5/8/2019

CHINA/FOREIGN POLICY/IRAN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VENEZUELA: “Shortly before he was sworn in as president, Donald J. Trump vowed that the United States would stop ‘racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.’ He promised to end ‘this destructive cycle of intervention and chaos.’ Two and a half years into his presidency, Mr. Trump is enthusiastically calling for the toppling of one regime, in Venezuela, and energetically undermining another, in Iran. His administration’s escalating economic and political pressure on both countries — alongside a reignited trade war with China — has raised tensions in two hemispheres to the highest levels since Mr. Trump took the oath of office. It is not just that the president is pushing policies he once denounced. He has yet to articulate a coherent theory for when the United States should push for such change and when it should avoid it.”

Mark Landler, “With Mix of Threats and Blandishments, Trump Bandies Policy of Regime Change,” The New York Times online, May 8, 2019