According to the website Biography, Donald J. Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. He was raised Presbyterian by his mother, and he identifies as a mainline Protestant. Trump’s father, Frederick Trump, was a builder and real estate developer who specialized in constructing and operating middle-income apartments in Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn. Trump’s mother, Mary MacLeod, immigrated from Tong, Scotland, in 1929 at the age of 17. She and Fred Trump married in 1936. The couple settled in Jamaica, Queens. As the family’s wealth increased, Mary became a New York socialite and philanthropist.
At age 13, Trump’s parents sent him to the New York Military Academy. He did well at the academy, both socially and academically, rising to become a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in 1964. Trump entered Fordham University in 1964. He transferred to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania two years later and graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics. During his years at college, Trump worked at his father’s real estate business during the summer.
Trump is currently married to former Slovenian model Melania Knauss Trump. They were married in January 2005. Melania Trump gave birth to Trump’s youngest child, Barron William Trump, in 2006.
In 1977, Donald Trump married his first wife, Ivana Trump, a New York fashion model who had been an alternate on the 1972 Czech Olympic Ski Team.
The couple had three children together: Donald Trump Jr., born in 1977; Ivanka Trump, born in 1981; and Eric, born in 1984. They divorced in 1992. The following year, Trump married his second wife, Marla Maples, an actress, and had a daughter, Tiffany Trump, in 1993. Trump had a divorce from Maples in 1999. Trump’s sons—Donald Jr. and Eric—work as executive vice presidents for The Trump Organization. They took over the family business while their father served as president.
Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was also an executive vice president of the Trump Organization. She left the business and her own fashion label to join her father’s administration and become an unpaid assistant to the president.
Her husband, Jared Kushner, is also a senior adviser to President Trump.
Trump’s Real Estate and Businesses
Trump followed his father into a career in real estate development, bringing his grander ambitions to the family business. Trump’s business ventures include The Trump Organization, Trump Tower, casinos in Atlantic City, and television franchises like The Apprentice and Miss Universe. Trump has business deals with the Javits Center and the Grand Hyatt New York, as well as other real estate ventures in New York City, Florida, and Los Angeles.
Federal income disclosure forms Trump filed in 2017 lists Trump’s golf courses, including Trump National Doral and Mar-a-Lago in Florida, as earning about half of his income. Other financial ventures include aircraft, merchandise, and royalties from his two books, The Art of the Deal and Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. The books Art of the Deal and Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again by Donald J. Trump became best sellers.
Donald J. Trump published the book The Art of the Deal, co-authored with Tony Schwartz, in 1987. Amazon described the book as follows: “President Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker. Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump’s The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
The book received excellent reviews by major newspapers, as seen below:
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.” —The New York Times.
“Donald Trump is a deal-maker. He is a deal-maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.” —Chicago Tribune.
“Fascinating… wholly absorbing… conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.” —Boston Herald“.
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.” —New York Post.
The book made the New York Times best-seller list.
Trump published the book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. Amazon described the book that was published in 2015 as follows: “Look at the state of the world right now. It’s a terrible mess, and that’s putting it mildly. There has never been a more dangerous time. The politicians and special interests in Washington, DC, are directly responsible for the mess we are in. So why should we continue listening to them? It’s time to bring America back to its rightful owners—the American people. I’m not going to play the same game politicians have been playing for decades—all talk, no action, while special interests and lobbyists dictate our laws. I am shaking up the establishment on both sides of the political aisle because I can’t be bought. I want to bring America back, to make it great and prosperous again, and to be sure we are respected by our allies and feared by our adversaries.
It’s time for action. Americans are fed up with politics as usual. And they should be! In this book, I outline my vision to make America great again, including: how to fix our failing economy; how to reform health care so it is more efficient, cost-effective, and doesn’t alienate both doctors and patients; how to rebuild our military and start winning wars—instead of watching our enemies take over—while keeping our promises to our great veterans; how to ensure that our education system offers the resources that allow our students to compete internationally, so tomorrow’s jobseekers have the tools they need to succeed; and how to immediately bring jobs back to America by closing our doors to illegal immigrants and pressuring businesses to produce their goods at home. This book is my blueprint for how to Make America Great Again. It’s not hard. We just need someone with the courage to say what needs to be said.”
