APEC, ABORTION, AND OTHER FUN STUFF

      In a sort of bizarre extension of yesterday's news stories, the US Congress---which is supposedly controlled by the Republicans---mercifully ended its session early after rubber-stamping the Junta's budget proposal. At least they won't they won't be creating any more national embarrassments until after Thanksgiving. No sooner had the Budget passed, though, than some rather awkward details about Pentagon and Homeland Security projects were quietly slipped under the Media radar-screen. 

    Biden, however, managed to make a fool of himself for the second time at the APEC Summit. There were, however, a few positive developments: China agreed to start answering the Defense Department's phone calls again, which they stopped doing after Pelosi's Taiwan visit last year. The Junta agreed to set up a joint commission to address China's concern about repeated US Military infractions of their territorial waters. It's difficult to say whether that one will amount to much: Trump ordered the Navy to stop these provocations at one time, but the Pentagon ignored him. There were some token agreements on climate change and fighting the drug war too; but Xi no doubt is planning a quiet week in the Chinese countryside to recover his strength after the mentally exhausting ordeal of meeting with US politicians, CEOs, and the streets of San Francisco in general. 

    

   Just as we predicted yesterday too, the Corporate shills RNC 'experts' were dropping their prepared statements accusing Biden of being a sellout and a major weenie on China. The stand-up team of Thayer and Fanell---a pair of worthies of whom we've spoken before---stated that our Head-of-State's gaffes and diplomatic blunders are "worse than appeasement." An assertion in their article's opening paragraph is more instructive than it is informative:

  "Ironically, the risks should be all on Xi’s side as his increasing paranoia and purging of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has warped the Party and government, coupled with the collapse of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economy and other major social, demographic problems that place Xi in a uniquely vulnerable position." 

   This is instructive because it illustrates two fundamental problems with the Neocon narrative in general.

   1. It's a complete lie. Xi is not paranoid; there no Party purges going on; China's economy is currently stronger than ours; and there is no demographic crisis going on there---other than those occasionally fomented by outside religious cults like the Soros-backed Wahhabi Jihadists and Lamaist Tibetans, or the Koch-backed Moonies and Falun Gong cults, etc.  

  2. It's complete Projection. Our leadership is the one characterized by paranoia, purges and political witch-hunts, a collapsing economy (at least for the bottom 80%), and deliberately engineered racial and gender divisions. 

 This is a fairly typical outline of what passes for 'Conservative Opposition' position-papers these days. Accuse everyone else of doing what we do; blame everything on the Democrats, immigrants, or the Chinese; hold your noses and vote for the Neocons; and if you object that makes you a defeatist, a sellout, an unrealistic idealist, etc. 

   

   The Congressional hiatus and the winding-down of the APEC debacle have, however, given the Republican Establishment time to promote its new-found wokeness on the Abortion issue. There was a good article at LifeSite News today giving a run-down of some of the characters involved. The only critique that I would have of this article is its assumption that leading Conservatives are 'sellouts.' The fact that no one in the GOP leadership has done a thing to stop the murder of the unborn since the Ford Administration, all the while profiting off fetal-tissue trafficking and other abortion-racket scams and doing very little since Roe was overturned, should indicate that the GOP's solid Pro-Life position was nothing but marketing angle and a sales-pitch all along. 

   The article starts with our President-In-Exile who is leading polls in a quixotic attempt to regain the White House. While I firmly believe that Trump was deposed in an illegal coup in 2020, I must confess that I have had legitimate concerns that our dispossessed Chief Executive has suffered some kind of nervous breakdown since the Putsch. Aside from his position on Abortion, Trump has refused to disavow the disastrous Operation Warp Speed and made some dangerous and really borderline-psychotic policy statements on more than one occasion recently. 

   Trump's remarks came in response to Ron DeSantis' allegedly hardline Pro-Life statements, although Ronnie-the-RINO himself hasn't been especially aggressive about outlawing the safe and legal procedure in his own state, Whacko Left histrionics to the contrary. 

   Kari Lake---who like DeSantis thrives on Publicity Stunts---and Neocon frauds Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have shown their true colors as well. Though they weren't mentioned in the article, WEF Young Global Leaders and GOP presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy are taking the pro-life but not judgemental about personal choices approach. Ramaswamy hasn't made a detailed position yet, but his ties to Big Pharma and the Abortion Racketeers is self-explanatory. Chris Christie, like DeSantis, is generally fine with a so-called '15 week law' which still kills babies and keeps profits flowing to Big Pharma and the Biochemical Cartels, but can be sold as 'Pro-Life.' 

