us behind our backs but what's the alternative you know they take advantage of us and you know the US pays vastly more than it share in the world scheme so I think it's it's it's somewhat worth it and you know when we talk about offending our friends and and bucking up our enemies it's a world of survival and we haven't alienated our friends to the point that that it's that you know we're that we've lost any more than we've gained I mean you know we've avoided nuclear war stepped in directions to do that at the expense keep threatening though you get it well whether or not it comes up on everybody's but if someone else threatens last comment on the subject last comment is you should use as diplomats more effectively yes plain and simple secretary of states there for a reason one thing at least mention I think you want to cover and that is what about our historical enemies we've been enemies with Russia and he's been enemies with us for his duration but it's been longer than that's the whole Cold War you have a historic non-relation with them and he has been enhancing that he Putin has been enhancing that he did some bad stuff here in the election I don't think it's any question about that there's no issue of fact that he did a lot of bad things so my question to you is to be friend him to you know give him strokes and compliments to tell everybody that you believe him when your own agencies are telling you otherwise is that improving our position in the world in terms of images improving our our foreign relations with others oh you're waiting our alliance with NATO you're rewarding bad behavior why would you do that you should be always you know ex welcome them to the table as much as possible but when you exhibit bad behavior you try not to say well let's let's increase the relationship let's increase the benefits to you to Russia yeah and you don't do that you do you do that with a child let me put this to at least at least you know you said and you said as a strain throughout this discussion that the US has to look strong it cannot be pushed around and yet what happened on Monday just a week ago it sure looked like we were weak it sure looked like we were being pushed around how do you reconcile those two things well when when Trump conceded that you know some some peace with Putin that we were pushed around I thought it was a I have a direct quote it was our fault he said the problem in the relationship was our fault which I that's really a not he was condemned for what what was he specifically referring to when he said it was our fault it was this country's mistakes this country's fault that would have a good relationship with Putin he said he disagreed he changed his mind two or three times after that but on Monday he said it disagreed did not accept the findings of seven of our intelligence on the mulling letting Putin drive a truck through our country this makes us I mean or at least arguably this makes us look weak and you're talking about looking strong not taking any wooden nickels so how do you reconcile well the Russia probe in the Mueller investigation really puts Trump in a strange situation I mean that's his you know there's the country on one side and then there's his personal stance on the other and his his role in the election was very significant obviously and so you know where he's kind of how's he supposed to respond to that his enemies on the personal level are the are the Probers his enemies as a president of the United States are the Russians so you know he's kind of trying to appease all sides at once and I think he's a bit caught there I mean you know we I think that it's some something of a breakthrough even though Russia has a horrible history that we've we've at least fostered some dialogue with them does it trouble you that we don't know what the dialogue was um we know the gist of it it's I mean unless we see signs that the dialogue was destructive I don't which there haven't been any we don't know they don't they haven't told us they haven't revealed what happened in the closed room well we've gotten some fallout I mean what did he say Putin said that this could be the first showcase example of successful joint work in Syria and that Russia and the US apparently can proactively take leadership on this issue of humanitarian crisis and you know I mean we can't cooperate with the militarily because of what happened in 2014 with the Crimea invasion but you know I think that to be at least you know on I wouldn't say on the same page quite but but not at each other's throats is why not okay Tim your your list well you know I just look at a our commander-in-chief who who flat out fails to recognize that we were hacked by the Russians okay we're in a new world now where computer hacking is the new warfare it's not necessarily grenades and missiles it's computer cyber attacks we have a show on think take away about that very subject so when you have someone attacking you and you embrace them and more importantly you deny the fact that they have been attacking you despite all the intelligence community and then on the world stage you say I see no reason why Russia would be responsible and then the next day after you've been bludgeoned by your own staff saying oh no no you can't say that then he tries to parse words of wood versus wouldn't and then he comes on the next day to say I agree with the intelligence community but it could be other people there's other people out there so he can't get straight in his mind that the intelligence community is actually absolutely accurate that we've been attacked by Russia and our election has been meddled with we can't do it and as of last night he said this is all a hoax this attack on our election has been a hoax and he said it last night what do you say to a man who's reversed himself four times I don't know what you say what you say we're at a time that's it we're at a time it's been a great discussion thank you Elise thank you Tim we'll do it again thank you hello