President Donald Trump's National Security Strategy address contains numerous contradictions to the policies that his administration has so far implemented, according to Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, Axios reported on Tuesday.
Haas, who served in four different administrations, said that for example Trump's NSS speech talked tough on China, but his administration "walked away from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), the best tool to counter Chinese regional influence, and still wants China's help with North Korea."
He also pointed out that although the president highlighted Russian interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, Trump continues to deny that Moscow meddled with the American presidential election.
Haass also said it was contradictory for Trump to say he supports multilateral diplomacy at the same time that he departed from the Paris accord, boycotted a new compact on global migration, and is drastically cutting both funding and personnel at the State Department.
He also cited Trump's concern that national debt is a grave threat just at the moment when the Republicans are passing a tax bill that most experts say will increase the national debt by some $1.5 trillion.
Another significant disconnect between the speech and the actual foreign policy of the Trump administration, Haas said, was that the president talked "about promoting and projecting American values in the world, but this is an administration that has been extraordinarily supportive of countries which can only be called authoritarian or worse," according to an analysis Haass gave for the Council of Foreign Relations.
He added that in the address there were frequent "references to American democracy and values, but this is an administration that has been extraordinarily critical of the American media and American courts."
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