   Unfortunately, human life has become another commodity in the United States. Babies can't vote or donate to political lobbies while narcissistic women and opportunistic men can and do; so we know whose interests the Political Class is going to support. The Crown of Motherhood and the Miracle of Birth are not marketable concepts these days. If anyone doubts this, it would instructive to see a typical contract issued by any one of the major Insurance Cartels. There's plenty of coverage for Abortion Clinics---Fertility Clinics, not so much. Given the Cartels' influence in the Beltway, that's not liable to change any time soon.

   

JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER...

    There's a strange sort of sociopolitical mood in the United States right now. The general population, led by the influencers and pundits, seem to be in an anesthetic atmosphere totally detached from Reality while we're obviously headed towards a major disaster and losing what's left of our national ideals. Journalist and seminarian Chris Hedges posted a good video recently which, despite his Left-leaning perspective, had an excellent explanation of the underlying causes behind this odd phenomenon. It's about 15 minutes long and worth a watch because Hedges sees the bigger picture.

    The Political Class, meanwhile, has turned into a parody of itself. Biden has already put his foot in his mouth at the APEC Summit, and a couple of the 'Conservative' clowns in Congress engaged in a shoving-match. In reality, all of these Party hacks and Corporate lapdogs remind me of the kinds of idiots one sees popping up in any average big-city mall or shopping center. The dangerous thing is that they actually hold positions of power where they can do real damage. 

    There were two stories in both news and opinion coming out yesterday in the Controlled Opposition nominally Christian Conservative wing of the Corporate Media. Let's juxtapose these two stories and see if other Christian Conservatives can discern what's wrong with this picture.

     1. As we're writing this article, Zionist Death-Squads have stormed the largest remaining hospital in the Gaza Strip. 'Conservative' news outlets like Fox News Channel are joining with MSM mouthpieces CNN praising the attack. As of today, the Israeli Government and its American overlords have massacred at least 11,000 civilians---about half of whom are women and children---both through a military blitzkrieg and an embargo of food, water, medicine, and fuel. Christian Conservative sites are actually justifying these Crimes Against Humanity including arguing with the absurd logic that by committing a Holocaust of Arabs, Israel is acting in self-defense to prevent another Holocaust against the Jews. By their own admission, the Republican Party welcomes the conflict as a political talking-point. 

   2. After their humiliating performance in the 2023 Midterms, there have been calls from the GOP leadership to get rid of their nominal Pro-Life position. In a piece titled Abortion, not Trump, is the GOP's Albatross, a parasite at the Conservative Institute, one Matthew Boose, opined that Conservative Christians need to be more 'realistic' about the Abortion Issue. "Because of Dobbs, abortions are much harder to get in a number of states. The right made a bargain to save lives, and the cost is pain at the polls." Boose states. "As the saying goes, 'politics is the art of the possible.' This reasoning strikes many conservatives as devilish, but we live in a fallen world. Republicans can either continue on their self-destructive course, or they can compromise with reality." The Conservative Institute, it should be noted, is run by a self-described Alpha named Shaun Connell who is head of a shady media-consulting group. 

   So what's wrong with this picture? Just a friendly reminder here, but we are talking about the murder of children. It's really a sad commentary on the state of our society when we have to keep emphasizing and explaining this point, especially when it repeatedly has to be brought up to religious, 'family-values' Conservatives. Given what Jesus' attitudes towards children were, I strongly suspect that He wouldn't approve of in vitro infanticide up to the moment of birth or firebombing children's hospitals---even if the victims don't happen to be American, or live in a Blue State, or even if saving their lives hurts Republican chances at the polls. 

   In the last three years, on at least four occasions (read about them here, here, here, and here) 'Conservatives' have excused and supported cold-blooded acts of murder on the grounds that the victims were either immigrants or left-wing activists. They've excused criminal behavior among themselves and weaponized the legal system against their opponents for political gain. They've applauded the ethnic cleansing of legal immigrants by forced deportations under inhuman conditions. This list of their crimes could go on, but the bottom line here is there doesn't seem to be any act of tyranny or immorality to which this group will not stoop to or support. As the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin remarked: "There are no morals in politics, there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel." Would anyone care to explain how the present Conservative position differs from Lenin's?