President Trump’s description of his Make America Great book above is exactly what he has done in his first four years in office, in spite of the immense pushback by Democrats, the globalists of the New World Order, and the Deep State/Shadow Government. No president in history has been attacked so much by an ongoing coup from the very beginning. President Trump has kept all his promises despite the fake Russia collusion investigation, the unfair impeachment, the attack by China with the Wuhan virus, and the riots led by BLM and Antifa.
Wealth
President Trump valued his businesses at least $1.37 billion on his 2017 federal financial disclosure form, published by the Office of Government Ethics. Trump’s 2018 disclosure form put his revenue for the year at a minimum of $434 million from all sources.
2016 Presidential Campaign
Donald Trump became the official Republican nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Most of the polls and media projections predicting his defeat were wrong. Trump won the most electoral college votes in a stunning victory on November 8, 2016. Despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 2.9 million votes, Trump’s electoral win—306 electoral college votes to Clinton’s 232—made him the 45th president of the United States. After one of the most contentious presidential races in U.S. history, Trump’s rise to the office of president was considered a resounding rejection of establishment politics by millions, including blue-collar and working-class Americans.
In his victory speech, Trump said, “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans.” About his supporters, he said: “As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their families.”
Election Platform
On July 21, 2016, Trump accepted the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In his speech, he outlined the issues he would tackle as president, including violence in America, the economy, immigration, unfair trade deals, terrorism, and the appointment of Supreme Court justices and federal judges who followed the Constitution and did not legislate from the bench.
On immigration, he said: “We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.”
He also promised supporters that he would renegotiate trade deals, reduce taxes and government regulations, repeal the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare), defend Second Amendment gun rights, and “rebuild our depleted military,” asking the countries the U.S. is protecting “to pay their fair share.”
The National Republican Party announced in June 2020 that the 2020 election platform will remain the same as in 2016.
Inauguration
On January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts.
In his inaugural speech on January 20th, Trump sent a populist message that he would put the American people above politics. He stated the following: “What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
First 100 Days
The first 100 days of Trump’s presidency lasted from January 20, 2017, until April 29, 2017. In the first days of his presidency, Trump issued a number of back-to-back executive orders to make good on some of his campaign promises, as well as several orders aimed at rolling back policies and regulations that were put into place during the corrupt Obama administration.
Several of Trump’s key policies that got rolling during Trump’s first 100 days in office include his Supreme Court nomination; steps toward building a wall on the Mexico border; a travel ban for several predominantly Muslim countries; the first moves to dismantle the Affordable Care Act; and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.
In addition, Trump signed orders to implement a federal hiring freeze, withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and reinstate the Mexico City policy that bans federal funding of nongovernmental organizations abroad that promote or perform abortions.
He signed an order to scale back financial regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act, created by the Obama administration and passed by Congress after the financial crisis of 2008. And he called for a lifetime foreign-lobbying ban for members of his administration and a five-year ban for all other lobbyists.
On March 16, 2017, the president released his proposed budget. The budget outlined his plans for increased spending on the military, veterans affairs, and national security, including building a wall on the border with Mexico. The Obama administration cut the budget of the Pentagon by several billions a year, severely weakening national security and making America a superpower in complete retreat. At the same time, our enemy nations, China, Russia, and Iran, increased their military spending. Joe Biden and Democrats want to do the same.
It also made drastic cuts to many government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department, as well as the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Community Development Block Grant program, which supports Meals on Wheels.
Trump’s Supreme Court and Federal Judge Nominations
Trump has nominated three Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret. On June 24, 2020, President Donald Trump’s appointment of a judge to serve in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was confirmed by the Senate. That was his 200th judicial appointment, which was confirmed by the Senate.
In his first three and a half years in the Oval Office, President Trump has successfully appointed 53 circuit court judges, 143 trial court judges, two international trade court judges, and two Supreme Court justices. There are currently 45 federal judges awaiting Senate action. These new federal judges who are following the Constitution and not legislating from the bench are one of the greatest achievements of the Trump administration!
Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and Making America Self-Sufficient in Oil and Gas
On June 1, 2017, President Trump withdrew from the globalist 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Soon after taking office, Trump approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to transfer oil extracted in Canada and North Dakota.
