Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited to meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump “at the first opportunity.”
The two men spoke together by phone Wednesday morning, just a few hours after Trump’s landslide win. The invitation comes as the fulfillment of a campaign promise by Trump to immediately begin to heal Washington’s frayed ties with the Jewish State.
Netanyahu congratulated Trump on his victory and told him the United States has no better ally than Israel.
The two men have known each other for many years. They held a warm conversation in which they briefly discussed regional issues as well.
Netanyahu told Trump that his wife Sarah is also looking forward to meeting with the new president-elect and his wife Melania.
Russia is ready and looks forward to restoring bilateral relations with the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, commenting on the news of Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.
“We heard [Trump's] campaign rhetoric while still a candidate for the US presidency, which was focused on restoring the relations between Russia and the United States,” President Putin said, speaking at the presentation ceremony of foreign ambassadors' letters of credentials in Moscow.
Earlier today, in a message to Donald Trump the Russian President expressed confidence that the dialogue between Moscow and Washington, in keeping with each other’s views, meets the interests of both Russia and the US.
The Russian leader noted in the message that he hopes to address some “burning issues that are currently on the international agenda, and search for effective responses to the challenges of the global security,” RIA Novosti reported.
On top of it, Putin has expressed confidence that “building a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington, based on principles of equality, mutual respect and each other's positions, meets the interests of the peoples of our countries and of the entire international community.”
Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has also expressed hope that Trump’s victory in the presidential election will help pave the way for a more constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington.
“The current US-Russian relations cannot be called friendly. Hopefully, with the new US president a more constructive dialogue will be possible between our countries,” he said.
“The Russian Parliament will welcome and support any steps in this direction,” Volodin added on Wednesday.
Opportunities should not be squandered. It is especially important at a time when the overall political relationship between Washington and Moscow has tumbled to a nadir. Donald Trump’s victory and the expected drastic changes in the US foreign policy open up new prospects for the improvement of bilateral relations.
It is useless to make predictions without the new president announcing who his foreign policy advisers will be. But it is possible to define in general terms what could and should be done to change the tide.
With arms control and non-proliferation in doldrums, the tensions over Ukraine, the standoff between Russia and NATO and the failure to cooperate efficiently in Syria, the mission seems to be more of a tall order, but it would be a great mistake to waste time.
The president-elect is the right person to turn the tide in the Russia-US relations because he is independently minded and not tied to Washington’s establishment. He can avoid specific bureaucratic pitfalls and keep neocons and liberal hawks from positions of power something his predecessor has failed to do. As the presidential race has showed, he can see a problem from the other side’s perspective. What if Russia deployed forces and BMD installations near the US borders? He has imagination to understand such things. Donald Trump seems to possess the needed leadership traits to stand up to pressure and do things his way. His election victory is an opportunity not to miss. Normalizing the relations with Russia will be a great foreign policy success – a historic legacy to make him own in history as a great president.
It began in Jerusalem.
Christians from many nations gathered in the heart of Israel to pray and fast for the fate of the United States. Americans knelt on stage as the faithful prayed. Organizers instructed them to pray like never before for a just God to deliver his most Christian nation. They called it the Jerusalem Global Gathering.
Christians also gathered to pray for the nation outside the U.S. Capitol. As WND reported, pastor Dan Cummins of the small rural East Texas town of Bullard led prayers for a return to biblical principles.
And it was in Texas that the prayers for deliverance were sent around the world, using modern technology.
A large prayer group had gathered in Dallas, hosted by Ken Copeland ministries. It was broadcast by the Daystar channel. Presenters David Barton and former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., invited viewers to join in prayer.
Daystar has a global reach of 400 million potential viewers.
As they prayed, something began to stir.
“At the precise moment we began broadcasting on Daystar,” Bachmann told WND, “as the polls were still open, and a national audience of believers joined together and prayed in concert, we literally saw the race break in favor of Trump.”
“At that very minute.”
She presented proof.
“The New York Times documented the shift in voting from that minute.”
“The Times put out a timeline tracking the election results as they broke for Trump last night,” Bachmann continued. “We went wild in the Dallas studio last night when David Barton, Ken and Terri Copeland, and various pastors saw that the victory for Trump began exactly at the precise moment believers corporately, over national television, sought the Lord for His favor upon our nation.”
