dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

>>6020172

> General Stoltenberg,

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-nato-meeting-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg-today-live-stream-updates-2019-04-02/

As North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Trump in the Oval Office Tuesday, it was domestic concerns over which the president aired his grievances.

Last week, the president tweeted threats to close the U.S.-Mexico border if Mexico doesn't do more to cooperate with the U.S. and slow the flow of migrants. But Mr. Trump appeared to put the brakes on that Tuesday in his meeting with Stoltenberg, saying Mexico is assisting the U.S. more than it was even a few days ago. The president said he's "totally ready" to close the border if necessary.

Along with a list of frustrations over immigration, however, the president included the judges who help adjudicate immigrants' cases. U.S. immigration court backlogs are at all-time highs, with not enough judges to adjudicate the cases.

"And to be honest with you we have to get rid of judges," Mr. Trump said in a laundry list of aspects of the U.S. immigration system with which he disagrees.

Mr. Trump also walked back his insistence that the Republican Party will imminently introduce a new health care plan. Overnight, the president tweeted he would wait to hold a vote on his yet-to-be-imagined health care plan until after the 2020 election. On Tuesday, the president said he will bring forth a plan "at the appropriate time."

"We don't have the House," Mr. Trump explained on why he's not launching ahead with health care like he said he would, after claiming the Republican Party will become the "party of health care."

Republicans failed to repeal and replace Obamacare in the two years they held the House and Senate.

Stoltenberg's visit comes as Mr. Trump tries to decrease the United States' footprint abroad with his "America First" foreign policy. Mr. Trump has urged other NATO nations to increase their defense spending to agreed-upon levels, a stance many see as positive, but on Tuesday the president said defense spending will need to go higher than 2 percent. Currently NATO members agree to spend at least 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product on defense, but Mr. Trump, in a meeting alongside the secretary general, said that figure "may have to go up."

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump's close relationships with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin while criticizing U.S. allies has made some ally NATO nations distance themselves from the U.S. Last year, for instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany can't rely "on the superpower of the U.S." any longer to bring order to the world.

Before he became president, Mr. Trump declared NATO "obsolete." He later revised that statement, saying he no longer believes that to be the case.

"I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Mr. Trump declared during Stoltenberg's visit in 2017.

When NATO was founded in 1949, there were 12 ally nations. Now there are 29. Last month, Mr. Trump suggested perhaps Brazil could be a part of NATO, though Brazil is largely in the southern hemisphere.