Oil and gas production increased, making America self-sufficient in energy. Thanks to President Trump, America is now a superpower in energy!
Coal Mining
On March 28, 2017, the president, surrounded by American coal miners, signed the “Energy Independence” executive order, calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back Obama’s Clean Power Plan, curb climate and carbon emissions regulations, and rescind a moratorium on coal mining on U.S. federal lands.
Health Care
One of Trump’s first executive orders in office was calling on federal agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” aspects of the Affordable Care Act to minimize the financial burden on states, insurers, and individuals. On October 12, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order in a move that could dismantle the ACA without Congress’s approval, expanding health insurance products—mostly less comprehensive plans through associations of small employers—and providing more short-term medical coverage.
He also announced that he would get rid of health insurance subsidies. Known as cost-sharing reduction payments, which lower the cost of deductibles for low-income Americans, they were expected to cost $9 billion in 2018 and $100 billion over the next decade.
Abortion
As president, Trump has said that he is “strongly pro-life” and wants to ban all abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is in danger. He has supported bans on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and has cited his appointments of conservative Supreme Court judges Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as helping to make abortion laws in some states more restrictive. In January 2020, after his administration threatened to cut federal funds to California over a mandate that the state’s health insurance plans cover abortion, Trump became the first sitting president to address the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. Many Democrats are not only supporting abortion but also infanticide!
Tax Plan
On April 26, 2017, Trump announced his tax plan in a one-page outline that would dramatically change tax codes. The plan called for streamlining seven income tax brackets to three—10, 25, and 35 percent.
The plan also proposed to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15%, eliminate the alternative minimum tax and estate tax, and simplify the process for filing tax returns. On December 2, 2017, Trump achieved the first major legislative victory of his administration when the Senate passed a sweeping tax reform bill. It was approved along party lines by a 51-49 vote.
Among other measures, the Senate bill called for the slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20%, doubling personal deductions, and ending the Obamacare mandate. After the bill’s passage, Trump tweeted, “Biggest Tax Bill and Tax Cuts in history just passed in the Senate. Now, these great Republicans will be going for final passage.”
The President added, “Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for your hard work and commitment!” On December 20, 2019, the final tax bill formally passed both chambers of Congress.
Gun Control
President Trump has vowed to defend the Second Amendment and gun ownership since taking office. He spoke at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in 2019, and he promised to veto a measure passed in February 2019 by House Democrats to strengthen background checks.
However, Trump has also at times said he would be willing to consider a range of measures to restrict gun access. His administration also banned bump stocks in October 2017 after a mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival left 58 people dead.
He ordered the Justice Department to issue regulations banning bump stocks and suggested he was willing to consider a range of measures, from strengthening background checks to raising the minimum age for buying rifles. He also backed an NRA-fueled proposal for arming teachers, which drew backlash from many in the profession.
The Southern Border Wall
Trump issued an executive order to build a wall at the United States’ border with Mexico. In his first televised interview as president, Trump said the initial construction of the wall would be funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars, but that Mexico would reimburse the U.S. “100 percent” in a plan to be negotiated and might include a suggested import tax on Mexican goods.
On January 20, 2021, when President Donald Trump ended his term in office, 452 miles of the Wall had been completed. It has decreased enormously the number of illegals entering America. Sadly, on that same day, President Joe Biden issued an executive order stopping the expansion of the Wall.
In December 2018, shortly before a newly elected Democratic majority was set to take control of the House, Trump announced he would not sign a bill to fund the government unless Congress allocated $5.7 billion toward building his long-promised border wall. With Democrats refusing to give in to his demand, a partial government shutdown ensued for a record 35 days, until all sides agreed to another attempt at striking a compromise.
On February 14, 2019, one day before the deadline, Congress passed a $333 billion spending package that allocated $1.375 billion for 55 miles of steel-post fencing. After indicating that he would sign the bill, the president made good on his threat to declare a national emergency the following day, enabling him to funnel $3.6 billion slated for military construction projects toward building the wall. In late July 2019, the Supreme Court overturned an appellate decision and ruled that the Trump administration could begin using Pentagon money for construction during the ongoing litigation over the issue.
