Trump Defends Western Civilization and Puts Muscle into the G20 Berlin Meeting

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP WON AT THE G20. • It was a week full of mainstream news -- both European and American -- that attempted to show how far out of touch President Trump is with the rest of the world. But, there was another view that the MSM would never talk about. • • • TRUMP RESONATES WITH ORDINARY EUROPEANS. On Sunday, the Independent Journal Review published an article about the G20 meeting by Justen Charters, in which he wrote : "For the most part, the media spent more time focusing on the chaos and discord than anything else. While there was praise for the Commander in Chief's speech in Warsaw, there was a lot of criticism, too. Vox, a liberal media outlet, wrote an article slamming the speech with the headline, 'Trump's speech in Poland sounded like an alt-right manifesto.' CNN political commentator Chris Cillizza jumped the gun more than anyone, though. He tweeted a short video that looked like Trump had been snubbed for a handshake by Poland's first lady. The video, however, turned out to be inaccurate. Polish President Andrzej Duda made a point to call out the media for rushing to conclusions and said that he would fight 'fake news' with Trump." • What do real Europeans think of President Trump? According to Pew Research Center, confidence in the President is low abroad. However, the Telegraph's Fraser Nelson disagrees with that assessment. During an interview with Fox News, Nelson talked about how he believes his fellow Europeans see Trump : "It is certainly true that a lot of European leaders are kind of traumatized by what they hear coming out of the White House. But for the public, it's a very different opinion. There's a lot more sympathy. I mean, for example, take on immigration. Now, you know, the...travel ban of the Trump administration is portrayed as one of the sort of cruelest things Trump has done to ban immigration from six Moslem-majority nations. But when an opinion poll was taken of ten thousand Europeans, it found that a majority in so many countries -- Germany, France, Austria, Greece -- would actually ban all Moslem immigration regardless of what country it came from." Nelson also noted that most of the smaller European nations support Trump. Also, he told Fox there is plenty of support for a Trump-like movement to grow across Europe. • Another IJR article on Sunday said that "from the very beginning of his campaign, President Donald Trump called himself the 'law and order' candidate, promising that he would stand with both the United States military and law enforcement every step of the way." But, the IJR noted, Trump's support isn't limited to American law enforcement. Anton Troianovski of the Wall Street Journal tweeted on Saturday evening : "A riot that raged for hours just a mile from the Group of 20 meeting site in Hamburg left hundreds injured, property damaged and German authorities struggling to explain how protests that had long been anticipated were not controlled....When anarchists descended on the city, bringing the “March from Hell” with them -- along with looting, arson, and vandalism -- things got so dicey that at one point, First Lady Melania Trump was unable to leave the guest house where she was staying. Water cannons were deployed, and there were a number of arrests -- at one point, the German military was called in to relieve the overwhelmed police forces -- but through it all, the visiting world leaders remained safe. And as he left the G-20 Summit, President Trump voiced his thanks in his usual manner, by tweeting : "Law enforcement & military did a spectacular job in Hamburg. Everybody felt totally safe despite the anarchists." Trump also tweeted his congratulations to German Chancellor Angela Merkel for hosting the meetings. • President Trump's last tweet from the G20 was : "Leaving Hamburg for Washington DC and the WH. Just left China’s President Xi where we had an excellent meeting on trade & North Korea. • • • GERMANS ANGRY WITH MERKEL ABOUT RIOTS. Reuters journalist Madeline Chambers reported from Berlin that Germans said on Sunday thatthey are angry "over violence that hit a G20 world leaders' summit in Hamburg, raising awkward questions for Chancellor Angela Merkel less than three months before an election. About 20,000 police struggled to contain several hundred anti-capitalist militants who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails and stones during the July 7-8 summit. Tens of thousands more people demonstrated peacefully." There were 476 officers injured. Police said Sunday they had arrested 186 people and took 225 into custody. • Reuters reported : "German newspapers devoted far more space to pictures of police firing water cannon onto hooded anarchists and other protestors than they did to Merkel's diplomatic balancing act with fellow leaders of major world economies." Tagesspiegel wrote : "Embarrassment for Germany - The pictures of helpless police who could not secure state order and protection of property are a political catastrophe." Top-selling Bild am Sonntag displayed pictures of masked anarchists and politicians on its front page with the headline "Criminals and Losers." Inside, a