Mediaboss Marketing

IN DECEMBER 2017 the Democratic Republic of Congo was in ferment. Joseph Kabila, then the president, seemed to be weighing whether or not to stand in an election, even though he should have left office fully a year before, having served his two full constitutional terms. In Kinshasa, the capital, Mr Kabilas allies remarked casually that perhaps the president would stand again. It was at that moment that the American government imposed sanctions on Dan Gertler, an Israeli mining billionaire who is a close friend of Mr Kabila. Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, announced that at the direction of President Trump, he was placing sanctions on Mr Gertler, together with 12 other serious human-rights abusers and corrupt actors. Mr Trump, he said, was declaring a national emergency with respect to serious human-rights abuse and corruption around the world.

The imposition of sanctions on Mr Gertler came as a shock to many companies operating in Congo. According to Tom Perriello, formerly Barack Obamas envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa, it probably helped push Mr Kabila to his eventual decision to stand down in the elections that took place a year later, last December. Yet under the Obama administration, the Treasury had considered sanctions on Mr Gertler and backed off. Under Mr Trump, it did not hesitate. Indeed, his administration has been more enthusiastic than any other in history in using financial sanctions. Partly that is because the president is intent on bashing places like Iran and Venezuela. But that is not a complete explanation: sanctions have expanded everywhere. This stands in stark contrast to other parts of Mr Trumps foreign policy.

Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.

According to data gathered by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a law firm, in his first three years in office Mr Trump has added over 3,100 people and entities to the sanctions list run by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a division of the Treasury. That is only slightly short of the 3,484 that George W. Bush added in his entire eight years in office. Last year, Mr Trump added 1,474 names to a list that is now around 7,500 long. The Trump administration has not just expanded sanctions but innovated with them toofor example, by stopping the trading of Venezuelan sovereign bonds.

America is not alone in imposing targeted sanctions: the European Union and the United Nations have programmes too. But Americas is of special importance because of the countrys position at the heart of the worlds financial system. When individuals suffer sanctions from the Treasury, their assets in America are frozen. But the effect goes further than that. Firms which operate in America, or make payments in dollars, cannot easily deal with individuals on the list. Such is the reach of the dollar that penalised individuals will struggle to open bank accounts, own assets or be paid, even in countries that are not close to Mr Trumps America. When companies face sanctions from Americas Commerce Department, as Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, does, it has a similar effectthey cannot buy from American firms.

Mr Trump has used sanctions as a bludgeon in high-profile disputes. In September, imposing measures on Irans national bank, he declared they would be the highest sanctions ever. Last month, when Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, launched an invasion of Syria, Mr Trump threatened to swiftly destroy Turkeys economy, as the Treasury imposed targeted sanctions on three Turkish officials. But more quietly, his administration has also punished unprecedented numbers of people accused of corruption and human-rights abuses in more unexpected places. Many such as Mr Gertler have been targeted under the Global Magnitsky Act, which came into force in 2016, and allows America to impose sanctions on people even from countries in which there is no national sanctions programme in place.

In October the Gupta brothers, two Indians accused of working with Jacob Zuma, South Africas former president, to loot state institutions, were added to the Treasurys list. Weeks later Mr Trump added Owen Ncube, the Zimbabwean security minister, to the list. America now sanctions 85 Zimbabweans. According to John Prendergast, an activist who co-founded The Sentry, a pressure group which investigates corruption and human-rights abuses in Africa, Mr Trumps use of the Global Magnitsky Act to go after crooks and murderers has been a game changer.

What has driven this surge in sanctions? According to Marshall Billingslea, an assistant secretary in the Treasury department, the growth reflects Donald Trumps innovative financial statecraft. Certainly, they seem an ideal tool for Mr Trump, who wants to put foreigners under lots of pressure but is reluctant to send troops or bombers to do the job. Sanctions are perceived to be an option for when words aren't good enough but war is too much, says Elizabeth Rosenberg, of the Centre for A New American Security, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

Mr Trumps personality is clearly a factor too. Mr Mnuchin has announced sanctions in person more than two dozen timesinstead of leaving it to more junior officials as previous treasury secretaries did. He has claimed to spend half of his time working on sanctions. The commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, has been almost as enthusiastic. Adam Smith of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher argues that unleashing sanctions on people and firms is quicker and cheaper than most of the other things that Mr Mnuchin and Mr Ross can do to bring about change. In an administration less steeped in the formal deliberative policy process than most, that matters, he notes.

