Displaying items by tag: foreign policy

Boris Johnson has said that the Iran nuclear deal should be replaced with a ‘Trump’ deal. He recognised US concerns that the 2015 deal was ‘flawed’, but there had to be a way of stopping Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. His comments come amid reports that the UK, France and Germany intend to try to rescue the situation by triggering a dispute mechanism in the 2015 deal - which was abandoned by the US in 2018. Boris said, ‘Somehow, we have to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. If we're going to remove we need a replacement. From the American perspective, it is a flawed deal negotiated by President Obama. Let's work together to replace it with the Trump deal. That's what we need to see. President Trump is a great dealmaker by his own account, and by many others.’

Politicians are challenging Donald Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Senator Elizabeth Warren said that the president has refused to halt weapons sales because he is more interested in appeasing US defence contractors than in holding the Saudis accountable for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder or for thousands of Yemeni civilians killed by those weapons. Senator Bernie Sanders is equally critical of Trump’s relationship with the Saudis, citing it as an example of his liking of foreign dictators. The Senate voted 63-37 to run with Sanders’ resolution to force Trump to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. That same day, it emerged that Riyadh had confirmed a $15 billion deal with defence contractor Lockheed Martin for a missile defence system. One observer said Trump’s determination to preserve Saudi arms sales was an example of the ‘stranglehold of defence contractors on our military policy’.

Donald Trump has enthusiastically expressed personal admiration for notorious authoritarian leaders. Recently he sent a message to Philippines president Duterte: ‘I want to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.’ Duterte’s crackdown on the drug trade has included extrajudicial killings of 7,000+ people. On President al-Sisi of Egypt, Trump said, ‘He has been very close to me from the first time I met him. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation’. Al-Sisi has a stranglehold on Egypt’s political system, and is actively crushing any civic groups or media outlets that criticise his rule. Trump also described the president of China as ‘a good person who wants to do right, representing his people’. China’s one-party state aggressively censors the internet, persecutes ethnic and religious minorities, bans all political opposition, and recently cracked down on human rights lawyers attempting to defend the victims of such abuses.

The Secretary General of the UN used a London platform to encourage the UK to continue to work with the organisation. Mr Guterres spoke as the United Nations Association (UNA-UK) launched its manifesto for the 2017 general election. The executive director of UNA-UK said, ‘What happens in other countries increasingly matters to our lives. It is time to put foreign policy at the heart of the election and put the UN at the heart of foreign policy. Peace and security, migration, human rights, the environment, the UN, Britain's role in the world - these issues are bigger and more important than party politics. We need to build a cross-party consensus around them. Our manifesto calls on all political parties to commit to placing the UN at the centre of an outward-looking British foreign policy.’