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Trump’s Talk Could Mean War

Chinese President Xi Jinping has made reunification with Taiwan a priority. And what US President Donald Trump would say or do if Xi decided to assert the People's Republic's sovereignty by force is anyone’s guess.

NEW YORK – Even some of Donald Trump’s Republican supporters in the Senate did not doubt that the US president extorted a vulnerable ally to help him get re-elected in November by smearing a political rival. To be sure, they avoided using the word extortion. But, as Lamar Alexander, a senator from Tennessee, put it in a carefully worded statement: “It was inappropriate for the President to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation.”

And yet, the Senate’s Republican majority chose to acquit Trump. The message, warned Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic Representative from New York, was that national security is for sale.

Trump’s acquittal will further dent people’s remaining confidence in how US foreign policy is conducted, but it won’t change many minds about the president himself. His reputation among autocrats and right-wing populists remains high. Among liberals, let alone “progressives,” his name remains mud.

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