That raises another question, howeverdo sanctions work? In a tactical sense, it seems fairly clear that they do. Targeted sanctions make people miserable, says Mr Smith. In October the Zimbabwean government declared a national holiday in order to organise protests against sanctions on its members. Mr Gertler has hired lobbyists including Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer, to try to get off the list. The sorts of people who suffer sanctions in general do find that they need to deal with America and American companies.

Yet in a strategic sense, it is really not so clear that sanctions are achieving much. Mr Trumps government says that for sanctions to be lifted, Venezuelas president must step down, while Iran must transform its foreign policy. Such a full capitulation seems unlikely. Nor is it obvious that individuals are responding. Beyond increasing his lobbying bill, the sanctions on Mr Gertler did not evidently change his behaviour. He still flies to Kinshasa on his private jet each week and is still close friends with Mr Kabila, who retains considerable influence in Congo. He still collects royalties of around $30m per year on his mining interests. Glencore, one of the biggest mining companies in Congo, found a way around the Treasury by paying him in euros. If sanctions did help push Mr Kabila to step down, it was because they signalled Americas seriousness about seeing the back of him.

In a research paper, The Sentry, Mr Prendergasts outfit, points to successes in places like Liberia and Sudan in changing the behaviour of individuals targeted. But even it admits that all of the sanctions programmes it analysed suffered from poor conceptualisation, co-ordination, implementation, and enforcement. Diplomats are not always engaged in sanctions policy, which comes from the Treasury and Commerce, not their bosses in the State Department. The staff keeping lists of entities under sanctions up-to-date are stretched thinmany African sanctions programmes have nobody to manage them. That means they can sometimes be dodged. Overall the American government has little idea how well sanctions work or what their effects are, according to a report released last month by the Government Accountability Office.

Few will shed a tear for foreign officials who can no longer buy penthouses in Manhattan and the like. But people can be penalised in this way on the basis of entirely classified evidence. There is no way to appeal. And the costs affect more than just the individuals. One risk is that financial firms simply cut off whole countries to ease the cost of compliance. In Zimbabwe, for example, local banks by law cannot comply with American sanctions. That means that American banks will not deal with them. That is certainly not the cause of Zimbabwes economic problems but it does not help.

If they do not change behaviour, sanctions risk becoming less a tool of coercion than an expensive and rather arbitrary extraterritorial form of punishment. Over time, foreign powers could begin to create work-arounds that would make them less effective. If that happens, the Trump administration will have weakened one of Americas strongest non-military weapons. But work-arounds will not be easy to produce as long as America is the worlds pre-eminent financial centre. For the moment at least, Mr Trumps sanctions policy is a bright spot in an otherwise lamentable foreign-policy record.

View original post here:
Donald Trump uses sanctions more keenly than any of his predecessors - The Economist

Update (November 26, 2019 at 1:05pm EST): Please let the record show that the back-and-forth about Conans gender continued for another day:

Well leave this to your Thanksgiving table debate league to settle once and for all.

The original article continues below.

Every Monday before Thanksgiving the president and first lady get their first big Amazon order of the season. Their enormous Christmas tree arrives. This year was no different; Melania Trump threw on a great coat and came out with her husbandgosh, whats his name? Hold on, itll come to me!to welcome it, per tradition. It all went off without a hitch once again. But this year, there was a surprise guest to help usher in the tree. The president introduced Conan, hero dog, who played a key role in the targeted raid that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October, to the assembled press core. Like I always say, nothing says the holiday season like hosting a terrorist hunting dog at the White House.

