Month: October 2019

Clashes between police and militant elements in a thousands-strong crowd of demonstrators transformed part of central Barcelona into a battleground late on Saturday as another day of pro-independence protests turned violent. 

Projectiles were fired, at least six people were hospitalized with injuries, and barricades were set alight after officers charged ranks of demonstrators — many young and masking their faces — who had amassed outside Spanish police headquarters. 

The violent standoff in the city’s tourist heartland offered stark evidence of the fault lines developing between hardline and conciliatory elements within the region’s independence movement. 

It lasted several hours before protesters dispersed through the city’s streets. 

Barcelona has witnessed daily pro-secession protests since Oct. 14. That was when Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced nine politicians and activists to up to 13 years in jail for their role in a failed independence bid in 2017, prompting widespread anger in the region and sending shockwaves through Spain’s political landscape. 

Saturday’s protest was not the first marred by violence, with unrest notably on Oct. 18 having been more widespread. But it contrasted starkly with events earlier in the day, when 350,000 Catalans had marched peacefully through the city in support of calls from civil rights groups for the jailed separatist leaders to be freed. 
 
Bottles, balls, bullets

The later protest was organized by CDR, a pro-independence pressure group that favors direct action and has cut off rail tracks and roads, as well as trying to storm the regional parliament. 

It began around 7:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) and as the crowd grew to around 10,000, according to police estimates, demonstrators threw a hail of bottles, balls and rubber bullets at officers, TV footage showed. 

Police carrying shields and weapons and backed by some 20 riot vans then charged the demonstrators in an attempt to disperse them, splitting the crowd in two along Via Laietana near the police headquarters. 

Reuters TV footage showed police armed with batons forcing their way through the crowd while demonstrators threw stones and flares. News channel 24h showed police grappling one-on-one with demonstrators, who fell back before reforming their lines. 

Some projectiles were fired, with a Reuters photographer among those hospitalized after being hit in the stomach by a rubber or foam bullet. Catalan emergency services said that, in all, six people were hospitalized. 

The organizers of the earlier protest, grass-roots groups Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Omnium Cultural, had hoped that, with pro-secessionist parties split over what strategy to adopt, it would refocus attention in the secessionist camp by 
drawing the largest crowd since the court verdicts were passed. 

“From the street we will keep defending all the [people’s] rights, but from the institutions we need political answers,” ANC leader Elisenda Paluzie told the gathering, pledging to organize more protests. 

Local police said around 350,000 attended, compared with a daily peak of 500,000 at the Oct. 18 protest and 600,000 at a march that took place on Catalonia’s national day last month. 

All those figures, however, represent only a small percentage of the region’s 7.5 million population, and its electorate is almost evenly split over the issue of independence. 

Mainstream Spanish parties, including the minority Socialist government, have consistently rejected moves toward Catalan independence and all except for the left-wing Podemos are opposed to any form of referendum. 

They are now gearing up for a national election on Nov. 10. 
 
‘Prison is not the answer’

Both ANC and Omnium Cultural eschew violence and their then-leaders were among the nine jailed on Oct 14. 

Many who joined their march carried Catalan pro-independence flags and banners bearing slogans that included: “Prison is not the answer,” “Sit and talk” and “Freedom for political prisoners.” 

In the front row was regional government head Quim Torra, who earlier presided over a ceremony at which hundreds of Catalan mayors endorsed a document demanding self-determination. 

“We have to be capable of creating a republic of free men and women … and overcoming the confrontational dynamic with a constructive one,” he told them. 

While not currently affiliated with any party, Torra belongs to the separatist political movement Junts per Catalunya. It has been in favor of maintaining confrontation with authorities in Madrid, while its leftist coalition partner Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya favors dialogue. 

One marcher, Maria Llopart, 63, criticized the lack of unity between the two parties. “Everything looks very bad. We are not advancing,” she said. 

Francesc Dot, 65, said the nine leaders had been jailed in defense of “Spain’s unity.” 

