OK, so Donald Trump isn’t generally known as a paragon of subtlety.
But isn’t that perhaps preferable to not knowing who has run the country and free world over the past four years … Barack, Jill, or the White House South Lawn Easter bunny?
Iran can’t have a nuclear bomb:
Whereas the Obama and Biden administrations’ feckless Iran Nuclear Deal has enabled Tehran to have enriched enough material to build multiple bombs, President Trump sent a letter to the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking to replace the failed agreement he withdrew America from during his first term in office with a new understanding too bad to refuse.
Although the full letter wasn’t publicly released, the message content Trump shared with the press was resoundingly unambiguous, stating: “I’m not speaking out of strength or weakness. I’m just saying I’d rather see a peace deal than the other. But the other will solve the problem.”
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NATO must pony up Ukraine support:
Prior to his landslide reelection victory, former President Trump had warned 31 other NATO countries that given the fact that they were the ones most impacted and threatened by consequences of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, they should pay their fair share of defense support rather than continue to count on U.S. taxpayers to disproportionately carry the costs.
Last month NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised Trump for prompting fellow alliance members to ante up $874 billion in new defense spending, most particularly by the U.K. and Germany, “which is newly invigorated under your leadership.”
Foreign import tariffs must be reciprocal:
Speaking from the Oval Office last Wednesday, President Trump said, "We have been ripped off by every country in the world practically. And friend and foe. We’re not doing that anymore."
The president then added that he might re-impose 90-day -suspended reciprocal tariffs on some countries as soon as two or three weeks if they don’t come to the negotiating table.
According to White House officials, trade negotiators from “around 90 to 100 countries have offered to negotiate deals” in races against the clock to make new commitments, and as of earlier this month, 18 have submitted proposals.
Tough tariff trade tactics with China:
Although China isn’t among those countries rushing to make a deal, don’t expect expert negotiator Donald Trump to give Beijing a free pass to continue decades of unfair trade practices including theft of intellectual property, currency manipulation to devalue the yuan in response to U.S. tariffs, and violation of World Trade Organization commitments such as providing direct support to Chinese industries through state funding and tax breaks.
As Trump has commented in 2020, “I never solely blamed China for this. They were able to get away with a theft like no one was able to get away with before because of past politicians and, frankly, past presidents.”
Violent immigrant gangs aren’t welcome:
It should come as no surprise that President Trump has ordered his administration’s Department of Justice, Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders to find, round up, and deport members of criminal gangs who have illegally entered our country.
That’s exactly what he pledged to do during his most recent election campaign, stating, “I’ll .. .invoke immediately the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members … the drug dealers, the cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all.”
Taxpayer money shouldn’t be wasted:
Another major Trump reelection campaign pledge being fulfilled promised a massive overhaul of federal bureaucracy to curtail regulatory overreach and profligate spending.
He tapped a proven leader to head that “Department of Government Efficiency” effort — a successful billionaire entrepreneur named Elon Musk who certainly didn’t need another job in addition to building massive space rockets, electric vehicles, communication satellites, AI technologies and solar energy and battery storage systems.
And it’s working, with an estimated savings of $160 billion so far, about $1,000 per taxpayer.
Public universities shouldn’t discriminate on the federal dole:
And why should lots of that tax money be rewarded to universities — Harvard for example — which already have billions of dollars of tuition and endowment money that Trump recently excoriated on Truth Social as “an antisemitic, far-left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our country apart?"
In addition to an announced freezing of more than $2 billion in federal funds, he is threatening to terminate their tax-exempt status unless they curtail discriminatory religious and cultural practices “allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake anger and hate."
Boys and girls can play together, but not against each other:
Trump has also made his position loud and clear regarding protection of gender rights through withholding of federal money from institutions that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” by allowing unfair competition from biological males.
The president issued an executive order on the day his second term began that called for “restoring biological truth to the federal government” followed by another in February titled “ Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports."
As White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained, "The policy of this administration is that there are only two sexes — male and female. Pretty simple."
Yes, so incredibly simple in fact that even uber-liberal U.K. Supreme Court justices have unanimously agreed, ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under their equalities law.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.