  As if this really needs to be emphasized again, supporting or excusing the murder of children, though, is about as clear a 'Red Line' as could possibly be drawn. It's no argument to chant "Oh but the Democrats do it too!" or "The Jihadists do it too!" I don't support Democrats or Jihadists for this very reason; and I'm certainly not going to support Republicans or Zionists for doing it either. 

  The American Right has lost even its last shards of moral authority that it still possessed. They're no better than the Left: in fact, they're even worse because they compound their evil deeds with self-righteous hypocrisy and even try to justify them in some cases, as Christian morality. Sadly, it's become painfully obvious now that these people are strictly no good from way down deep in their own psyches, and don't deserve the support of any right-thinking person.

   

DRAMA QUEENS DESCEND ON SAN FRANCISCO

    The Controlled Opposition Media today has been raising some further ballyhoo over the specter of alleged foreign threats. Since the Republican Party today has no solutions for our domestic problems and see Social Issues as a Third Rail, they need bogeymen from outside our borders to frighten voters (as if voting actually mattered) to generate another Red Wave in 2024 (as if the previous Red Waves actually accomplished anything). 

   Yesterday, a publicity stunt to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis failed. It had no chance of succeeding anyway, and the RNC knew that all along; but many Congressmen could vote for it safely to pose as anti-Junta candidates in next year's elections. The same Party who complains about weaponizing judicial proceedings against political opponents never has any qualms about doing it themselves. It's only wrong when the Democrats do it.

   The excuse for this stunt was Mayorkis' supposed inability or unwillingness to control the Southern Border, although nobody asks why we have a Defense Department guarding Syrian and Iraqi Oil Fields instead of actually defending American territory.  The Border issue likewise distracts from the other multitudinous crimes of the Department of Homeland Security: things like engaging in Domestic Espionage, shady contracting arrangements, infiltration with foreign operatives, funding exempt from Congressional oversight, etc. DHS was established by a Republican President, though, so abolishing the agency---as it should be---is not discussed.

   The second big story is that Chinese President Xi Jinping has steeled himself to go to San Francisco and meet with our nominal Head-of-State at the APEC Summit. Rumors that Chinese Military Engineers have installed high-tech air filters in Xi's apartment to eliminate the stench of garbage and marijuana smoke emanating from the San Francisco streets; or that said engineers have brought shovels and hoses to keep the President from wading in human excrement have not been confirmed. 

     For the past three years now, pundits working for Republican think-tanks and media outlets have been assembling all of the Democrats' Russiagate nonsense and cutting-and-pasting the terms 'Biden' and 'China' over the names 'Trump' and 'Russia.' There is a significant number of Americans on the political Right who seriously believe that the Junta and the Chinese Government are working in collusion, although spending about a half-hour reading editorials in the Chinese Media would dispel that illusion rather quickly. 

   To try and pretend that the Communist Party of China is really delighted with the Junta's military build-up on China's borders; the Junta's pressure on other countries to 'decouple' from China; fomenting separatist movements in Chinese provinces; placing embargoes, sanctions, and trade restrictions on Chinese officials and companies; whipping up anti-China hysteria over things like errant weather-balloons; scapegoating China for America's drug problem, etc---the idea of Chinese collusion is too ridiculous even for criticism. 

  Add into this scenario the utter subservience of the Biden/Harris Junta to the WEF Agenda, and the absurdity really becomes apparent. It ought to be telling that, while some Chinese companies participate in the WEF, there's not a single Chinese national involved with the WEF's agenda-making or directorate. To assume that the world's most populated country really likes being targeted for depopulation, or that CPC Commissars really want to be dictated to by Western Crony-Capitalists is laughable. 

   While it may be true that some Chinese domestic policies align with some of the US Deep State's (e.g. late-term abortion, gun control, domestic spying, media manipulation), these similarities are only superficial ones. The underlying ideologies are radically different. The Chinese Communists are utopian idealists who believe that their system will achieve human happiness and prosperity through intelligent and professional management. The American Plutocracy intends to establish itself as a Master Race with human capital to be managed in the most cost-effective manner to uphold the grandeur and power of a handful of privileged self-styled 'Elites.' 

   The Chinese Media itself is trying to put the most optimistic spin that it can on the upcoming meeting, but the general trend of recent Chinese opinion pieces and official statements indicate that expectations are not that high. The opinion of most Chinese analysts seem to imply---and this is probably closer to the truth---that the Junta, after its recent humiliating Foreign Policy failures is desperate for a Public Relations victory of some sort, while the Controlled Opposition is going to spin it as a 'sellout.' If APEC ends up like most of these recent summits have, Xi will walk away with a lot of promises that the Junta has no intention of honoring; the Republicans will howl that Biden is "soft on China," and nothing actually will change. 