Border Separation Policy
As part of attempts to seal the U.S. border with Mexico, the Trump administration in 2018 began following through on a “zero-tolerance” policy to prosecute anybody found to have crossed the border illegally. As children were legally not allowed to be detained with their parents, this meant that they were to be held separately as family cases wound through immigration courts.
On June 20, 2019, President Trump signed an executive order that directed the Department of Homeland Security to keep families together. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated,” he said, adding that it remained important to have “zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally” and for Congress to find a permanent solution to the problem.
Travel Ban
On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order calling for “extreme vetting” to “keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America.” The president’s executive order was put into effect immediately, and refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries traveling to the U.S. were detained at U.S. airports.
The order called for a ban on immigrants from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen for at least 90 days, suspended the entry of refugees for 120 days, and barred Syrian refugees indefinitely. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump also said he would give priority to Christian refugees trying to enter the United States. After facing multiple legal hurdles, President Trump signed a revised executive order on March 6, 2017, calling for a 90-day ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries, including Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Iraq, which was included in the original executive order, was removed from the list.
Travelers from the six listed countries who hold green cards or have valid visas as of the signing of the order will not be affected. Religious minorities would not get special preference, as was outlined in the original order, and an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees was reduced to 120 days.
On March 15, just hours before the revised ban was going to be put into effect, Derrick Watson, a federal judge in Hawaii, issued a temporary nationwide restraining order in a ruling that stated the executive order did not prove that a ban would protect the country from terrorism and that it was “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously neutral purpose.” At a rally in Nashville, Trump responded to the ruling, saying, “This is, in the opinion of many, an unprecedented judicial overreach.”
Judge Theodore D. Chuang of Maryland also blocked the ban the following day, and in subsequent months, the ban was impeded by decisions handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals once again.
However, on June 26, 2017, Trump won a partial victory when the Supreme Court announced it was allowing the controversial ban to go into effect for foreign nationals who lacked a “bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States.” The court agreed to hear oral arguments for the case in October, but with the 90-to-120-day timeline in place for the administration to conduct its reviews, it was believed the case would be rendered moot by that point.
On September 24, 2017, Trump issued a new presidential proclamation, which permanently bans travel to the United States for most citizens from seven countries. Most were on the original list, including Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia, while the new order included Chad, North Korea, and some citizens of Venezuela (certain government officials and their families). The tweak did little to pacify critics, who argued that the order was still heavily biased toward Islam.
On December 4, 2017, the Supreme Court allowed the third version of the Trump administration’s travel ban to go into effect despite the ongoing legal challenges. The court’s orders urged appeals courts to determine as quickly as possible whether the ban was lawful.
On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the president’s travel ban by a 5-4 vote. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that Trump had the executive authority to make national security judgments in the realm of immigration, regardless of his previous statements about Islam.
Public Charge Rule
In August 2019, the Trump administration unveiled a new regulation designed to weed out immigrants who would potentially require government assistance. Known as the “public charge” rule, for people who are dependent on Medicaid, food stamps, and other benefits, the policy tightened requirements for legal immigrants seeking to become permanent residents by focusing on factors like education, assets, resources, and financial status.
Trump and North Korea
In early August 2017, intelligence experts confirmed that North Korea successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that fits inside its missiles, putting it one step closer to becoming a nuclear power. Around the same time, the North Korean state news agency said they were examining the operational plan to strike areas around the U.S. territory of Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic missiles. U.S. experts estimated North Korea’s nuclear warheads at 60 and that the country could soon have an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. Trump responded that North Korea would be met with “fire and fury” if the threats continued and that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded.”
On August 28, 2017, North Korea launched a missile over Japan. The following day, Trump said “all options were on the table.” At the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, Trump pejoratively called Kim Jong-un “Rocketman” and said he would “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies, hours after the group voted to enact additional sanctions against the country.
On October 20, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned that North Korea was in the final step of being able to strike mainland America with nuclear warheads and that the U.S. should react accordingly. Some foreign policy experts were concerned that war between the U.S. and North Korea was becoming increasingly possible.
Summits with Kim Jong Un
Following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, during which North Korea made a show of unity with the host country, its officials also expressed interest in opening communications with Washington. President Trump leaped at the opportunity, announcing that he was willing to sit down with Kim.