political scientist described the scenes as an 'orgy of violence.' • And, an Emnid poll showed that a majority of Germans, 59%, believe the riots damage the image of their country -- even though violence has affected a number of international meetings around the world over the years. Merkel was forced to defend her choice of Hamburg, a seaport which is Germany's second biggest city, and has a strong radical leftist tradition. It was also home to an al-Qaida cell that carried out the 9/11 attacks on US targets in 2001. Reuters said : "Merkel had wanted to demonstrate to G20 partners, including Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, her commitment to freedom of speech and rejected the notion that some cities were out of bounds as summit venues. The strategy has backfired, said some commentators." A reader wrote to Bild am Sonntag : "I can barely breathe with anger because Chancellor Merkel and Hamburg mayor (Olaf) Scholz trivialize the brutal riots as 'not acceptable.' " • The Social Democrats (SPD), trailing Merkel's conservatives by 12-15% in polls, blamed Merkel : "The invitation to the G20 was issued by the Chancellor. She was the host...That some conservatives are now pushing responsibility onto the SPD and Olaf Scholz is cheap." • • • REUTERS CREDITS MERKEL WITH G20 SUCCESS. Behind heavy security, Merkel used her negotiating skills to forge a compromise between a range of views. She persuaded leaders to agree on trade, energy and Africa while acknowledging differences with the United States on climate change. However, she wasn't even involved in what was for many the diplomatic highlight - the first encounter between Trump and Putin. Trying to limit the political damage from the security problems that could affect the September 24 parliamentary election, Merkel has promised compensation to Hamburg residents whose property was damaged. She can also deflect some of the anger directed at Scholz, a Social Democrat, for underestimating the risks. He has been widely castigated for appearing complacent before the summit, saying that Hamburg was used to hosting big events and that many residents would barely notice the gathering. Scholz later defend himself, saying : "We did not underestimate the danger. It was not a mistake to hold the summit in Hamburg." • • • TRUMP AND PUTIN TAKE CENTER STAGE. President Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that he discussed forming a cyber security unit to guard against election hacking with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tweeting after his first meeting with Putin on Saturday, Trump said now was the time to work constructively with Moscow, pointing to a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria that came into effect on Sunday, tweeting : "Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe." • Trump also said he had raised allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election with Putin : "I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion...." • And Trump noted the Syrian ceasefire : "We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!" • Negative reaction to almost all Trump's tweets about Putin was fast in coming in the US. Republican Senator Marco Rubio immediately criticized the move on Twitter, saying Putin was not a trusted partner : "Partnering with Putin on a 'Cyber Security Unit' is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a 'Chemical Weapons Unit.' " • Trump tweeted in a series of Sunday morning tweets about the Democratic National Committee's reported failure to turn over its server to the CIA and FBI -- claiming the intel agencies "had to ask" the party "13 times" and was "rejected." He also appeared to reference reports of US intelligence agencies verifying Russian hacking during the 2016 election, claiming "fake news" reported there were "17" agencies who'd done so when Trump said there were only four. Then, Trump asked again in a tweet : "Why did Obama do NOTHING when he had info before election?" • And, President Trump summed up the G-20 summit as a "great success" for the United States, touting his negotiation of a cease-fire in Syria along with Russia, and saying the United Nations needs to "fix" bad trade deals, promising it'll "get done." Trump also dismissed easing sanctions against Russia, saying the subject never even came up. • • • XI - THE FORGOTTEN MAN AT THE G20. President Trump took a conciliatory tone on Saturday at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according ot Reuters -- the leaders agreed to keep working on two pressing issues, including the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and bilateral trade irritants. When the two leaders first met in April at Trump's Florida resort, they appeared to hit it off. Trump called Xi a "good man" and urged him to use Beijing's economic clout to force North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons program. Lately, Trump has expressed impatience with China's role in North Korea - particularly after Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that some experts believe could have the range to reach Alaska, and parts of the US West Coast. The Trump administration has made new arms sales to Taiwan, imposed sanctions on two Chinese