   The real problem underlying Sino-US relations---and foreign policy in general---is that our political class approaches it with the same cynical cunning that they do in domestic policy. They are no more concerned with being fair to the Chinese than they are with being fair to the American people. The American political class approaches every problem from the standpoint of how they can sell a message which is crafted to serve their own interests; and deception and chicanery are considered legitimate tactics to be employed to those ends. While this approach might work on a defeated and dispirited domestic audience, employing these tactics against a major world power can have serious consequences. 

   Other major countries on the Deep State's designated Enemies List---notably Russia and Iran---have followed a policy of decoupling from the US and becoming more self-reliant. There are some officials in China who've suggested the same approach for their country. The problem that China faces in doing so is that, unlike Russia or Iran, the Chinese have a huge economic relationship with the Beltway and other Corporate-run satrapies. What our Oligarchs and their pundits don't seem to grasp is that we are just as economically connected to them, if not more so. 

  This situation is what makes the situation with China so potentially dangerous in the hands of Corporate crooks. The Oligarchy is both dependent upon and covetous of Chinese resources. This position is bound to lead to further intrigues and even eventual war. Worse still, they routinely mistake Chinese restraint in the face of their repeated insults as a sign of weakness. They made that mistake with Russia in Ukraine and haven't learned from it; not that it matters to them because human life is expendable to such people. 

  What is actually needed is a mutually-beneficial Sino-US meeting, like President Trump engineered during Xi's last APEC visit in 2017. But Orange Man Bad, and today relations between the two powers are at their lowest ebb since the 1960s and the US Economy flounders. 

   

   

   

MEANWHILE THE GREAT RESET GOES ON...

     On Tuesday, Americans voted in what has become the almost meaningless performance which are called Elections over here. Elections are something that are an American tradition because once upon a time, they actually represented the general American will fairly equitably. Today, of, course, Elections are staged events to give people the illusion that the Elites have a consensus and ordinary people actually have some control over what they do.  

    Not surprisingly, the Controlled Opposition (a.k.a. the Republican Party) was wiped out. Equally unsurprisingly, the GOP leadership believes that moving closer the Democrats will solve their lack of popular support. It has nothing to do with their incompetence, their lack of any meaningful strategy, their mendacity, or their phoniness in general. Like the ancient Greeks said of the Trojans, Conservatives never learn until it's too late.

    Consider what has happened since last year's Election. It took nearly a year for the GOP Congress even to decide on a House Speaker. Once they chose one, his first order of business was to pay back his donors in AIPAC, Big Pharma, and Big Oil with an aid package to prop up the Zionist Cult in the "ultimate LGBTQ travel destination" of Tel Aviv. The $14 billion or so in taxpayer resources that Mike Johnson just transferred to the Oligarchy could have been spent on something that might actually have benefit Americans. For example, the agricultural lands of California have been drying up for over a decade due to a long-term drought and the State is facing severe water shortages. It costs about $25 million to build a large-scale desalination plant. For $14 billion, we could have rescued hundreds of farms, supplied Los Angeles with water, and had money left over for further infrastructure upgrades. But making the world safe for offshore oil-drilling on the Gaza Coast was a higher priority.

    Johnson's been busy with other important programs of vital interest to the American people, however. On Tuesday, he managed to get some Democrats to cross the aisle and official censure Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for speaking out too vocally against the Deep State's servility to Israeli interests. Today, he set to fast-track the Biden Impeachment Hearings---as if those will amount to anything but creating more drama. After all, if the Republican front-runner is being indicted, the Democrats' should too: just to make it fair. 

   Assuming that we even have elections next year, what a scenario is shaping up. Two 80-year old men debating over which one has the most criminal charges, which is the greatest threat to the country, and which has had more allegations of sexual impropriety. The Corporate Media might as well just drop all pretenses and have Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey moderate the debates. 

   If anyone really wants to see how bad its really become; the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference is being held in San Francisco this week. Chinese President Xi Jinping might attend. Several Chinese journalists have arrived to cover the conference---many of whom are in the US for the first time---and they are aghast at the squalid condition of our 9th largest city. If Americans still had the capacity for feeling any shame, this would be such a national embarrassment that they would demand action. But, as it is, they'll go on pretending that it's not as bad as China, or something.

