President Trump returns to the U. S. late Saturday. Here’s a look at key moments and key issues during his weeklong trip overseas to the Middle East and Europe.
President Trump has had, according to the White House, a successful maiden trip outside the U. S. But the bad news is he has to come home. Back in Washington, await him along with. So, before Air Force One is wheels down at Andrews Air Force Base late Saturday, here are 5 takeaways from Trump’s first foreign trip since becoming president. In Trump’s speech at the NATO summit in Brussels, he the “the commitments that bind us together as one, “: an explicit endorsement of Article 5, which says that when invoked, NATO allies must aid a fellow ally under attack. This “an attack on one is an attack on all” pledge has only been invoked once in NATO’s history — for the United States after the September 11 attacks. Instead, the president used his speech to publicly scold the 23 out of 28 NATO countries that are not living up to their commitment to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. He described NATO as a kind of protection racket where the NATO allies pay the U. S. to defend them and even suggested NATO members are in arrears and owe the U. S. past dues. On the substance of this issue, . Past U. S. presidents have also complained about NATO “free riders.” But by humiliating NATO leaders in public Trump may add to the growing backlash against him in Europe, making it harder for NATO leaders, who have to answer to their own voters, to give in to his demands. By Saturday morning, that the NATO partners had given him a big win on this issue and that the money was beginning to roll in. Maybe that will make him more disposed to his European partners as to stay in the Paris Climate Accord. He —, on behalf of U. S., join the rest of the G7 in reaffirming a commitment to implement the Paris agreement. The biggest idea of Trump’s trip was to reorient U. S. foreign policy in the Middle East against Iran. Where President Obama tried to encourage Iran to reform through the Iran nuclear agreement, President Trump sees a new alliance of Sunni Arab states and Israel, united against their common enemy Iran, as the key to curtailing terrorism and to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Details of exactly how this “outside in” approach would work are TBD but if it succeeds it would be a real foreign policy triumph for Trump. Trump seemed to have a much better time in Riyadh than Brussels. No, he didn’t repeat his description of the Belgian capital as a “hellhole, ” but the contrast between Trump’s warm embrace of Saudi autocrats and his awkward interaction with the democratically elected European leaders was hard to miss. Every presidential trip abroad has its share of weird photo-ops. But the image of a smiling Trump communing with a couple Middle Eastern dictators as they was hard to beat. Other odd moments from this trip include the “grip and grit your teeth”, the and video of, the prime minister of Montenegro, as the NATO leaders got ready for their class photo. When Pope Francis met the president and first lady, “What do you give him to eat? Potica?” that’s sweet and, apparently, very fattening. Was the pope just trying to make small talk, by bringing up delicacies from Melania’s homeland? Or was he actually referring to the president’s weight?

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© Source: http://www.npr.org/2017/05/27/530297900/5-takeaways-from-trumps-first-foreign-trip-as-president?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
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Along an insurgent-riddled Iraqi national highway, the United States wants new rest areas and cafes — and brokered a long security contract to shield them.
BAGHDAD — The highway from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, cuts through the insurgent badlands of the western Iraqi desert, and these days any truck driver risks confrontation with roving bands of gunmen.
In the future, though, the United States envisions the road as something like the New Jersey Turnpike, with service stations, rest areas, cafes and tollbooths.
As part of an American effort to promote economic development in Iraq and secure influence in the country after the fight against the Islamic State subsides, the American government has helped broker a deal between Iraq and Olive Group, a private security company, to establish and secure the country’s first toll highway.
This being Iraq, though, the project has quickly been caught up in geopolitics, sectarianism and tensions between the United States and Iran, which seems determined to sabotage the highway project as an unacceptable projection of American influence right on its doorstep.
Already, Iraqi militia leaders linked to Iran, whose statements are seen as reflective of the views of Tehran, have pledged to resume attacks against American forces if the Trump administration decides to leave troops behind to train the Iraqi military and mount counterterrorism missions, as appears likely. And the militia leaders have specifically singled out the highway project for criticism.
At the center of the tensions is Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has promoted the highway deal and positioned himself closer to the United States at a time when Iran’s influence has become more prominent in Iraq.
A prominent Shiite leader and former lawmaker here, Izzat Shahbander, has become a leading voice of opposition to the highway project. Asserting that the Iranian-backed militias here are more powerful than the Iraqi Army, Mr. Shahbander said he believed Iran could ultimately seek to remove Mr. Abadi from power should the project be finalized.
For American diplomats in Iraq, the deal is seen as serving two purposes. One would be promoting economic development in Anbar Province, a vast Sunni-dominated area whose citizens have felt marginalized by the Shiite-led central government and where Iran’s militias currently operate. Another would be pushing back on the influence of Shiite Iran, whose growing power in Iraq has alarmed important Sunni allies of the United States like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Mr. Abadi has awarded the development project to Olive Group, although the final details are still being worked out. The project would include repairing bridges in western Anbar Province; refurbishing the road, known as Highway 1; and building service stations, rest areas and roadside cafes. It would also include mobile security by private contractors for convoys traveling the highway.
In a recent speech, Mr. Abadi denounced the “mafias” that operate on the road, a reference to militias and insurgent groups that currently terrorize drivers and extract bribes for safe passage.
“This is an investment. It’s about rehabilitating the road, ” Mr. Abadi said. “Neither the central government nor the local government will pay anything. We will get profits instead.”
The deal would last for 25 years and is known as a concession agreement, meaning the Iraqi government would put no cash upfront. The multimillion-dollar investment by Olive Group, in theory, would be recouped by tolls, a cut of which would also go to the Iraqi government.
And there is talk of eventually setting up three other toll highways in Iraq that would also be managed by American companies: from the Saudi Arabia border, through Karbala to Baghdad; from the port city of Basra to Baghdad; and from the Syrian border to Baghdad.
Filtered through the prism of Iraq’s many media outlets that are linked to militias supported by Iran, the highway deal has become seen here as a conspiracy by the United States and Israel to occupy the country. One report claimed that the American security company involved in the highway “belongs to the Zionist Mossad.” A statement from one powerful militia invoked the Sykes-Picot accord, the World War I-era deal by colonial powers to divide the Middle East, as it called the highway a plot by the United States to divide Iraq.
Playing on painful memories and fears of Iraqis, news outlets have also run false reports that Blackwater — the private security firm that acted with impunity in the early days of the American occupation and gunned down innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 — had taken on the project.
“The politics of this country are challenging, ” said Christian Ronnow, executive vice president of Constellis, the parent company of Olive Group, a private security firm that has worked for years in Iraq.
Mr. Ronnow added, “We hope the Iraqi people and the Jordanian people will see this for what it is — an economic lifeline.”
In prosperous and safe times, the highway from Baghdad to Amman was an important conduit of commerce — with close to 1,500 trucks moving back and forth each day, accounting for about $1 billion in trade per month, Mr. Ronnow said. In dangerous times, as these recent years have been, the official border crossing with Jordan has been closed, even though truckers have continued to use the road, taking their lives into their own hands.
While the major cities in western Anbar Province, like Ramadi and Falluja, have been freed from the Islamic State, the surrounding deserts to the west on the way to Jordan and Syria remain dangerous and ungoverned spaces, where Islamic State militants are still able to move freely.
The project is expected to bring thousands of jobs in construction and security to beleaguered Anbar, and tribal leaders have lined up to support it.
“We are very happy with this project, ” said Sheikh Ahmed Taha Alwan, an important tribal leader in Anbar. “There is big hope that this project will benefit the province in two important ways, security and economically.”

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© Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/world/middleeast/iraqi-toll-road-national-highway-iran.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
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