citizens and a shipping company, put China on a global human trafficking list, and accused a Chinese bank of laundering money for Pyongyang. The White House is also debating trade actions against Beijing, including tariffs on its steel exports and a few days before the G20 talks, Trump complained that trade between China and North Korea had grown. But he showed none of that impatience on Saturday, when the leaders met at the invitation of Xi at the tail end of the G20 in Germany. Trump told Xi : "It's an honor to have you as a friend," and added that he appreciated actions Xi had already taken on North Korea, saying : "As far as North Korea is concerned, we will have, eventually, success. It may take longer than I'd like. It may take longer than you'd like. But, there will be success in the end one way or the other." US Treasury Secretary Robert Mnuchin told reporters later on Air Force One that the Trump-Xi meeting lasted over an hour-and-a-half, and they had "substantive discussions" about how to deal with North Korea together. Mnuchin said : "In regards to China, we had very direct discussions about North Korea. We had very direct discussions about military and security cooperation. I think that President Trump made very clear to President Xi that he is focused on this issue, and wants to move forward and make progress. And I think President Xi gave a very interesting perspective from their standpoint." • Xi told Trump that stronger China-US ties are conducive to stability and prosperity amid global conflicts, and Chinese state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying that there was "new progress" in some areas "despite some sensitive issues." Xi stressed the importance of talks with North Korea, and said China's navy will join next year's US-led Pacific Rim military exercises. Xinhua said Xi stressed to Trump China's position that it adheres to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and maintaining peace and stability there. Xinhua pointed out that while China has been angered by North Korea's repeated nuclear and missile tests, it also blames the United States and South Korea for worsening tension with their military exercises : "China has many times talked about its principled position, namely that at the same time as the nternational community making necessary responses to North Korean acts that go against U.N. Security Council resolutions, they must step up efforts to promote talks and manage and control the situation." Xi reiterated China's opposition to the US deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea, Xinhua said. China says THAAD threatens its security, despite US and South Korean assurances it is aimed only at defending against North Korea. Both leaders agreed to maintain close communication and coordination on the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, Xinhua said. In a statement released on Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Xi and Trump had "enhanced mutual understanding" about the North Korea issue and "confirmed the broad direction of using peaceful means to resolve this issue." • Trump also mentioned trade imbalances in his meeting with Xi, calling it a "very, very big issue" that he would address. Senior officials from both countries will meet in Washington on July 19 to discuss economic and trade issues. • • • TRUMP WINS AT HIS FIRST G20 MEETING. The American Thinker published a Sunday article by Clarice Feldman that emphasized Trump's G20 successes : "This was a week of startling contrasts. The President reasserted (against a decades-long leftist attack on it) the significant achievements of Western civilization and the need to vigorously defend it. His speech prefaced the G20 meeting in Hamburg, where leftists rioted, burned, and looted while the G20 leaders ponced about and wined and dined in style, apparently oblivious to the havoc which their open border policies and multiculturalist mindset had birthed. As Trump worked successfully on trade and defense issues in Europe, his administration was quietly plugging security leaks and maladministration in our own bureaucratic underground." • POLAND. Feldman wrote "Western Europe has been blinded by ideological nonsense. On the one hand it has worked assiduously to separate religion and politics. On the other hand, it has welcomed in hordes of Islamists. In contrast, to quote Zoltan Balog, Hungary’s Minister for Human Resources 'in the case of Islam it is religion that determines politics.' ” • Eastern Europe, and especially Poland, was the right place for Trump to choose to brilliantly defend Western culture and values -- to the great delight of the thousands who flocked to hear him. Feldman pointed out : "Eastern Europe not only shows a greater understanding of Western culture than Western Europe does; these Eastern countries have also been far more generous to NATO, the bulwark of their independence and security. Culture and security go hand-in-hand: if you take your own culture and civilization seriously, you will be ready to defend them." Poland meets the NATO 2% target, unlike all other Western European countries. Only five of NATO's 28 members -- the US, Greece, Poland, Estonia and the UK -- meet the 2% target. France? Belgium? Germany? The Netherlands? Italy? -- not one of these major NATO countries comes close to its 2% target. Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at the Altantic council was quoted by Feldman : "Poland has for the past two decades consistently viewed defense as a priority issue, and as a result, has been slowly but steadily emerging as the bedrock of European security." Poland, says Grigas, is not a "free rider" but a trustworthy partner to its US ally. Poland showed loyal support to the United States both in Afghanistan and Iraq, where its troops fought the Taliban and helped to topple Saddam Hussein. So, wrote Feldman; "It is no coincidence that President Trump selected Poland, a country that fought both Nazism and Communism, to call on the West to show a little willingness in its existential fight against the new totalitarianism : radical Islam." William Kilpatrick, a professor at Boston College, writes : "The West will continue to have the military edge for a good time to come, but possessing weapons is one thing, and possessing the will to use them is another thing altogether. The West is strong militarily, but weak ideologically. It lacks civilizational confidence." • David Goldman (Spengler) says the Trump address in Warsaw sent a message that was “calculating and subtle” and “those who abhor Trump as an ignoramus should hang their heads in shame : "First, the United States has drawn a red line at the Polish border, making clear that America will shed blood if need be to defend its Polish ally. Second, the line is drawn around Poland, not Ukraine. The United States is prepared to reach an agreement with Russia over Ukraine if Russia stops destabilizing Ukraine and if it leashes its Iranian dog. The United States has sent a clear message -- as the President reminded his Warsaw audience -- that it will not tolerate the tolerance of terror by the Saudis or other sunni allies. We expect Russia to do the same with its shi'ite allies. That is tough, but realistic. Trump is willing to negotiate with the Russians, but from a position of strength, in solidarity with our allies who have suffered historically from Russian aggression, and with unambiguous lines in the sand. It was a brilliantly crafted speech, the slickest as well as the most inspiring foreign policy address of any American president since Ronald Reagan." • Feldman concluded that Trump also gave Poland and other Eastern European countries critical backing in their fight against the European Union's attempt to force them to accept their quota of Moslem migrants : "Add this to news that we are selling Patriot Missiles to Poland to allow them to avoid Russian encroachment, and it’s clear Poland must be breathing a sigh of relief that Obama is finally out of the White House." • RUSSIAN ENERGY GRIP ON EUROPE. Energy supplies are the lifeblood of modern industrial societies. You cannot heat and cool your homes, transport goods, produce the products you need, defend your country or even fire up your computer without abundant, steady energy supplies. Europe needs it and thanks to America's new energy policies under President Trump, the US has energy to spare. In Warsaw, Trump offered leaders from Poland and numerous other European countries long-term LNG deals to diversify their supplies and avoid creating undesirable political leverage with a Russia that has not hesitated to cut off natural gas supplies for political reasons. Trump didn’t mention Russia, but at a news conference in Poland he said : “America stands ready to help Poland and other European nations diversify their energy supplies, so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier." This is part of Trump’s tougher talk on trade that seems to be working. • RUSSIA. The first meeting of Trump and Russian President Putin apparently went well and extended considerably beyond the time slotted for it. At the end, a new agreement had been reached that promises to reduce civilian bloodshed and the threat of wider war in the Middle East. Details of the agreement are being worked out to de-escalate the fighting in Southwest Syria, along the border with Jordan and Israel. How this will be monitored remains to be worked out. For obvious reasons Israel has indicated it will not allow Russian troops to monitor in its area. • • • ANOTHER TAKE-AWAY FROM TRUMP'S G20 TRIP. • EU MIGRATION. Perhaps deliberately, the Gatestone Institute published an article on Sunday about mass migration into Europe. The article by Douglas Murray was surprising because it started with a quote from, of all people, the globalist open border AMerican Bill Gates : "[T]he more generous you are, the more word gets around about this -- which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa. Germany cannot possibly take in the huge number of people who are wanting to make their way to Europe." The annual survey of EU citizens recently made by Project 28, found a unanimity on the issue of migration almost unequalled across an entire continent. The survey found that 76% of the public across the EU believe that the EU's handling of the migration crisis of recent years has been "poor." There is not one country in the EU in which the majority of the public differs from that consensus. In