His wife, Maria Dolors Rustarazo, 63, said she should also be in prison because she voted in the 2017 referendum, which Spanish courts outlawed. “If [all separatist votes] … have to go to jail, we will go, but I don’t think we would all fit,” she said. 

She condemned the violence but had understanding for young protesters being “angry at the lack of democracy.” 

On Saturday they included Manel, a 20-year-old student with his face obscured by a cloth, who said he was among those who lit barricades during last week’s unrest. 

“We need a consistent protest — more streets and less parliamentary talk, because that doesn’t seem to work,” he said before the CDR protest turned violent. 

“If we halt the economy, the Spanish government would be obliged to talk.” 

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Democratic presidential candidates in South Carolina Saturday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of stoking racism as they vied for the state’s black vote in its strategically important early primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and five other Democrats participated in a forum at historically black Benedict College a day after Trump was presented an award there for his work on criminal justice, sparking outrage among candidates and temporarily prompting Senator Kamala Harris to pull out.

Harris, a former district attorney and state attorney general in California, spoke at the event Saturday after the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, which gave Trump the award, was removed as a sponsor, according to her campaign.

A spokeswoman for that nonprofit group, which continued to be involved in organizing the event throughout the day, did not respond to a request for comment.

“I said I would not come because I just couldn’t believe that Donald Trump would be given an award as it relates to criminal justice reform,” Harris told the audience.

“Let’s be clear: This is somebody who has disrespected the voices that have been present for decades about the need for reform,” she said, criticizing the president for describing an impeachment inquiry against him as a “lynching,” a form of vigilante killing historically associated with white supremacists.

Showcase for Democrats

The event is an important showcase for Democrats ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary, the party’s fourth state-nominating contest. Six in 10 Democratic voters in the state are black and Biden has a strong early lead in local political polls.

In receiving the award Friday, Trump extolled his record on race and criminal justice before a largely handpicked and appreciative audience. The award recognized Trump last year signing bipartisan legislation including easing harsh minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

Biden told the crowd on Saturday that “I don’t quite understand” why Trump would get the award. “It’s not just his words that have given rise to hate,” he said. “His actions — his actions have failed the African American community, and all communities.”

Trump hopes his support for a sweeping criminal justice reform law will help him pick up votes among African Americans next year after only winning 8% of the black vote in 2016. The president easily won South Carolina, where Republican voters outnumber Democrats 2-to-1, in 2016.

On Twitter, the president shot back at Harris, calling her a “badly failing presidential candidate” and said low unemployment and new criminal justice reforms achieved during his administration are “more than Kamala will EVER be able to do for African Americans!”

A spokeswoman for Trump’s presidential campaign, Sarah Matthews, added that “only people with desperately failing campaigns try to make this kind of racist nonsense against the President and Republicans work.”

Biden and Warren

Ten Democrats seeking the presidential nomination are speaking at events in South Carolina this weekend and presenting plans on legalizing marijuana, ending the death penalty and eliminating sentencing disparities for offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine, which have disproportionately affected black people.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is scheduled to speak on the final day of the criminal justice event Sunday along with two other Democrats.

In South Carolina, Democrats are working to chip away at a Biden’s early advantage. Bolstered by the eight years he served as vice president to Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, Biden has deep connections with black politicians and clergy.

Biden leads his closest rival in South Carolina, Warren, by nearly 20 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. The state may end up being crucial for the former vice president as a last line of defense if he continues to lose ground to rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire.

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President Donald Trump’s plan to attend Game 5 of the World Series Sunday will continue a rich tradition of intertwining the American presidency with America’s pastime.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s limousine drove onto to the field ahead of the 1933 World Series, the last time the nation’s capital hosted the Fall Classic. Congressional hearings on the stock market collapse were postponed so senators could attend the game.

Harry S. Truman tossed out a first pitch from the stands of a regular season game in August 1945, just days after the end of World War II, giving Americans a sense that normalcy was returning after years of global conflict.