Now, heres something: The dog is a girl. This according to Yahoo News Hunter Walker, the pool reporter sic-ed, as it were, on the president as he travels. Senior aides confirmed it on background, he wrote in his email, which goes out to press from all over the country. Shes a literal femme fatal. She is 100% that bitch, if you prefer.

Now, heres something else: Conan is actually a boy dog, also according to Yahoo News Hunter Walker, the pool reporter sic-ed, as it were, on the president as he travels. He issued a correction to his earlier report. I know! What a whirlwind!

But you know what? It doesnt matter. In this one video, that man refers to the pup behind him only as Conan and the dog, praising its capability for violence and intelligence like Conan is one of his golfing buddies. It makes sense that he would repeat the name of the dog and the word dog over and over again like a malfunctioning Dale Carnegie robot; my guy just learned what a dog was and what they do for a living, so he wants to repeat the word dog an absolute ton. See, it helps him remember what one is and also convinces everyone else that hes known it all along. Double whammy!

But in the end, its a useful, genderless compulsive speech pattern. Its like he doesnt see gender. He just sees a gorgeous dog, a beautiful dog, an intelligent dog, a kind of excitingly scary dog. Conan is neither man nor woman; it is simply a hot dog, in the presidents eyes.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Kate Middleton is having a moment, and heres why the queen is a fan Caught between boomers and millennials, is Generation X really our last, best hope? Were Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton, and Prince William ever actually the fab four? As the college-admissions scandal rolls onward, Felicity Huffmans and Lori Loughlins paths diverge once again Prince Andrews fallout continues as he seems unable to stay away from giving interviews From the Archive: The American nightmare and ballad of Richard Jewel

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss a story.

See original here:
Conan the Dog: Donald Trump Really Wants to Show Off This One Dog He Knows - Vanity Fair

The Art of the Deal ghostwriter said President Donald Trump and two of his adult children and a son-in-law all belong in prison.

Tony Schwartz co-authored Trump's notorious book, which was first published in 1987, and is now a vocal critic of the president.

"Crime family: Donald, Ivanka, Jared, Donald Jr. They all belong in prison," Schwartz tweeted on Monday evening.

President Trump is facing impeachment for alleged abuse of power by soliciting a foreign government's interference in the 2020 election to his personal benefit.

Trump is also facing probes by a number of bodies, including Congress and the New York attorney general, into allegations such as tax fraud, campaign finance violations, and his inauguration funds, among others.

The family real estate business, The Trump Organization, is caught up in some of those investigations.

The president's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, currently run the Trump Organization.

His eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, was an executive there until her father entered the White House. She and her father both resigned from the company at the same time in 2017.

There are also a number of ethical concerns around the Trump family and its business dealings, such as Ivanka Trump's patent-seeking in China as her father wages a trade war against Beijing, and their alleged use of the presidency to promote their properties and businesses.

Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, has faced scrutiny for his dealings with foreign governments, in particular a bailout his own family's real estate business took from the Qataris, and his personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

The Trump family denies any wrongdoing.

Back in May, Schwartz said, in light of everything we now know about President Trump, he would rename the book he wrote on behalf of the

"If I had to rename The Art of the Deal, I would call it The Sociopath," Schwartz said on CNN.

"Because he has no conscience, he has no guilt. All he wants to do is make the case that he would like to be true.

"And while I do think he is probably aware that more walls are closing around him than ever before, he does not experience the world in the way an ordinary human being would."

Then in June, when the journalist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault in the mid-1990s, adding to a list of women who have made such allegations against the president, Schwartz called him a "serial felon."

"A 16th woman yesterday accused Donald Trump of sexual assaultin this case rape, with very specific details," tweeted Schwartz.

"In what sane & decent world can this man continue as president of the United States?" continued Schwartz's tweet, adding that he believed Trump should be put on trial for repeated "violent criminal behavior."

