Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland Is Foreign Policy’s 'Diplomat Of The Year'

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks at Foreign Policy's Diplomat of the Year awards ceremony in Washington on June 13.

Foreign Policy: Canadian Foreign Minister Sharply Rebukes Trump’s Trade Policy and Worldview

Chrystia Freeland said Trump was putting his thumb on the scales with tariffs.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, in Washington on Wednesday, promised a “dollar-for-dollar response” to President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs and said American businesses and consumers would pay a price for their country’s protectionism.

Her comments, coming just a week after a divisive meeting of the leading industrialized democracies known as the G-7, marked one the sharpest Canadian rebukes of the United States in recent memory.

Freeland described Trump’s plan to slap tariffs on Canada under the pretext of national security as ridiculous and urged the United States to invest in its international alliances.

“The idea that we could impose a national security threat to you is more than absurd, it’s hurtful,” she said at an event hosted by Foreign Policy, where she accepted the news magazine’s Diplomat of the Year award.

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WNU Editor: When Foreign Policy Magazine was bought by the Washington Post in 2008 .... it's quality and content started to go down hill. The owners wanted the Magazine to reflect their political leanings .... and they did a very good job of it, losing long term customers like myself who found their product becoming political rather than analytical. But this pales to what has happened to that institution since the election of President Trump. To put it bluntly .... they have lost their minds .... and doubly so since none of them have been hired by the Trump administration to work in the White House or at the State Department. As for Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland being named Foreign Policy Diplomat of the Year .... my choice would have been Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. For the past 5 years he has navigated China to be a force to reckon with in international diplomacy. No foreign diplomat even comes close to what Wang Yi has been able to accomplish in the past decade or two. No one.

A Commentary On America's Navy And The Rise Of China

Eliseo Fernandez/Courtesy Reuters

America’s Navy And The Rise Of China -- George Will, Washington Post

Scholars at the Naval War College here probably nodded in vigorous agreement with a recent lecture delivered at another military institution 130 miles away. Speaking at West Point to leaders of tomorrow’s Army, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” This underscored Gates’s point that “the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements — whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf or elsewhere.”

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My Comment: An interesting analysis from someone whose primary focus is on domestic politics, and not international military strategy. Read it all.

Is She Speakng For The White House?

Photo: Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright: USA No Longer Intends To Be World's No.1 State -- Pravda

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright took part in the forum too. She particularly participated in the meeting titled “Non-Economic Aspects of Entrepreneurship.”

Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world.

The former US Secretary of State surprised the audience with her speech. She particularly said that democracy was not the perfect system. “It can be contradictory, corrupt and may have security problems,” Albright said.

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Update: Madeleine Albright: America doesn’t want to be number one -- Examiner

My Comment: Her comments and remarks are depressing. It is unbelievable that she was once our Secretary of State. Everyone wants their country to be #1 .... everyone. The exception being one former Secretary of State.

On a side note, this story comes from Pravda of all places. The Examiner has also taken up on her remarks .... but the rest of the media .... nothing but silence.

The Axis Of Upheaval

Uniformed militia men parade in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
Photograph: Mohamed Sheikh Nor/AP

Foreign Policy Blog:

Forget Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” As economic calamity meets political and social turmoil, the world’s worst problems may come from countries like Somalia, Russia, and Mexico. And they’re just the beginning.

Seven years ago, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush warned of an “axis of evil” that was engaged in assisting terrorists, acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and “arming to threaten the peace of the world.” In Bush’s telling, this exclusive new club had three members: Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Bush’s policy prescription for dealing with the axis of evil was preemption, and just over a year later he put this doctrine into action by invading Iraq.

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My Comment: I cannot disagree with this article's assessment. The world has changed since 9/11 .... the threats and conflicts are now different .... and just as dangerous.