Most of the things that Donald Trump says about domestic policy are nothing more than conservative mythology that’s become hard-baked into the alt-right. So it shouldn’t be surprising that much of what he said about foreign affairs in the first debate had more to do with beliefs circulating around Breitbart than anything that’s happening in the real world. Trump’s version of world events is based on a fantasyland composed of half-heard rumors and deeply-held conspiracy theories.
And it makes less sense than talking animals.
There is no diacritic available to adequately evoke the hate-bite Trump puts into the name “China.” But there are plenty of facts to show how he’s wrong when talking about them. For example ...
It’s true enough that for a long time, China was criticized for keeping the value of the yuan artificially low. However …
Mexico
Trump never managed to wax lyrical about the joys of walls Monday night, or reassure his minions that “Mexico will pay for it.” But he managed to get things wrong about Mexico, even sin la barrera.
When you look at what's happening in Mexico …
So Ford is leaving. You see that, their small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio. They're all leaving.
Ford is in fact moving small car production to a plant in Mexico. And it’s taking … exactly no jobs.
Ford is moving its manufacturing of many smaller cars to Mexico, but has said that the move will not result in job losses in the United States.
The same plants building small cars today will still be there, still with the same employees. Those plants are just going to build larger cars. Hardly the tragedy Trump laid out.
Russia
As is becoming the pattern, Trump went out of his way to defend Russia when it came to the subject of the DNC hacks.
I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't -- maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?
As amusing as it is, that’s not the case. Multiple government agencies have identified Russian agents associated with the government as the source of the hacks. Friends of yours, Donald?
Middle East
Hillary Clinton is 68 years old. I say this only because …
TRUMP: See, you're telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you've been fighting -- no wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.
Telling the enemy everything you’re going to do, in Trump speak, is actually following through on the specified dates and activities laid out in a mutually agreed upon treaty. U.S. troops left Iraq as per a treaty negotiated under George W. Bush, which the Iraqis had no interest in re-opening. Meanwhile, ISIS has been around only two years, or six if you’re willing to stretch it. Hillary looked good on the stage, but I don’t think she’ll pass for 24.
Trump also suggested that leaving as few as 10,000 troops in Iraq would have prevented the creation of ISIS. Which makes no sense. Iraq has about the same area as California. Does Donald Trump believe that 10,000 men could adequately control an area that large? There are more people than that in the California Highway Patrol, and that’s in addition to all the city and county law enforcement in the state.
Still, Trump’s worst foreign policy suggestion was also directed at Iraq.
Or, as I've been saying for a long time, and I think you'll agree, because I said it to you once, had we taken the oil -- and we should have taken the oil -- ISIS would not have been able to form either, because the oil was their primary source of income. And now they have the oil all over the place, including the oil -- a lot of the oil in Libya, which was another one of her disasters.
What does it mean to “take the oil”? Oil has to be pumped out of the ground. It has to be transported. That doesn’t happen overnight. “Take the oil” is the same thing as “never, ever leave.”
And there’s another minor problem.
It is an assertion that he made a few weeks ago, and one that was roundly criticized at the time. Seizing Iraq’s oil — or the resources of any country — is illegal under international law, and doing so would have likely prompted condemnation from around the world. In purely practical terms, seizing Iraq’s oil would have required tens of thousands of American troops to protect Iraq’s oil infrastructure, which is spread out across the country and largely above ground. It also is probably safe to assume that Iraqis themselves would have objected to their country’s main source of wealth being used to enrich another country.
But that’s okay, because Trump likes old school war for conquest, and not this politically correct kind of war.
Trump also had some spittle left for Iran.
And when they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places.
And when asked to Secretary Kerry, why didn't you do that? Why didn't you add other things into the deal? One of the great giveaways of all time, of all time, including $400 million in cash. Nobody's ever seen that before. That turned out to be wrong. It was actually $1.7 billion in cash, obviously, I guess for the hostages. It certainly looks that way.
Hoo boy. First off, and this may be a surprise to Trump, just because North Korea and Iran are on the bad guys list, it doesn’t mean their leaders sit around a table somewhere stroking cats. They are not SMERSH. The payment to Iran was their money. They had a deal to buy U.S. weapons right before the Shah got the boot, and we never paid back the money. But we had agreed to do so, and we did. It had nothing to do with hostages.
The Nuclear
Don’t ever say that Donald Trump can’t hold two opposing thoughts in his mind at the same time. He apparently believes that nuclear weapons pop up like mushrooms.
This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history. The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems. All they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don't have to do much.
Just sit there and poof, nuclear problems. But for the U.S., magical weapons don’t appear.
Well, I have to say that, you know, for what Secretary Clinton was saying about nuclear with Russia, she's very cavalier in the way she talks about various countries. But Russia has been expanding their -- they have a much newer capability than we do. We have not been updating from the new standpoint.
I know this will surprise you. But Donald Trump is … wrong.
Mr. Trump is wrong.
I just said that.
The United States has a major nuclear modernization program underway, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars.
Thank you.
It was also clear that Donald Trump still doesn’t know how NATO works. Doesn’t understand how treaties are made. Doesn’t have any sense of keeping commitments to allies. And it’s not clear if he understands the term “first strike.”
Overall, Trump’s performance is sure to be edited and used in the sale of fallout shelters all over the planet. Maybe he can get a naming rights deal.