Trump Abandons Numerous Campaign Pledges

After getting out to a promising start in which the US President Donald Trump seemed serious about fulfilling campaign pledges, every day now seems to bring another broken campaign pledge from the White House. These broken promises are not limited to just the u-turn on Syria or Trump’s refusal to label China a currency manipulator.

The Washington Post reports:

President Trump is abandoning a number of his key campaign promises on economic policy, adopting instead many of the centrist positions he railed against while campaigning as a populist.

Trump will not label China a “currency manipulator,” he told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, despite a campaign pledge that he would apply the label on his first day in office. He also said he was open to reappointing Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet L. Yellen after saying last year that the central banker should be “ashamed” of what she was doing to the country.

And he embraced the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that he mocked last year and that has long been despised by conservatives who labeled it crony capitalism.

The article then speaks of Trump’s betrayal on Syria and his abandonment of isolationism and an America First foreign policy.

Trump has also sharpened his criticism of Russia, a major break from the praise he lavished on Russian President Vladimir Putin during the campaign.

Also on Wednesday, Trump praised the work of NATO, a pact between the United States and some of its closest allies that Trump once called “obsolete.”

“It was once obsolete; it is no longer obsolete,” he said Wednesday after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Trump’s changes are catching lawmakers, business executives, supporters, critics and even markets off guard. The U.S. dollar slumped and Treasury bond yields fell after the Wall Street Journal quoted Trump saying the dollar was too strong.

The rapid shuffle of priorities comes as he adopts a growing number of centrist policies, many of which the Obama administration tried to advance amid heated GOP opposition for years.

CNN reports on “Trump’s stunning u-turns on NATO, China, Russia and Syria”:

It was almost as if Donald Trump’s outsider presidential campaign never happened Wednesday as he rushed to embrace establishment political and national security positions he once publicly abhorred.

Within a few hours of extraordinary political shape-shifting, Trump abandoned stances that were at the bedrock of his establishment-bashing campaign. NATO, he said, is “no longer obsolete.” And he backed down a threat to brand China a currency manipulator.

The article then discusses his reversal of position on Syria, China and Federal Reserve Chairman (((Janet Yellen))).

It was not clear whether Trump’s sudden policy flips were the product of a new outlook and worldview. But previous presidents have often remarked that the world looks a lot different from the Oval Office than from a campaign rally.

It may not be a coincidence that Trump’s adoption of conventional political positions came the day after a stunning interview with the New York Post in which he publicly criticized his political guru Stephen Bannon, his insurgent, populist political conscience.

CNN notes that Trump has not yet abandoned his campaign pledge on immigration. But one has to wonder, given the mounting heap of broken pledges, if that is next.

This administration increasingly looks like a disaster. Trump appears to be the ultimate con.