On June 12, 2018, Trump and Kim met at the secluded Capella resort in Singapore, marking the first such encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. The two held private talks with their interpreters before expanding the meeting to include such top staffers as Pompeo (now U.S. secretary of state), National Security Adviser John Bolton, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Afterward, in a televised ceremony, the leaders signed a joint statement in which Trump committed to providing security guarantees to North Korea and Kim reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Although their talks marked an early step in a diplomatic process that some predicted could take years to complete, the president said he believed denuclearization on the peninsula would begin very quickly.
On February 27, 2019, the two men met for a second summit at the Metropole hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, to discuss the next steps in denuclearization. However, negotiations abruptly ended the second day after North Korea reportedly asked for sanctions to be lifted in exchange for dismantling its main nuclear facility but not all elements of its weapons program. “Sometimes you have to walk,” the president said, before adding that things concluded on good terms.
On June 30, 2019, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he met with Kim for informal discussions at the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries on the Korean peninsula. Trump later said that he and Kim had agreed to designate negotiators to resume denuclearization talks in the coming weeks.
Trump and Russia
Throughout the 2016 presidential election, Trump vehemently denied allegations that he had a relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was tied to the hacking of the DNC emails.
In January 2017, a U.S. intelligence report concluded that Putin had ordered a campaign to influence the U.S. election. In March 2018, the Trump administration formally acknowledged the charges by issuing sanctions on 19 Russians for interference in the 2016 presidential election and alleged cyberattacks. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin delivered the announcement.
Russian Sanctions
The Trump administration announced in February 2019 the suspension of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia due to the Eastern Power’s repeated violations of the agreement. The announcement gave Russia 180 days to comply with terms before U.S. withdrawal from the treaty would be completed.
Syria
On April 6, 2017, Trump ordered a military strike, to which he had tweeted opposition when Obama was in office, on a Syrian government airfield. The strike was in response to a chemical attack by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on Syrian civilians that had led to the horrific deaths of dozens of men, women, and children. Navy destroyers fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at Shayrat airfield, from where the attack was launched. It was the first direct military action by the United States against Syrian military forces during the country’s ongoing civil war.
One year later, evidence surfaced of another chemical attack on Syrians, with dozens reported dead in the rebel-held city of Douma. Although Syria and its ally, Russia, referred to the situation as a hoax perpetrated by terrorists, President Trump wasn’t having it: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready, Russia, because they will be coming,” he tweeted, adding, “You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”
The U.S. subsequently joined forces with Britain and France for coordinated strikes on Syria early in the morning of April 14, 2018. Larger than the previous year’s operation, this one hit two chemical weapons facilities and a scientific research center.
Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
On October 26–27, 2019, the United States conducted a military operation that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader and self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State.
The operation took place outside of Barisha in the Idlib province of Syria. Baghdadi killed himself along with two children when he detonated a suicide belt while running inside a tunnel, followed by a dog. According to President Trump, the bloody al-Baghdadi was chased to the end of an underground tunnel, “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way,” before detonating a suicide vest. This was a major victory for President Trump, who also took back 100% of the Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria. As explained in Chapter 15, Obama sent weapons to the Islamic State.
Trade War
On March 1, 2018, after the conclusion of a Commerce Department investigation, President Trump announced that he was imposing tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum. He ultimately granted temporary exemptions as he sought to renegotiate deals. His actions resulted in new agreements with South Korea and multiple South American countries to restrain their metal exports.
Talks with China, the European Union, and the border countries stalled. In late May 2018, the administration announced that it was moving forward with all tariffs.
Back home, the president attempted to head off the political fallout of a potentially costly trade war with the announcement that the administration would provide up to $12 billion in emergency relief funds for U.S. farmers. The following summer, the administration revealed details for a new $16 billion aid package for struggling farmers.
China
In April 2018, the Trump administration announced it was adding a 25% tariff on more than 1,000 Chinese products to penalize the country for its trade practices. He granted temporary exemptions to negotiate a deal. In late May, he moved forward with a tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods that went into effect in July. The trade war with China escalated in May 2019, when the president gave the go-ahead to raise tariffs to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The increase came as the two countries were attempting to hammer out terms for a new trade deal.