Originally posted here:
Trump 'Crime Family...Belong in Prison,' Says 'The Art of the Deal' Ghostwriter - Newsweek

In advance of Trumps factory tour today, I took a look at the strange relationship thats developed between Tim Cook and Donald Trump over the past three years. One of the things that popped up was one specific story that Trump would tell about Apple, in rally after rally and meeting after meeting. The idea was that Trump had somehow induced the company to build a new factory in the US, through some combination of tax cuts and trade policy, which was both very politically useful and also very much not true.

Today, perhaps not surprisingly, he told the lie again.

Were seeing the beginning of a very powerful and important plant, Trump said at the factory. Anybody that followed my campaign, I would always talk about Apple, that I want to see Apple building plants in the United States. And thats whats happening.

This is not true for a couple reasons one of them nitpicky and one of them a lot more serious. The nitpicky problem is that Apple isnt actually building a manufacturing plant. The company is building a new campus in Austin, but its miles away from the factory and the jobs are going to be very similar to the kind of white-collar design and engineering work that Apple does in Cupertino. Apple doesnt do its own manufacturing, and the plant Trump is standing in belongs to a contractor called Flex Ltd (formerly Flextronics).

But the bigger problem is that what Flex is doing isnt anything new. This particular factory has been manufacturing Mac Pros since 2013, when Cook first announced it would assemble them in the United States. Thats before Trump took office. So the idea that were seeing the beginning of something, or that Trump has done something during his presidency to bring about this particular instance of US manufacturing, just doesnt hold water.

Trump is talking as if Apple has created a brand-new factory in Texas to build Mac Pros. If all you saw was a five-second clip on the news, thats probably the impression you would get but it just isnt true.

People often get very worked up about whether a politician is technically lying when they say something that isnt true, or if theyve just stumbled into falsehood as if accidentally falling off a chair. But when you say the same false thing over and over again for a year and a half, its hard to call it anything else.

Speaking of which, Trump just aired the lie on Twitter as well:

You can see the video footage of Trumps tour for yourself below.

Things actually get worse if you keep watching. Later in the video, Trump takes back the mic for a quick aside on how his tariff policy has benefited the factory.

The nice part is, he doesnt have to worry about tariffs, Trump says. When you build it here, you dont have to worry about tariffs.

This is also not true.

In fact, Apple is currently paying tariffs on a number of Mac Pro parts, which must be imported from China to Texas before the final device can be assembled. (Ten of Apples requested tariff exemptions were issued earlier this year, but five others were denied, including taxes on the cooling system, charging cable, and various circuit boards.) Because Trumps current array of tariffs are levied on components but not finished devices, Apple actually doesnt pay tariffs on the iPhones and MacBooks that are assembled in China.

The net effect is a tax on electronics assembled in the US. Its more expensive to assemble Mac Pros in the US, not just because of labor and production costs, but explicitly because of the tariffs Trump has placed on intermediary goods. Apple even briefly flirted with moving Mac Pro production back to China, as a way of driving home the cost of those tariffs, although the company ultimately backed down.

The structure of those taxes could change in the future, and a tariff on phones and other electronics has already been formally proposed, although it keeps getting delayed. On the other hand, talks with China could be so productive that earlier rounds of tariffs are lifted completely. With that much uncertainty, its hard for anyone to be sure about the best way to arrange a supply chain.

But the result is an alarming level of falsehood even by Trump standards. He claimed to have brought Apple manufacturing to the United States while standing in a factory that had already been building Apple products for six years, and one that had nearly lost the gig not benefited because of Trumps trade policy.

See the rest here:
Trump is lying about the new Apple factory - The Verge

SEOULPresident Donald Trumps demands for vast increases in South Korean and Japanese financial contributions to maintain U.S. bases and forces has triggered fears here that hes eager for massive troop withdrawals from the territory of these U.S. allies. And while the scale and the history are very different, the capricious way that Trump ordered U.S. forces pulled out of northeast Syria in October is seen as a cautionary example.