countries such as Italy and Greece, which have been on the frontline of the crisis of recent years, that figure rockets up. In these countries, 90% of citizens think that the EU has handled the migrant crisis poorly. At the same time -- even while the public has known that what the politicians are doing is unsustainable -- there has been a vast effort to control what European publics have been allowed to say. German Chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to urge Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to limit posts on social media that were critical of her policies. • The German government's 2015 announcement that normal asylum and border procedures were no longer in operation exacerbated an already disastrous situation. The populations of Germany and Sweden increased by 2% in one year alone because of the influx of migrants, monumental rapid changes for any society to absorb. Back then in 2015, at the height of the crisis, Bill Gates himself urged America to take in migrants at the levels that Germany was taking them in. Since then, however, Gates has seen what most people who live in Europe have seen -- while opening your country's borders may have a short-term moral appeal, it causes a whole variety of long-term societal concerns. It is these concerns that te European public can see all around them, as well as on their newspapers' front-pages that lead the majority of the public across Europe to want the flow of migrants stop. In his recent German newspaper interview, Bill Gates also directly expressed this sentiment, saying : "Europe must make it more difficult for Africans to reach the continent via the current transit routes." As Murray says : "All this is, of course, true. It is not possible for Europe to become the home for everyone and anyone in Africa, the Middle East or Far East who manages to cross a fairly narrow stretch of water. The people of Europe have known this for a long time. And that is another reason why conservatives all over Europe listen to President Trump and support his immigration policies. • • • DEAR READERS, On Saturday, Pope Francis gave an interview to La Repubblica reporter Eugenio Scalfari. The Pope said that the United States of America -- and Russia, China, North Korea and Bashar al-Assad's Syria -- have “a distorted vision of the world"--("una visione distorta del mondo," as reportetd in Italian by La Repubblica). Pope Francis told Scalfari : “I am afraid there are very dangerous alliances between powers who have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Russia and Assad in the war in Syria." The Pope explained : “The danger concerns immigration. Our main and unfortunately growing problem in the world today is that of the poor, the weak, the excluded, which includes migrants. This is why the G20 worries me : It mainly hits immigrants.” In the same interview, according to La Repubblica, Pope Francis said that Europe must take on a "federal structure." The Pope stated : "I also thought many times to this problem and came to the conclusion that, not only but also for this reason, Europe must take as soon as possible a federal structure." • Could it be that the Pope, as he has been for several years, is the one who is "very dangerous"? He has routinely sided with the globalist elites who favor open borders to the severe detriment of European culture and the preservation of Christian Western Civilization. His vision -- one that is not accompanied by his flinging open the doors of the Vatican State to illegal economic, or even refugee, immigrants -- will destroy Europe and Chirstianity. Why would the Pope of the Holy roman Catholic Church, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Defender of the Faith, take such a position?? I have no answer except to wonder if Pope Francis, like Barack Obama, is not Christian. • President Trump, rather than tearing down Western culture, supported it in Warsaw last week -- we will discuss his speech tomorrow. Trump said : "But there is a courage and a strength deep in the Polish character that no one could destroy. The Polish martyr, Bishop Michael Kozal, said it well: 'More horrifying than a defeat of arms is a collapse of the human spirit.' Through four decades of communist rule, Poland and the other captive nations of Europe endured a brutal campaign to demolish freedom, your faith, your laws, your history, your identity -- indeed the very essence of your culture and your humanity. Yet, through it all, you never lost that spirit. (Applause.) Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken. And when the day came on June 2nd, 1979, and one million Poles gathered around Victory Square for their very first mass with their Polish Pope, that day, every communist in Warsaw must have known that their oppressive system would soon come crashing down. They must have known it at the exact moment during Pope John Paul II’s sermon when a million Polish men, women, and children suddenly raised their voices in a single prayer. A million Polish people did not ask for wealth. They did not ask for privilege. Instead, one million Poles sang three simple words : 'We Want God.' ” • Read those words and ask yourself, is Pope Francis or President Trump the Defender of the Faith?