George W. Bush wore a bulletproof vest under his jacket when he threw a perfect strike from the Yankee Stadium mound during the 2001 World Series, not 10 miles from where the World Trade Center was attacked a month earlier.

Trump, who has yet to throw out a ceremonial first pitch since taking office, plans to arrive after the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros are underway and leave before the final out, in hopes of making his visit less disruptive to fans, according to Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner.

Deep ties to baseball 

While it will be Trump’s first time attending a major league game as president, he has deep ties to the sport.

A longtime New York Yankees fan who was spotted regularly at games in the Bronx, he was also a high school player with enough talent that, he has said, he drew the attention of big league scouts.

Presidential attendance at baseball games has “become an institution and a unifying influence in a nation that is losing both,” said Curt Smith, a former Bush speechwriter and author of “The Presidents and the Pastime.”

“It is part of the job description, whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative. Bush found it a joy, he understood the symbolism of the moment. And he was the rule, not the exception,” Smith said.

Trump mentioned his World Series plan to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. But when asked whether he might throw out the first pitch, he said, “I don’t know. They’re going to have to dress me up in a lot of heavy armor,” apparently referring to a bulletproof vest. “I’ll look too heavy. I don’t like that.”

First pitch honor goes to Andres

But the Nationals, who decide on ceremonial first pitches, made clear that the president was not asked to take the mound. That honor instead will go to a notable Trump critic, celebrity chef Jose Andres, whose humanitarian work has been widely acclaimed.

Andres, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Spain, has been a longtime critic of the president’s views on immigrants and he halted plans to open a restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The Trump Organization then sued Andres, who also denounced the administration for failing to do enough to help the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

There’s some suspense around how Trump might be greeted at the game.

Though the fans at the high-priced event are likely to skew more corporate than at a regular season Nationals contest, Trump is extremely unpopular in the city he now calls home. In the 2016 election, Trump won 4% of the vote from the District of Columbia.

Trump’s White House staff has long tried to shield him from events where he might be loudly booed or heckled, and he rarely ventures out into the heavily Democratic city. (With the exception of his hotel, a Republican-friendly oasis a few blocks from the White House.)

‘Every president gets booed’

“It’ll be loud for Trump but every president gets booed: both Bushes, Reagan, Nixon. When Americans pay for their ticket, most of them buy into the great American tradition to boo whomever they want,” Smith said. “He should embrace it: So what if the elites boo you? Think of how it plays with your voters elsewhere in the country, thinking ‘There they go again, booing our guy.’ Use it!”

Trump has long been a baseball fan, especially of his hometown Yankees. Before he became president, he would be spotted at games, sometimes along the first-base line with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Trump was also memorably photographed behind home plate across town in the moments after the final outs of the 2006 NLCS when the New York Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Trump played high school baseball at New York Military Academy, where he was a star first baseman. His coach, Col. Ted Dobias, told Rolling Stone in 2015 that Trump “thought he was Mr. America and the world revolved around him.”

“He was good-hit and good-field,” Dobias said. “We had scouts from the Phillies to watch him, but he wanted to go to college and make real money.”

Phillies spokesman Greg Casterioto said Friday that the team’s scouting records do not go back that far and there is no way to verify that claim. But Trump, when honoring the 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox at the White House in May, fondly remembered his time playing the sport.

“I played at a slightly different level,” Trump said, “but every spring I loved it. The smell in the air.”

Relationship with pro sports

That event also underscored Trump’s tumultuous relationship with professional sports. Several Red Sox stars, including Mookie Betts, and the team’s manager, Alex Cora, declined to attend the White House ceremony. Trump has disinvited other championship teams, including the Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia Eagles, from attending after some of their players criticized him.

Trump is, so far, the only president since William Howard Taft in 1910 not to have thrown a first pitch at a major league game. The first president known to attend a game was Benjamin Harrison in 1892. Calvin Coolidge, nearly a decade before Roosevelt, was the only other president to attend a World Series game in Washington.