The following month, after Trump used the threat of tariffs to obtain expanded border-security measures from Mexico, the president turned his attention back to China with the suggestion that another $300 billion in Chinese goods would be taxed should trade talks continue to stall. He announced a 5% hike in late August and threatened another 5% increase by October, before agreeing to delay the latter as he continued to push for an all-encompassing trade deal.
In October, the president gushed about the very substantial phase one deal reached with China, saying a final agreement on matters related to intellectual property, financial services, and agriculture would take three to five weeks to put in place. Signed in mid-January 2020, the deal included commitments from China to purchase an additional $200 billion of U.S. products over the next two years and to refrain from currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.
There is no president who has fought against China’s abuse practices against America like President Trump. It was for that reason that China unleashed the Wuhan virus against America, its European allies, and other allies to destroy their economies and kill tens of thousands. China must be held accountable for this crime against humanity. China wants Trump to lose in November 2020 to have a pro-China Joe Biden who can be bought with money.
Taiwan
In June 2019, Trump announced that the U.S. would be selling more than $2 billion in tanks and military equipment to Taiwan, one of its largest sales in recent years. The move added tension to China’s relationship with the U.S. The U.S. is the largest supplier of arms to Taiwan, which could help stave off an eventual invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese military.
The U.S. does not officially recognize Taiwan, a de facto independent island that the communist Chinese government plans to bring back under its control, with force if necessary. However, U.S. officials see Taiwan as an important counterweight to China in the region and have expressed concern about China’s actions toward Taiwan. In 2018, to the ire of Chinese officials, the Pentagon began ordering naval ships to sail through the Taiwan Strait as a show of military power. China has plans to invade Taiwan and annex it by force. This action will mean war with America, which has a defense treaty with the prosperous democratic Taiwan.
Israel and the Recognition of Jerusalem
On December 6, 2017, Trump announced that the U.S. was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would move the American embassy there from its current location in Tel Aviv. All previous presidents had promised to do it but failed to act. Fulfilling one of his campaign pledges, President Trump referred to the move as “a long overdue step to advance the peace process,” noting that it “would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.” He also stressed that the move would not interfere with any proposals for a two-state solution.
On December 21, the U.N. General Assembly voted 128 to 9 to demand that the U.S. rescind its formal recognition of Jerusalem. Britain, France, Germany, and Japan all voted for the resolution, though others, like Australia and Canada, abstained from the symbolic vote.
Continuing with a recalibrated approach to relations with its Middle Eastern ally, the Trump administration announced in November 2019 that it no longer considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law. A few weeks later, the president sought to bolster support among American Jews by signing an executive order aimed at cracking down on Houthis from Yemen. The order effectively allowed the government to recognize Judaism as both a race or nationality and a religion, empowering the Education Department to withhold funding from colleges or educational programs accused of discriminatory actions against Jews. Currently, the Obama/ Biden regime has allowed anti-Semitism to expand in colleges, universities, and elsewhere. Its failure to deport non-citizen Hamas supporters has created a massive problem.
In January 2020, Trump revealed his “deal of the century” proposal for a two-state solution. His plan envisioned Jerusalem remaining the capital of Israel, with Palestinians getting their own capital in the eastern part of the city, and the authority for Israel to move forward by annexing its West Bank settlements. The proposal was quickly rejected by Palestinians, with Abbas dismissing it as the “slap of the century.”
Iran
In May 2018, over the objections of European allies, President Trump announced that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal enacted by his predecessor and imposing sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The announcement initially drew a tepid response from Iran, but President Hassan Rouhani had stronger words on the issue while addressing diplomats in July, noting that war with Iran is the mother of all wars and warning his American counterpart to not play with the lion’s tail because you will regret it eternally.
President Trump, in a tweet addressed to Rouhani, stated: “Never, ever threaten the United States again, or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence & death. Be cautious!” President Trump imposed very strong economic sanctions against Iran, stating that any nation that buys Iranian oil will never be able to do business in America. He bankrupted Iran, which no longer could finance its military or its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, from Yemen. When the Obama/Biden regime took power, all these Trump economic sanctions were canceled. Iran began selling oil, earning over $80 billion a year and financing all its proxies. All the blood in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East is due to the appeasement policy towards Iran and its proxies by the Obama/Biden regime. The failure to respond strongly to all the attacks against our military by Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen against commercial ships from 50 nations has emboldened these terrorists.