“We knew it was at the exact same time that believers joined in corporate prayer on behalf of voting for a godly platform. Believers brought the Lord into this election, and that made all the difference,” added the devout believer.
“That is the story of last night’s victory. I have no doubt. The strong right arm of a holy God heard the prayers of His people and graciously answered our prayers,” Bachmann reflected.
Donald Trump's stunning victory in Tuesday's US presidential election sets the stage for a series of radical policy reversals both at home and abroad.
A Trump presidency could scupper some of Barack Obama's signature achievements, including Obamacare, climate change policy and the nuclear deal with Iran. Democratic hopes of shaping the Supreme Court for a generation would be dashed; a markedly more conservative court is now likely. Foreign policy could also undergo a dramatic shift.
Many analysts caution that there is a big difference between campaign promises and official policy — trade renegotiations sometimes turn out to be less substantive than advertised. Commitments on foreign policy issues, such as moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, are sometimes set aside.
But here are seven ways in which life could change under a President Donald Trump.
1. Trade
Mr Trump has opposed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal and called for fundamental changes to the Nafta pact with Mexico and Canada. Such policies appear to have boosted his appeal throughout the rust belt of the Midwest, with huge consequences for the election's ultimate outcome. He has also threatened to impose punitive 45 per cent tariffs on goods from China, stoking fears of a trade war.
2. Foreign policy
Mr Trump has said that Mr Obama's deal with Iran, which seeks to prevent the Islamic Republic from attaining nuclear weapons, would be dismantled or at least restructured. While Mr Obama began his term by setting out a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, Mr Trump has said he would be open to both Japan and South Korea developing nuclear arsenals. He has also questioned the US's treaty commitments to Nato allies that do not pay their own way while suggesting a much closer relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
3. Healthcare
Mr Trump has signed up to the Republican pledge that Mr Obama's signature Obamacare reforms must be "released and replaced". He has not set out a comprehensive alternative but says he will encourage competition between markets in different states.
Read More:
Donald Trump seals historic US election victoryHow is the US presidential election affecting you? You tell usRussia applauds Trump win as Putin hopes to boost US ties
Donald Trump seals historic US election victoryHow is the US presidential election affecting you? You tell usRussia applauds Trump win as Putin hopes to boost US ties
4. Tax policy
Mr Trump has promised the biggest tax revolution since Ronald Reagan, pledging to cut taxes across the board. He says no American business would pay more than 15 per cent of their profits in tax, compared with a current maximum of 35 per cent. The top rate of tax would fall from 39.6 per cent as the Republican reduces the number of tax brackets.
5. Supreme Court
For many political activists in the US this could be the biggest consequence of the election. With the highest court in the land currently split 4-4 between conservative and more liberal judges, Hillary Clinton's supporters had hoped that a ninth justice chosen by a Democratic president would shift the balance, possibly for a generation. Instead, Mr Trump faces relatively easy confirmation of his pick by a Republican Senate and he may also have the opportunity to replace some of the relatively elderly complement of liberal judges.
6. Climate change
Mr Trump has called global warming a hoax invented by China to make US manufacturers uncompetitive and vowed to "cancel" the Paris climate agreement, which built on a deal Mr Obama struck with China. He also says he would stop all US payments for UN global warming programmes.
7. Immigration
This is the issue that excited most passions in the campaign, both among Mr Trump's supporters and among Hispanic voters eager to prevent him from taking the White House. Mrs Clinton and departing Mr Obama had backed comprehensive reforms that would give illegal immigrants a chance at full citizenship. Mr Trump has campaigned on his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border, called for a ban on Muslim immigration and the deportation of 11m unauthorised immigrants. However, he has subsequently made more ambiguous statements, promising instead "extreme vetting" and declining to clarify his precise plans for undocumented immigrants.
The Israeli military says it has struck a Syrian army artillery position after a rocket from Syria hit the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights.
The military believes the rocket attack, which caused no casualties, was errant fire that spilled over the frontier Wednesday from the civil war.
Israel has largely remained on the sidelines of the fighting, but has carried out reprisals on Syrian positions when errant fire has crossed the frontier.
Israel is also widely believed to have carried out airstrikes on arms shipments said to be destined for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian government.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and the two countries remain enemies.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Paul Craig Roberts: Trump faces assassination
No comments:
Post a Comment