Trump will sit with league officials and likely watch from a luxury box, behind security and away from much of the crowd. That would be very different from some of his predecessors, including John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who sat by the field for their ceremonial duties.

“In the old days, they would throw from the presidential box,” said baseball historian Fred Frommer, who has written several baseball books, including a pair of histories about Washington baseball. “Players from both teams would line up on the first base line and would fight for it, like a mosh bit. And whoever emerged with it would take it to the president for a signature.”

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Hyperinflation and the continuing economic and political crisis in Venezuela is driving more Venezuelans to travel to the Colombian border to buy food and other supplies. Even though the government has raised the minimum wage, it is still not nearly enough and most Venezuelans continue to struggle. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
 

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House Republicans have intensified their dissent against an impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Donald Trump, protesting that the House Intelligence Committee is questioning witnesses in hearings closed to the public and other lawmakers. The protest is part of Republicans’ strategy of attacking the process by which House Democrats probe allegations Trump sought foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Capitol Hill.
 

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Torrential rain that caused flooding and mudslides in towns east of Tokyo left at least nine people dead and added fresh damage in areas still recovering from recent typhoons, officials said Saturday.

Rescue workers were looking for one person still missing in Chiba. Another person was unaccounted for in Fukushima, farther north, which is still reeling from damage caused by Typhoon Hagibis earlier this month.

The death toll included eight people in Chiba and one in Fukushima.

Chiba inundated

While rains and floodwater subsided, parts of Chiba were still inundated. About 4,700 homes were out of running water and some train services delayed or suspended.

In the Midori district in Chiba, mudslides crushed three houses, killing three people who were buried underneath them. Another mudslide hit a house in nearby Ichihara city, killing a woman. In Narata and Chonan towns, three drivers drowned when their vehicles were submerged.

“There was enormous noise and impact, ‘boom’ like an earthquake, so I went outside. Then look what happened. I was terrified,” said a resident who lived near the crushed home in Midori. “Rain was even more intense than the typhoons.”

In Fukushima, a woman was found dead in a park in Soma city after a report that a car was washed away. A passenger is still missing.

Rain also washed out Friday’s second round of the PGA Tour’s first tournament held in Japan, the Zozo Championship in Inzai city.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an emergency task force meeting Saturday morning and called for “the utmost effort in rescue and relief operations.” He also urged quick repairs of electricity, water and other essential services to help restore the lives of the disaster-hit residents.

Month’s worth of rain in half a day

The Prime Minister’s Office said the average rainfall for the entire month had fallen in just half a day Friday.

The downpour came from a low-pressure system above Japan’s main island of Honshu that moved northward later Friday. Power was restored Saturday at most of the 6,000 Chiba households that had lost electricity.

Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis caused widespread flooding and left more than 80 people dead or presumed dead across Japan.

Yoshiki Takeuchi, an office worker who lives in a riverside house in Chiba’s Sodegaura city, said he had just finished temporary repairs to his roof after tiles were blown off by the September typhoon when Friday’s rains hit hard.

“I wasn’t ready for another disaster like this. I’ve had enough of this, and I need a break,” he told Kyodo News.

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North Korea has proposed that Seoul discuss the removal of its facilities from the North’s resort of Mount Kumgang, a key symbol of cooperation that Pyongyang recently criticized as “shabby” and “capitalist,” the South’s officials said on Friday.

In the latest sign of the neighbors’ cooling ties, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged that the South’s “backward” and “hotchpotch” facilities at the infrequently used resort be taken down and rebuilt, the North’s KCNA news agency has said.

On Friday, North Korea sent notices to the South’s Unification Ministry, which handles issues between the two sides, and Hyundai Group, whose affiliate Hyundai Asan Corp built resort facilities, asking for the demolition and seeking discussion through the exchange of documents, the ministry said.

“The government will prepare a creative solution to the Mt. Kumgang tourism project” by protecting the property rights of South Korean people while considering the international situation, inter-Korean agreements and domestic consensus, Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said in a briefing.

