Trump threatens to dump thousands of ISIS fighters into Europe

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to dump thousands of Islamic State prisoners in Europe if the countries they originated from refused to take them back in.

Speaking with reporters at the White House, Trump specifically mentioned France and Germany as two countries where its citizens who pledged their loyalty to the Islamic State, the terrorist group also known as ISIS, could be dropped off.

“We’re holding thousands of ISIS fighters right now, and Europe has to take them,” Trump said. “If Europe doesn’t take them, I’ll have no choice but to release them into the countries from which they came, which is Germany and France and other places.”

Trump’s suggestion for the US to release the prisoners comes amid plans to reduce its 2,000 troops in Syria, stoking fears of a rekindling of the jihadist movement throughout the country and beyond and ultimately hurting the global fight against ISIS.

This leaves a precarious situation for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Kurdish group that relies on the presence of US personnel – and has the responsibility of holding thousands of prisoners in makeshift facilities.

The SDF is detaining the lion’s share of ISIS fighters. The SDF had detained 9,000 militants in Syria by April, according to US military officials. The military also estimated that 1,000 of them hailed from 50 countries.

A recent inspector general’s report from the international task force battling ISIS noted that the reduction in US forces reduced the task force’s ability to maintain “visibility” at a refugee camp, which “created conditions that allow ISIS ideology to spread ‘uncontested.'”

The US State Department counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales said the US was urging other nations to repatriate the ISIS fighters and prosecute them.

“Across the coalition, we need to prosecute ISIS leaders, fighters, financiers, and facilitators for the crimes they’ve committed,” Sales said earlier in August. “That includes building the law-enforcement capacity of partner states that have the will to act but might lack the resources or expertise to do so. It also means repatriating and prosecuting foreign terrorist fighters.”

About 1,050 Germans joined the Islamic State in the Middle East after 2013, and about 1,190 French citizens joined the group, according to Soufan Center, the global security nonprofit group. Following the collapse of ISIS’ bastions in Iraq and Syria, scores of these foreign nationals were either killed or captured by coalition forces – leaving many of the prisoners’ fates in limbo as their governments debate on their status.

In June, France passed legislation to repatriate French jihadists on a case-by-case basis – 12 French and two Dutch orphans whose parents were militants were transported to France. Germany also considered children as “victims” and has allowed them to be repatriated.

[Business Insider]

White House fires DHS general counsel

The White House has fired John Mitnick, who served as the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The New York Timesreported on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the department confirmed Mitnick’s exit to the news publication, saying: “We thank John for this service, and we wish him well.”

The official also told the paper that Chad Mizelle, an associate counsel to the president, will fill the position in Mitnick’s place.

Mitnick, who was nominated to the post by President Trump in 2017 and confirmed by the Senate the following year, was the department’s fifth general counsel.

His reported firing comes as DHS has continued to see a series of top aides and officials leave the agency amid tensions with the White House over its handling of immigration policy in recent months.

The news comes months after former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsenresigned from her post following speculation that her position was in jeopardy as the president grew frustrated over the situation at the border.

In the months following her exit, other top staffers, including Andrew Meehan, who served as top aide to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, resigned from the department as tensions between it and the White House escalated.

The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Hill.

[The Hill]

Trump fires John Bolton

President Donald Trump abruptly announced in a tweet Tuesday that he has asked national security adviser John Bolton to resign, noting that he “strongly disagreed with many” of Bolton’s suggestions “as did others in the administration.””I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week,” Trump wrote.The tweet came just one hour after the White House press office said Bolton was scheduled to appear at a Tuesday press briefing alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.Asked during the briefing whether he and Mnuchin were surprised that Bolton was fired, given that he was supposed to appear alongside them, Pompeo said, “I’m never surprised.”Bolton tweeted minutes after Trump’s announcement, “I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.'”