Tensions mounted again by April 2019, when the Trump administration announced it would no longer grant economic exemptions to the five countries—China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey—that had been permitted to buy oil from Iran. Several oil tankers were subsequently attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, with the U.S. holding Iran responsible for the brazen actions. In June 2019, the Iranian military shot down an American drone over contested airspace. Trump said he was minutes away from ordering a strike in retaliation before electing to impose new sanctions instead.
General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, was killed by a U.S. drone strike authorized by President Trump.
In late December 2019, after an American civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi base, the U.S. carried out military strikes against an Iranian-backed militia deemed responsible for the attack. After protesters responded by breaching the outer wall of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, the animosity escalated with the death of General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, in a drone strike authorized by President Trump. This represents another victory by the Trump administration in killing a terrorist responsible for the deaths of many Americans.
Cuba and Travel Restrictions
To pressure Cuba’s communist government to reform and end its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Trump tightened travel restrictions to Cuba in April 2019. In June 2019, Trump announced that the State Department would no longer allow private or public ships and aircraft to visit Cuba. The U.S. will also no longer allow people-to-people educational travel, which previously proved to be a popular travel exemption.
President Obama recognized the bloody Cuban regime and granted many concessions without a “Quid Pro Quo” or anything in return. President Trump was the first president to implement the Helm-Burton law, which allows Cuban Americans and other Americans to sue foreign corporations that have illegally used confiscated properties.
Donald J. Trump will stop the Obama/Biden regime from implanting communism in America and destroying our Constitution and our Republic.
Socialism is a totalitarian system completely at odds with individual liberty, freedom of opportunity, and free market capitalism. Socialism seeks to destroy the social and moral fabric of society and, by its very nature, is intolerant and hateful. Socialism brings misery, hunger, death, oppression, and greater inequality. Socialism undermines responsibility and encourages dependence. Once imposed, socialism is almost impossible to undo.
Schools should be doing more to teach students America’s great heritage of liberty and to be proud to be Americans. Many years ago, I taught a high school government and economics course that included a textbook called Democracy and Communism Theory and Action in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida.
Sadly, the teachings about socialism and communism were discarded in Florida for many years. Thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis and the Legislature of Florida, now the government schools are teaching the evils of communism. In addition, schools in Florida will not be able to teach sex education in primary schools, gender ideology, or socialist diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in schools, colleges, and universities. For many years, young people lacked basic knowledge regarding the terrible command and control of the socialist economy. America needs to teach about the superiority of the free-market capitalist economy over the command-and-control socialist economy. And then hire teachers and college professors who are not socialists.
President Trump is at war with radical socialists and communists in America who want to take God and our freedom and liberty away. They want to destroy the Constitution and the free market economy. They want to divide and oppress Americans. They want to take our precious sovereignty and place America under a one-world totalitarian fascist/communist government under the corrupt World Economic Forum and United Nations but controlled by globalists of the New World Order. If the Democratic presidential candidate wins the White House in 2024, the greatest nation on the planet will cease to be what it is today.
More than 63 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and over 70 million in the rigged election of 2020 because they rejected the socialist and globalist ideology of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Patriotic Americans need to educate their children and grandchildren, as well as their friends, on the terrible consequences of socialism. Americans need to better inform themselves on the evil nature of socialism and communism by reading The New American magazine.
President Donald J. Trump Defends Free Market Capitalism
When President Donald J. Trump says that the United States will never be a socialist nation, those who lived or fought against socialism in their native countries applaud. With God’s help, America will never be a socialist nation and will continue to be a beacon of freedom to the world or a shining city on the hill. But Americans must work extremely hard to elect President Donald J. Trump in 2024.
However, to keep America free, all patriotic Americans must educate others, particularly young people, on the evils of socialism. Americans must elect people to the White House and to Congress who are supporters of free market capitalism.
If patriots love the United States, they need to fight hard to preserve the greatest and most generous country on the planet, the United States of America, with its religious liberty, Judeo-Christian values, and Constitutional Republic. Patriots need to say this will not happen under their watch. And this is a war that patriotic Americans shall win with the help of Almighty God!