Although some U.S. troops reportedly are back in action in Syria, Trump created murderous confusion when he suddenly decided to pull about 1,000 of them out on Oct. 6, betraying longtime Kurdish allies beleaguered by the Turks, Syrians, Russians, and ISIS guerrillas. The overwhelming concern here is that the impetuous and ill-informed action in Syria was a rehearsal for much greater reductions in U.S. forces in northeast Asia. Trump has questioned the need for them, and their cost, for many years.

My Korean colleagues worry that the Syria withdrawal could also be applied to Korea, and potentially with similar very negative consequences, says Bruce Bennett, senior researcher at RAND Corp. Actions like the Syria withdrawal cause our allies to worry that they could be next, and that worry undermines the strength of our alliances.

The U.S. role in Korea was put to the test last week when James DeHart, chief U.S. negotiator on the bases, staged a precipitous walkout after two hours getting nowhere in a meeting here with South Koreas negotiator.

South Korea contributed approximately $900 million this year to the bases, up 8 percent from 2018. But Trump wants to up the price to Seoul by 400 percent to $5 billion, a figure he seems to have pulled out of thin air and that the Pentagon has had trouble justifying. (As MIT Prof. Vipin Narang told CNN in a memorable remark, Nothing says I love you like a shakedown.)

DeHart, Trumps negotiator, read a brief statement saying South Koreas counter-proposal to Trumps demand for raising the South Korean outlay was not responsive to our request for fair and equitable burden-sharing. Thus we cut short our participation in the talks in hopes the Koreans would put forward new proposals.

Maybe the Trump team thinks this is just the way things are done here on the peninsula. DeHarts remarks bear an uncanny resemblance to those of the North Korean negotiator who broke off talks in Stockholm last month with U.S. nuclear negotiator Stephen Biegun, claiming the U.S. had added nothing to the dialogue on the Norths nukes and missiles.

What will the rest of the world conclude about the value of an alliance with the U.S., and what will the world conclude about the need for national nuclear weapon programs?

Korea expert Bruce Bennett at RAND

Its not only the U.S. presence in South Korea thats imperiled; bases also are in doubt in Japan, where conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is balking at Trumps demand for a $4 billion increase in its annual contribution.

Bruce Bennett at RAND raises the question of who has military superiority in the region if the U.S. breaks its historic alliances. North Korea has 1.1 million troops plus 30 to 60 nuclear warheads, he notes, while South Koreas armed forces, bereft of nukes, will be down to 365,000 by 2022.

If the North is in a position of dominance, Bennett asks, what will the rest of the world conclude about the value of an alliance with the U.S., and what will the world conclude about the need for national nuclear weapon programs? Such a move could well lead to the end of effective U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts."

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump seemed to embrace the idea that South Korea and Japan should have their own nuclear weapons to defend against North Korea. At some point, he told Anderson Cooper in a CNN town hall, we have to say, you know what, were better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea, were better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect itself.... Wouldnt you rather in a certain sense have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?... Wouldnt you rather have Japan, perhaps, theyre over there, theyre very close, theyre very fearful of North Korea.

[Trump] truly believes that 'free rider' stuff he's been saying since the 1980s.

Van Jackson, author of 'On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War'

By law Trump cannot arbitrarily slash the number of U.S. troops in Korea, now about 28,500, to below 22,000 without talking to the South Koreans and proving the drawdown wont compromise the alliance or defense of the South. Trump, however, has said repeatedly that he believes South Korea and Japan can fend for themselves and American forces are no longer needed.

The danger is Trump means what he says, but his friend Kim Jong Un is not cutting him much slack. On Monday, nine years after North Korean artillery killed four South Koreans on an island in the Yellow Sea, the Norths state media reported Kim had presided over an artillery exercise on a nearby islandas menacing as the Norths recent short-range missile tests in view of its proximity to South Korean territory but apparently not much of a worry for POTUS.

Trump is unafraid to push to the wire and beyond on cost-sharing negotiations with Korea and Japan because he believes he has all the leverage, says Victor Cha at Georgetown University. If they dont want to pay, he will pull them out.

Cha, who served on the National Security Council during the presidency of George W. Bush, bases this conviction on what he sees as Trumps unappreciation of the benefits of having allies around the world. His outlook as a businessman, he observes, leads him to a monetization of foreign policy in general.

