President-elect Donald Trump and Putin spoke Monday to discuss future efforts to improve the U.S. However, one of the leading candidates for the position of secretary of state in a Trump administration, John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, has spent the past few years arguing for a much tougher USA position towards Russian expansionism in Ukraine and Syria.
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THE front-runners to become Donald Trump’s secretary of state have advocated shows of military strength toward Russian Federation, even as Vladimir Putin launched an offensive across Syria hours after his first conversation with the president-elect.
McCain said President Barack Obama’s attempts to cool tensions between the USA and Russian Federation had enabled the nation to exert more power in Syria and provide key support to embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
President Duterte, who has been condemned for his foul language and the drugs crackdown, gave upbeat remarks about Mr Trump and Mr Putin in a news conference in Manila late on Tuesday.
“Vladimir Putin has rejoined Bashar Assad in his barbaric war against the Syrian people with the resumption of large-scale Russian air and missile strikes in Idlib and Homs”, McCain said.
And I think what we’re asking for is some vetting, a vetting process that allows people to understand what the background of those people are. A statement from Trump’s transition team said Putin offered congratulations on winning “a historic election”.
Meanwhile, Chinese state-run media lauded Trump yesterday after a phone call between him and President Xi Jinping, saying that the president-elect’s emergence could mark a “reshaping” of Sino-American relations. Trump’s office said the president-elect is “very much looking forward to having a strong and enduring relationship with Russian Federation”.
McCain isn’t the only senator with deep reservations about a “reset” on relations with Russia. Sen.
Obama said he had cautioned Trump that the skills that got him elected may be different from those needed to unify the country and to gain the trust of those who didn’t support him.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for secretary of state, took a different approach than McCain in his signaling about Putin.
Russia’s meddling in the US presidential campaign was unprecedented in American history. He said he thought it would be hard to pass a bill before the current Congress wraps up next month, but that he hoped to lay the groundwork for future action. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday, adding that it would be up to Congress to let Russian Federation “know the rules of the road pretty early”, even under a friendlier Trump administration.
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McCain said the US should continue to question Putin’s intentions given his history.