Any withdrawal of South Korean relics from the scenic resort would be another setback for President Moon Jae-in’s campaign to end confrontation between the old foes, including efforts to resume stalled business initiatives.

“The North asking the South to discuss the issue ‘in writing’ means they don’t even want to talk about other things,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.

Mt. Kumgang is on North Korea’s eastern coast, just beyond the demilitarized zone separating the two countries. It was one of two major inter-Korean economic projects, along with the Kaesong industrial zone, and an important token of rapprochement during decades of hostilities following the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim, on a visit to a nearby province, hailed a new tourist resort being built there as a striking contrast to Mt. Kumgang’s “architecture of capitalist businesses targeting profit-making from roughly built buildings,” KCNA said.

However, the South’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said he did not see the North’s proposal as a bid to exclude the South, because Kim Jong Un had said he would welcome South Koreans if it was properly rebuilt, the Yonhap news agency said.

Tourism has become increasingly key to Kim’s policy of “self-reliant” economic growth, as it is not directly subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear programs, though they ban the transfer of bulk cash to Pyongyang.

There have been no South Korean tours to Mt. Kumgang since 2008, although there have been infrequent events such as the reunions of families from both sides separated by the war.

Kim has called for Mt. Kumgang to be refurbished in “our own style” alongside other tourist zones, such as the Wonsan-Kalma coastal area and the Masikryong ski resort.

The Wonsan beach resort, one of Kim’s pet projects, is seen nearing completion by early 2020 after “remarkable construction progress” since April, 38 North, a U.S.-based project that studies North Korea, said in a report, citing satellite imagery.

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At least two demonstrators were killed in renewed anti-government rallies in the Iraqi capital on Friday, officials said, as security forces unleashed tear gas to push back thousands from Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.

The protests were the second phase of a week-long movement in early October demanding an end to widespread corruption, unemployment and an overhaul of the political system.

Activists called Iraqis to go out on the streets again on Friday, which marks a year since Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi came to power. It is also a deadline set by the country’s top Shiite authority for him to enact desired reforms.

But the rallies began early, with hundreds gathering in the capital’s iconic Tahrir (Liberation) Square on Thursday evening.

On Friday, many crossed the bridge to mass near the Green Zone, which hosts government offices and foreign embassies, but security forces used a volley of tear gas to push them back.

“Two demonstrators died, with preliminary information indicating they were hit in the head or face by tear gas canisters,” said Ali Bayati, a member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission.

He said nearly 100 more people were wounded.

There were no reports of live fire being used to disperse protesters.

‘We want dignity!’

“We’re not hungry — we want dignity!” a protester shouted in Baghdad on Friday morning, while another lashed out at “the so-called representatives of the people who have monopolised all the resources”.

One in five people lives in poverty in Iraq and youth unemployment sits around 25 percent, according to the World Bank.

The rates are staggering for OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, which Transparency International ranks as the 12th most corrupt state in the world.

“I want my share of the oil!” another protester told AFP.

Rallies were also rocking the southern cities of Diwaniyah, Najaf and Nasiriyah, where demonstrators said they would remain in the streets “until the regime falls”.

Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has backed reforms, urged protesters Friday during his weekly sermon to use “restraint” to stop the demos descending into “chaos”.

But the real test will be the afternoon, when many are expecting supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr — an influential cleric who controls the largest parliamentary bloc — to hit the streets.

His supporters have breached the Green Zone in previous years. This week, he called on his supporters to protest and even instructed members of his own paramilitary force to be on “high alert.”

They could be seen in parts of Baghdad on Friday in a clear show of force.   

PM snipes at Sadr

The movement is unprecedented in recent Iraqi history both because of its spontaneity and independence, and because of the brutal violence with which a torrent of protests on October 1-6 was met.

At least 157 people were killed, according to a government probe published on Tuesday, which acknowledged that “excessive force” was used.

