US Foreign Policy vs. China Continues Under Trump

The incoming Trump administration is poised to pick up where the Biden administration has left off on the decades-spanning centerpiece of US foreign policy ‒ the encirclement and containment of China.

US Foreign Policy vs. China Continues Under Trump (archived)

Related:

AFPI: America First Policy Institute

Por la Pesca:

The Walton Family Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and a coalition of fishermen’s associations and environmental institutions join forces to promote responsible fishing practices.

Front Organizations

China’s A2/AD (ACE Concept/Joint All-Domain Operations)

Trump says he will nominate former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent to lead the Treasury Department

Draining the Swamp, huh?

President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he’ll nominate former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary.

Trump names hedge fund founder Scott Bessent as pick for treasury secretary

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Scott Bessent:

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Trump 2.0: Scientology sitting pretty as Trump names Pam Bondi his pick for Attorney General

After once and future President Donald Trump named Matt Gaetz, a loyalist, to be his pick for Attorney General in his incoming administration, former top Scientology executive Mike Rinder last week announced at his blog that Scientology would have nothing to worry about from the Department of Justice for the next four years.

Scientology sitting pretty as Trump names Pam Bondi his pick for Attorney General

Trump 2.0: Prepare for the further dumbing down of America

No, it’s not Communism! It’s the privatization of education. “School choice” takes away from government spending for public schools!

Source

Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.

In part because of her recent policy role and her experience as the small business administrator, Ms. McMahon had been discussed as a possible pick to lead the Commerce Department until the role was officially offered to Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and a chairman of the Trump transition team, earlier in the day.

Ms. McMahon will be in charge of overseeing what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions, as Mr. Trump and many of those in his orbit have questioned the agency’s purpose and disparaged its work as overregulating schools on political and ideological terms.

Other than a brief appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year, Ms. McMahon has no experience in overseeing education policy. She would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education.

But the America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding “school choice” programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.

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Trump nominates Dr. Oz, who campaigned on privatizing Medicare, for Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had chosen celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget,” Trump said in a statement. Saying Oz would be a leader in “incentivizing disease prevention”.

Trump Picks TV’s Dr. Oz to Run Medicare and Medicaid

Related:

[2022]: Dr. Oz Pushes Medicare Privatization For All

RFK Jr. claims Canadian Froot Loops have 3 ingredients. They have 17.

Source

RFK Jr. claims Canadian Froot Loops have 3 ingredients. They have 17.

Kennedy, known for his debunked medical claims, was wrong about the numbers of ingredients in Canadian and American Froot Loops, which are similar: 17 and 16, respectively. The biggest difference is the dyes, which in the American version are known as Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1. Canadian authorities limit the use of those dyes.

“Their highest priority is profit to stockholders,” she said.

About a decade ago, cereal giant General Mills spent two years listening to consumers who said they wanted natural colors in Trix, despite the cereal appearing more pale, Nestle said.

Other companies have tried to go natural over the years. Candy producer Mars said in 2016 that it would stop using artificial dyes in its confections, which include M&M’s and Skittles, within five years. But five years later, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest criticized Mars for continuing to use the dyes. Mars posted on its website that “since that time, a cross-functional Mars team” found “consumer expectations regarding colors in food differ widely across markets and categories,” and thus the company would reevaluate its promise.

Some breakfast cereals and other processed foods have faced backlash in the United States over artificial colorings. Last month, activists* protested outside the Michigan headquarters of WK Kellogg Co. to demand that the company remove artificial dyes from its U.S. breakfast cereals.

[Marion] Nestle said the FDA is too cozy with cereal companies to properly regulate the multibillion-dollar businesses [regulatory capture]. She said Trump has shown no interest in regulating the food industry, but she would welcome Kennedy’s attempt to regulate corporate food producers.

I didn’t see WaPo mention that Kellogg’s promised to remove artificial food colorings by 2018, despite the fact that the article that they link to says it! 👇🏻

*Kellogg’s faces protests over food dyes in popular breakfast cereals

Nearly 10 years ago, Kellogg’s, the maker of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, committed to removing such additives from its products by 2018.

Greenlighting deep strikes inside Russia is all risk, no reward

Greenlighting deep strikes inside Russia is all risk, no reward

“The Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range ATACMS to launch strikes deep inside of Russia is strategically unwise and operationally unnecessary. The move will not meaningfully improve Ukraine’s military position, but it will intensify U.S. and NATO entanglement in the conflict and worsen the risk of Russian escalation—including possible retaliation on U.S. or European targets.

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Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Alexander Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff in the first Trump administration, said the selections showed that Trump wanted “to surround himself with strategic thinkers who understand the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China”. 

But Gray said Waltz would be an “honest broker”, mediating debates in the inter-agency process rather than trying to impose his own positions instead of the president’s.

Related:

Marathon Initiative:

Alexander Gray is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative. Gray previously served at the White House for four years, most recently as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council. He had earlier served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base at the National Economic Council and as the first-ever Director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the National Security Council.

Front Organizations

Hong Kong ‘Protests’

*Xinjiang*

Marathon Initiative (Colby & Pottinger)