     While these distractions are going on, the unelected Corporate leaders who actually do run the United States are pushing forward with the Great Reset Agenda which, as John Kerry promised in 2021, "it will happen and it will happen with greater speed than most people realize." 

    The Insurance Cartels, for example, are apparently having some difficulty reconciling their support for depopulation with the outflow of capital generated by a sudden surge in post-Loyalty Vaxx deaths. I think that we can all guess roughly where this is going to lead: the Cartels either will get a taxpayer-funded bailout or a possibly an Obamacare-style Life Insurance scheme that they will manage. Either way, the Oligarchs will transfer more wealth and power into their own hands while no one responsible for all of these mass-casualties will ever be brought to justice for it. 

   The Gates Foundation, too, is working on a proposal to experiment with his longstanding goal of implementing Digital ID surveillance program in Kenya. This is part of the WEF-backed UN Agenda 2030 where by their own admission in less than a decade "governments will be issuing everyone biometric ID, including babies." If anyone is still inclined to keep their head in sand and pretend that it can't happen here, recall that a little over a year ago, Vaxx Passports were being considered in the US---and actually implemented among many of our colonies allies. 

    On the subject of tagging babies, some academics connected with these same supranational oligarchies have floated a position paper suggesting that parents should be required to obtain a license to have children. Connor Kianpour, professor at the University of Colorado---an institution heavily funded by Big Pharma and Big Tech---wrote in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy that “Individuals have no right to rear their biological children, nor do they have any interests weighty enough to justify a right to rear children generally. Since these rights do not exist, regulated parenting policies cannot be said to jeopardize them.” 

    Kianpour outlines the proposed requirements for obtaining such a license: “Certain individuals are unfit to rear children because they are objectionably intolerant of certain backgrounds and ways of life...strongly homophobic individuals are unfit to rear children.” This also includes those parents affiliated with “organizations that would give us reason to believe they are objectionably intolerant,”

    These are all examples of what these people hope to achieve within the lifetimes of most of our readership. But we want to keep telling ourselves that we'll vote our way out of it and that Hamas is the real threat to Civilization and Democracy. What we need to do is start facing Reality. Disconnect, disunite, disengage from the Mainstream as much as possible; network with like-minded people. Build parallel communities. Don't aid and abet these people any more than is absolutely necessary. 

   We're seeing in both Ukraine and the Middle East that the Oligarchy is not invincible. We don't have the numbers, resources, or organization to fight them in the same way, but the resolve of the Russian and Arab freedom-fighters will help hasten the New World Order's demise---and ultimately it will fail. In fact, I believe that many of us will live to see its downfall, although whether that downfall will be brought about by foreign resistance or the inherent flaws in the Oligarchy's schemes, time alone will tell. In the meantime, we have to reject the propaganda and hold fast to our values.

 

    

TRUMP AND XI CEMENT MASSIVE TRADE DEAL

       There's nothing like exceeding expectations and President Trump has done it again. On the eve of the APEC Summit, we were expecting that some good trade news and some cooperation in fighting the Opioid Epidemic would be the highlights of Trump's visit to China. Instead, the Chinese Media is announcing the biggest trade deal in Sino-US history: worth over a quarter trillion dollars and mutually benefiting both countries. 

          An unbelievable 34 trade treaties were signed. Here are the top five, as reported by The Global Times:

         1. US microchip manufacturer Qualcomm agreed to a $12 billion contract to provide advanced chips to three Chinese smart-phone manufacturers. Besides being an economic boost for our Tech Sector; China has long sought to ease American export restrictions on sophisticated microchip technologies. At the last CED meeting, China stressed these restrictions as a major obstacle to fair trade. Trump is reversing apparently this policy---first put in by the Clintons---which was really designed to protect US cellphone manufacturers (who were outsourcing anyway) from competition with Chinese firms. 

          2. China agreed to lift restrictions on US soybean exports---representing a $5 billion gain to American agriculture. 

         3. America's largest aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, has agreed to sell 300 passenger jets to China's airline system. This is a $37 billion gain for the US Aerospace Industry. Obama had foolishly held up sales of these jets to China over his peacocking 'Pivot to Asia'. 

         4. The China Energy Investment Corporation pulled the biggest surprise by agreeing to invest a whopping $84 billion in upgrading American shale gas and chemical refineries in West Virginia. This is the very kind of trade deal we've needed from China. The benefit to US Coal producers is going to be huge and likely will turn the economy completely around in North Appalachian regions.

