World reacts to Trump Twitter diplomacy

World Today

FILE – In this Dec. 24, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump turns to talk to the gathered media during a Christmas Eve video teleconference with members of the military at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump has stormed into 2018 in an exceptionally aggressive mood, picking fresh fights with Pakistan and the Palestinians, and touting the size of his “nuclear button” in a threat to North Korea. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Twenty-four hours of critique by tweet — on foreign policy in Iran, on Palestinians, in Pakistan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Each one — authored by U.S. President Donald Trump.

CGTN’s Jessica Stone reports.

On the DPRK — a retaliatory taunt from Trump to Kim Jong Un and his New Year’s Day boast about having a ‘nuclear button.’ — “I too have a Nuclear Button,” tweeted Trump Tuesday evening, “but it is a much bigger & more powerful one…”

Seoul had no immediate response.

But when Iran’s foreign minister saw Trump tweeting his support for protests that began last week, he took to Twitter too. Referring to foreign influence on the demonstrations, Javad Zarif tweeted: “…infiltrators will not be allowed to sabotage them through violence and destruction.”

 

Trump’s tirade continued with a thread threatening to pull foreign aid from Palestinians, saying: “With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

And he doubled down on his vow to pull further aid from Pakistan – a country he said, the U.S. “pays billions of dollars to for nothing.”

Reaction was swift from high-level voices.

“We should not be given taunts of aid,” said Pakistani Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “The Coalition Support Fund should not be given the name of ‘aid’ or ‘donations’. We do not need such fund.”

“I would say that Palestinian rights are not for sale and we will not succumb to blackmail,” Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO Executive Committee member said. “There are imperatives and requirements for peace and unilaterally President Trump has destroyed them.”

Asked if the American president’s tweets could cost the U.S. peace, his spokesperson said when it comes to his thoughts on the DPRK leader’s nuclear ambitions:

“I think the president is concerned about continued threats that he’s made towards the Us and others. And he won’t’ allow that without standing up for the American people and the country,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary said.

On the heels of Trump’s twitter tirade — another battle with his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. In a new book coming out next week Bannon is quoted as calling Trump family members “treasonous” for meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election. Trump responded with a statement saying Bannon not only lost his job when he was fired over the summer, but lost his mind.