Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CHINA

A major development in US-China relations this week as the State Department orders the closing of the Chinese Consulate in Houston. It appears a lot more than diplomacy was going on in Texas. In an interview this week Secretary of State Pompeo said that everyone knows the rules for diplomats. “You’re only permitted to be there in a diplomatic status with the consent of the host nation… it’s not okay to use your diplomats to engage in industrial espionage, it’s not okay to steal intellectual property, it’s not okay to engage in those kind of behaviors.” The Chinese have many more diplomats in the US than there are American diplomats in China.

On Thursday, Pompeo gave a major speech at the Nixon Library in California defining the US-China relationship in terms of the new policy objectives of the Trump Administration. Pompeo said the closing of the Houston consulate is protect the American people. In 2015 President Trump began to talk about the China threat and the need to ensure that jobs which depend on American intellectual property aren’t lost to theft from Chinese diplomats. In retaliation the Chinese announced the closing of the American Consulate in Chengdu, China. The Secretary said that Washington had been ignoring China Communist Party activity inside the US for over 40 years and that it is time to secure the nation. According to Pompeo, “General Secretary Xi has clearly taken actions that are aggressive and broken promises that are central to how great power nations behave….” Pompeo added that the US wants good things for the Chinese.

GREENLAND

In Denmark to meet with the three foreign ministers – the foreign minister of Denmark, the foreign minister of Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, Pompeo pointed out that the US has an important relationship with the Kingdom of Denmark, and the “three of us together are working on making sure that we get national security right for everyone.” The US operates Thule Air Force Base in Greenland. Pompeo said the US wants “to make sure that the Arctic is peaceful and that activity in that region is handled in the appropriate way.”

The Secretary is concerned about aggressive Chinese activity in the Arctic. He added: “ I think we’ve all been a little bit naive to watch not only the Russians but the Chinese interests there competing to become more and more aggressive. We have a responsibility for our people to make sure that we respond in a way that is appropriate, to do everything we can to make sure that the environment there is taken care of, to make sure that this doesn’t become another place for battle.”

NATO

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Questioned this week about NATO while in Europe, Secretary Pompeo commented that the US wants to ensure that the European nations pay their share of the cost. He pointed out that the United States is an “enormous partner in the transatlantic alliance.” And that the US remains the largest contributor to NATO. The US continues to provide humanitarian assistance to countries all across the world, many of which are European, he added.

SYRIA

On July 20 the Assad regime held so-called Parliamentary Elections in Syria. According to a statement released this week by the US State Department, “Bashar Al Assad is seeking to present this dubious election as a success against alleged Western plotting, but in reality it is simply another in a long line of Assad’s stage-managed, unfree votes in which the Syrian people have no real choice.”

Syria has not held free and fair elections since Assad’s Ba’ath party came to power. “We have seen credible reports of polling staff handing out ballots already filled in with Ba’ath party candidates. Reports of citizens being pressured to vote were common, and voter privacy was not guaranteed. In addition, Syrians residing outside the country – comprising nearly one quarter of Syria’s pre-revolution population – were not permitted to vote. This disenfranchised population includes the more than 5 million refugees driven out of the country by the regime’s relentless war against its own citizens,” according to the State Department.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

What does the Reversal of Harvey Weinstein’s Conviction Portend for Donald Trump?

In 2020, the New York County District Attorney’s Office scored a major conviction against a powerful Hollywood Producer – Harvey Weinstein. As described by Forbes, “Weinstein has faced scores of sexual harassment and assault accusations since 2017…[d]uring his New York trial, Weinstein was cleared of predatory sexual assault and rape in the first degree.” He was, however, convicted of Sexual Assault in the First Degree, and Rape in the Third Degree, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Recently, the New York State Court of Appeals has reversed Weinstein’s conviction, and sent the case back to the lower court for a retrial. While “Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala called the Court of Appeals ruling ‘a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York,’” the usual groups made the usual complaints. “Attorney Douglas H. Wigdor, who has represented eight Harvey Weinstein accusers including two witnesses at the New York criminal trial, called it ‘a major step back’…Debra Katz, a prominent civil rights and #MeToo attorney who represented several Weinstein accusers, said her clients are ‘feeling gutted’ by the ruling… “Allegations against Weinstein, the once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ ushered in the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including stars such as Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting ‘rapist’ outside the courthouse. ‘This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, living with male entitlement to our bodies,’ Judd said…” The New York Court of Appeals is known for being a left-of-center, activist court. Why would it reverse a conviction for rape entered against a character as reportedly heinous as Harvey Weinstein? Because despite its overall Progressive stance, even a notoriously leftist court knows an injustice when they see one. The decision to reverse Weinstein’s conviction is an important one. It underlines the necessity for fairness to all defendants, even unpopular ones accused of egregious crimes. The decision also has application to the ongoing case proceeding in New York County Supreme Court against former President Donald Trump. In May of 2023, we discussed the issue of whether or not Donald Trump’s indictment in New York County for actions that occurred in 2017 was beyond New York’s Statute of Limitations for prosecution of the criminal offenses with which he is charged. At that time, we noted the language of CPL Section 30.10(4)(A)(i), which excluded the time during which a defendant “was continuously outside this state.” This issue is also discussed in Chapter 6 of our book, The Making of a Marty – An Analysis of the Indictments of Donald Trump. We also stated that “it is entirely possible that the time Donald Trump spent in the White House, serving his country as the President of the United States, could be used against him in New York State Supreme Court.” Like Trump, Weinstein also spent many years outside the State of New York. “Prosecutors charged Weinstein with multiple crimes, including rape in the third degree for an alleged assault that occurred in March 2013. Weinstein was charged in May 2018, two months after the five-year statute of limitations on that offense would have expired. Weinstein challenged the charge, arguing it fell outside the statute of limitations and as a resident of New York state the extension wouldn’t apply to him. Prosecutors used records from ‘United States Customs and Border Control’ to show that Weinstein had been out of New York for 193 days during that five-year period– more than the 68 days needed to capture the earlier conduct. The judge rejected Weinstein’s argument and allowed the charge to stand.” Judge Wilson’s article concludes tomorrow Photo: Pixabay