            5. China also agreed to invest $43 billion in a joint Sino-US effort to produce gasoline from the Arctic and Alaskan regions. This is another brilliant move by the two presidents. Currently, Russia is the dominant power in oil and gas production in the Arctic. The US fell behind under the last three administrations, while China has only recently begun Arctic exploration. Working together, the two countries can represent a major force in the Petroleum Industry again. It should be noted that both the US and China have independent agreements with Canada for exploring Canadian resources. An economic cooperation between the three countries will put us in a position to challenge Russian and Arabian oil production. 

        The hyenas in the US Media were naturally downplaying these achievements: ridiculously claiming that Trump was selling out to the Chinese and other such things. These assertions were held up to well-deserved laughter in the Chinese press. Who would have thought that a year after the Election that America would be exporting goods to China and that Chinese companies wanted to outsource to the US? 

         There were other achievements at the Summit as well. True to his promise, President Trump also secured Xi's cooperation in establishing an anti-Opioid Task Force. 

         Is anyone still sorry that Hilary lost last year?

OBAMA SNUBBED AT APEC CONFERENCE

     Our 44th President's final official state visit came to a merciful conclusion in Lima, Peru yesterday. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Conference saw an essential repeat of Obama's disastrous performance and diplomatic snubbing as October's G-20 Summit in China. Obama left Peru having accomplished absolutely nothing while his enemies, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, dominated the conference.

     Donald Trump's announcement that he would shelve Obama's proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) plan in January, and the repudiation of Obama's policies during the last election effectively reduced Obama's influence at APEC to that of a figurehead. The day after Trump's announcement, the Japanese Empire threw up the sponge on TPP. Even Obama's arrival in Peru was greeted by 5,000 anti-TPP protestors, and things went downhill for him from there. Vladimir Putin, however, who widely admired in South America was greeted by throngs of cheering crowds.

     But, like the G-20, it was China's president Xi Jinping who set the tone for the Summit. Obama's failed 'Pivot to Asia' combined with the collapse of TPP has created an enormous power vacuum in the Pacific. Corporate Media shilling for Obama and the distractions of the 2016 Presidential Campaign have left many Americans completely unaware of how just how badly Obama's policies in the Pacific have damaged American economic and political power in the region. The losses the US sustained in the Pacific this year were monumental and left China to fill the void.

      The incoming Trump Administration is definitely going to be obliged to reconsider some of Trump's hardline campaign positions vis-à-vis China. During the last year alone, the US has lost The Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore as exclusive allies to the Chinese; while Vietnam and Japan are turning to Russia. Indonesia is pursuing a more independent course, while Okinawa and South Korea have fallen into deep political unrest. Taiwan's position is increasingly precarious. During this weekend's conference, Putin and Xi discussed connecting the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union with China's New Silk Road project. 

     South American participants at APEC also expressed optimism at greater relations with China. Another fact that few Americans realize is that China is Latin America's 2nd-largest trading partner both in imports and exports. That relationship has only strengthened during the Obama Administration. Obama scrapped the Bush Administration proposal to create a free-trade zone in Latin America; and China reaped the benefits of that neglect. Obama's skullduggery in Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay and Brazil have not helped US-Latin American relations either.

      These things considered, it is to be hoped that Trump will follow through on his political advisors' suggestions that Mitt Romney be nominated for Secretary of State. Romney, like Trump, is a former CEO---but unlike Trump has considerable experience negotiating foreign economic deals. Romney has a good rapport with China and is well-respected in Latin America. He would be able to handle foreign affairs capably while Trump concentrates on domestic issues and internal rebuilding---which seem to be his primary focus.

      Many Conservatives have little interest in global geopolitics, but Obama's utter impotence at the last G-20, ASEAN, and APEC Summits are not like we would want to see Trump. Trump is right in that rebuilding the US needs to be a top priority; but we cannot allow ourselves to fall to 2nd or 3rd-rate status in the global economy either. Trump has already shown some positive inclinations in this direction; by speaking of a new 'Bilateral Approach' to world trade. Actually, bilateralism has been the secret to China's foreign trade successes under Xi Jinping. Trump's announcement today that Nicky Haley would be UN Ambassador is also a positive step, as she is a very popular political figure in Asia.

        So let us hope that APEC 2016 is the final scene in a long string of American foreign policy embarrassments. A future, less politically-correct generation is going to assess the Obama Legacy in foreign policy as an unmitigated disaster---very likely among the worst, if not the worst, administration in its handling of foreign affairs.