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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama worried with foreign leaders about Trump. The president has proved them right.
The former president warned them about what they would need to do.
By Ben Rhodes July 2 at 6:00 AM
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration, is author of "The World as It Is."
On his final foreign trip as president, Barack Obama met allies shellshocked and uncertain about what was going to happen to the United States, and the world, with Donald Trump taking office. In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Obama she was likely to seek another term, in part to defend the liberal international order.
After saying a last goodbye, Obama lamented to me about his closest partner in the world: Angela, shes all alone. In their final meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Obama that he was prepared to extend a hand to President-elect Trump but that he was also prepared to assume a higher profile on the world stage if necessary. Youre going to have to speak out, Obama told him, when certain values are threatened.
What went unspoken was the strange possibility that democratic values might no longer have an advocate in the White House. We have now received repeated and definitive proof that they dont.
With the 5-to-4 decision upholding Trumps Muslim ban, arbitrary discrimination is now formal U.S. policy, celebrated by a president who campaigned on a total ban of Muslims entering the United States. A nation that has been a model for religious freedom has now become a model to nationalists around the globe who reject refugees and seek legitimacy on racial or ethnic grounds.
This comes on the heels of state-sponsored cruelty on our southern border. Consider, for a moment, how these images were consumed around the globe: From Berlin to Moscow, from San Salvador to Manila, people watched as children were ripped away from their parents. It was a scene you might expect to see in a fragile state teetering on the edge of dictatorship. The pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing, said conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May. This is wrong.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/07/02/obama-worried-with-foreign-leaders-about-trump-the-president-has-proved-them-right/
RestoreAmerica2020
(3,433 posts)..canceI his visit to England! As long a 2000 plus refugee children, including babies are separated from parents; held in detention centers, camps, until every child is reunited with family, then he should be shunned by our democratic allies from the world stage.