Trumps tough bargaining position throws into doubt the future of the delicate alliance relationships that the U.S. has had since the Korean War to ward off another North Korean assault on South Koreaand possible Chinese intervention, too. Backing up U.S. forces in Korea, the U.S. has 50,000 troops in Japan, including a Marine division on Okinawa, plus more air and naval forces on Guam.

What we need to do is to change the regime in North Korea. Thats why were here today.

Otto Warmbier's father, Fred Warmbier, addressing a rally in Seoul

He truly believes that free rider stuff hes been saying since the 1980s, says Van Jackson, author of On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War. He thinks were being taken to the cleaners by our allies, he doesnt get the security value of alliances or forward military presence, and the only acceptable redress for his grievance is maximal rent-seeking.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, on a recent visit here, said South Korea is a wealthy country and could and should pay more to help offset the cost of defense, but were not threatening our allies over this. Jackson, who now lectures at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, says he would be willing to bet Trump pulls a troop withdrawal stunt sometime in the next year if South Korea doesnt make some huge concessions.

The issue arouses intense fears and debate among South Koreans. Not only conservatives but also middle-of-the-roaders who supported President Moon Jae-in in the Candlelight Revolution of 2016 and 2017 are increasingly disillusioned by his policy of appeasing North Koreas leader Kim Jong Un in the quest for reconciliation. And the concern intensifies as the American defensive shield appears to be threatened.

At a rally Saturday in central Seoul, several hundred thousand people waving American and South Korean flags shouted slogans denouncing Moon.

There, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, the parents of Otto Warmbier, who was jailed in North Korea nearly four years ago for stealing a poster near the end of a brief tourist trip to Pyongyang, described their sons torture before he was sent home to die in June 2017. We look forward to working with you to solve the problem of North Korea, said Fred Warmbier, whose words were translated over mega-loudspeakers to thunderous applause. What we need to do is to change the regime in North Korea. Thats why were here today.

In the crowd, Ahn Chang, who had been jailed for refusing to leave a government office while protesting Moons policies, worried about whatever Trump will do. I am very afraid he will pull out troops, says Ahn. Unlike typical U.S. presidents, hes against this whole Korean-American alliance. If he pulled out troops, we are left alone to fight.

Ahn believes South Korean leftists have fallen for North Korean propaganda and wont stand up against attack from the North. The leftists are brain-washed, he says. We are already losing because of the lies they were telling to the people.

Moons real stance, however, may be somewhat ambivalent. On Friday, his government announced it would not take the controversial step of withdrawing from its deal for exchanging military intelligence information with Japan, as it had threatened to do. A Moon spokesman said South Korea would remain committed to GSOMIA (an acronym pronounced Gee-soh-mee-ya, for General Security of Military Intelligence Agreement) for the sake of national interest.

But South Korea will continue to press Japan to do away with constraints on export of vital chemicals and other equipment imposed after Koreas supreme court ruled that Nippon Steel and others had to compensate Koreans forced to work for the Japanese as de facto slave labor in World War II.

The sense is that Moon and others would not be thrilled by a U.S. decision to cut down the number of U.S. troops while North Korea shows no signs of scaling back, much less giving up, its nuclear and missile program.In fact, some analysts believe Trump would hesitate for fear of the rising power of China, which supports North Korea.

We know Trump doesnt want to spend money for alliances, says Choi Jin-wook, former director of the Korea Institute of National Unification, but he cannot withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea and Japan because of China.

But, really, theres no telling what Trump really has in mind. He does not seem to care about the post-World War II consensus on the U.S.-built liberal world order, says Daniel Pinkston, a longtime Korea analyst and lecturer at Troy University. He and a large part of his coalition view the liberal world order as rigged or ripping off the U.S. They would would rather ruin it and be spoilers.

Read the original here:
Trump Pushes South Korea and Japan to Go Nuclear by Demanding They Pay Billions More for US Troops - Daily Beast