A vast majority of them were protesters in Baghdad, with 70 percent shot in the head or chest.

In response, Abdel Mahdi issued a laundry list of measures meant to ease public anger, including hiring drives and higher pensions for the families of protesters who died.

The beleaguered premier defended his reform agenda in a scheduled televised appearance early Friday, telling watchers it was their “right” to demonstrate as long as they did not “disturb public life”.

But he also said political figures demanding “reform” had themselves failed to enact it, in an apparent reference to Sadr’s “Alliance towards Reform” bloc.

Some have backed the government, including the powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force whose political branch is the second-largest parliamentary bloc.

And Iraq’s mostly-Kurdish north and Sunni west have stayed out of the protests.

Iraq has been ravaged by decades of conflict that finally calmed in 2017 with a declared victory over the Islamic State group.

Thus began a period of relative calm, with security forces lifting checkpoints and concrete blast walls and traffic choking city streets at hours once thought too dangerous.

Restrictions had even softened around the Green Zone but were reinstated as the October demonstrations picked up in Tahrir, which lies just across the Tigris River.

Authorities also imposed an internet blackout, which has been mostly lifted although social media remains blocked.

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From making so-called side deals with Ukraine to pulling U.S. forces from northeastern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has gone his own way when it comes to conducting U.S. foreign policy. But the Syria decision has sparked widespread opposition in Washington and in the case of Ukraine, critics say Trump sidestepped career U.S. diplomats to further his own interests against a potential election rival. 

Despite criticism, U.S. President Donald Trump is standing by his decision to move U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, where they fought alongside longtime Kurdish allies.
 
“They stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand,” Trump said.

This, as the top U.S. official to Syria appeared to distance himself from Trump’s decision.
 
“Were you consulted about the withdrawal of troops as was recently done?” Senator Bob Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked James Jeffrey, the U.S. Special Representative for Syria.

“I personally was not consulted,” Jeffrey said.

Trump to Lift Turkey Sanctions

US president says he made decision after Ankara informed him that its ceasefire in an offensive against Kurds in northeastern Syria will be permanent

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, other diplomats testified about the Trump administration’s delay providing approved U.S military assistance to Ukraine.  

A written statement by one described how the White House bypassed normal diplomatic channels to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats and the Bidens in return for military aid.    

White House Admits Quid Pro Quo Between Trump and Ukraine

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says Trump froze aid to Ukraine to pressure it to investigate Democrats and the 2016 presidential election

Democratic lawmakers have denounced this.

“The idea that vital military assistance would be withheld for such a patently political reason, for the reason of serving the president’s re-election campaign is a phenomenal breach of the president’s duty to defend our national security,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Trump’s actions on Ukraine could threaten his presidency as the impeachment inquiry continues.  
 
“We have agencies, we have tasked areas along government, whose job it is to investigate those. And if President Trump wanted the Bidens investigated for their activities there, it should have been done through the diplomatic channels,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien of the University of Texas at Austin.

Those normal diplomatic channels have set the United States apart from countries whose policies are set by autocratic leaders, says terrorism expert Mike Newton.  
 
“The checks and balances, where agencies push back against each other, and really experienced, smart policy makers wrestle with choices and consequences and diplomatic fallout and maybe military best practices,” Newton said.
 

House Speaker Pelosi Opens Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Move has potential to reshape current presidency and further divide the nation just a year before Donald Trump plans to stand for re-election

When this process is bypassed, experts say, U.S. credibility around the world is damaged.
 
“If there are doubts about the President’s decisions which there are in the State Department and the Pentagon, and the intelligence community as well as in the Congress, there’s real questions about cohesiveness of U.S. foreign policy and whether we have a real strategy,” said Mark Simakovsky of the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank.
 
Donald Trump was elected on promises to break with traditional U.S. foreign policy, and his supporters show no sign of abandoning him.

But the impeachment inquiry and outcry over his Syria policy show there are limits to his approach.  
 

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