Bolton reiterated the point that it was he who offered to resign on Fox News Tuesday.Trump has plowed through an unprecedented number of national security professionals while multiple geopolitical crises have played out.The President has had three national security advisers — Bolton, Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster. He has summarily fired a secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, by tweet after undercutting the former ExxonMobil CEO for months.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned, reportedly in frustration over Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria.The President has also churned through two Homeland Security secretaries, John Kelly and Kirstjen Nielsen, and a National Security Agency director, Mike Rogers. He’s lost a deputy national security adviser, K.T. McFarland and an ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and his deputy, Sue Gordon, left their posts last month.Bolton’s departure comes as tensions with Iran are escalating in the Persian Gulf, North Korea continues to develop its weapons capabilities, arms control experts are warning of a potential nuclear arms race with Russia and trade tensions with China are intensifying, while Trump is discussing a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan.White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters that Charles Kupperman is the acting national security adviser.

“John Bolton’s priorities and policies just don’t line up with the President’s and any sitting president has the right to put someone in that position that can carry out his agenda. That became no longer tenable so the President made a change,” Gidley told reporters.He claimed there was “no one issue” that led to Bolton’s firing, and referred reporters to the forthcoming briefing for more information.Yet, Bolton’s ouster was so sudden that the now-former National Security Adviser even led a meeting of top administration officials, known as a principals committee meeting, Tuesday morning prior to Trump’s tweet, a source familiar told CNN.The source said the meeting went on as planned and there was no indication that Bolton’s firing was imminent.

[CNN]

Donald Trump Prevented attempts by DHS to make combating White Supremacy domestic terrorism a higher priority

White House officials rebuffed efforts by their colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security for more than a year to make combating domestic terror threats, such as those from white supremacists, a greater priority as specifically spelled out in the National Counterterrorism Strategy, current and former senior administration officials as well as other sources close to the Trump administration tell CNN.

“Homeland Security officials battled the White House for more than a year to get them to focus more on domestic terrorism,” one senior source close to the Trump administration tells CNN. “The White House wanted to focus only on the jihadist threat which, while serious, ignored the reality that racial supremacist violence was rising fast here at home. They had major ideological blinders on.”

The National Counterterrorism Strategy, issued last fall, states that “Radical Islamist terrorists remain the primary transnational terrorist threat to the United States and its vital national interests,” which few experts dispute. What seems glaring to these officials is the minimizing of the threat of domestic terrorism, which they say was on their radar as a growing problem.”

Ultimately the White House just added one paragraph about domestic terrorism as a throw-away line,” a senior source involved in the discussion told CNN. That paragraph mentions “other forms of violent extremism, such as racially motivated extremism, animal rights extremism, environmental extremism, sovereign citizen extremism, and militia extremism.” It made no mention of white supremacists. (A separate paragraph in the report mentions investigating domestic terrorists with connections to overseas terrorists, but that does not seem to be a reference to white supremacists.)

The document mentions that domestic terrorism is on the rise, but the subject is only briefly addressed, all the more stark given that FBI Director Christopher Wray’s July testimony that there have been almost as many domestic terror arrests in the first three quarters of the fiscal year — about 100 — as there have been arrests connected to international terror. Wray noted that the majority of the domestic terrorism cases were motivated by some version of white supremacist violence, adding that the FBI takes the threat “extremely seriously.”

Said a current senior Trump administration official, “DHS is surging resources to the [domestic terrorism] issue, but they’re behind the curve because of lack of support from the White House. There’s some legislative and appropriations work happening, but the reality is there won’t be a FY20 budget for the department so they will have to make do.”

Critics of President Donald Trup hit out at the White House’s lack of support for the department’s attempts at combating domestic terrorism, including multiple Democratic presidential candidates.

“People are getting killed, and this President is turning a blind eye to America’s national security threats,” said California Sen. Kamala Harris on Twitter.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, another presidential candidate, who is from El Paso, tweeted, “Despite the evidence, despite the threat to our country that domestic terrorism poses, this president did nothing. He made us less safe.”

In March of this year, right after the slaughter of 51 Muslims in New Zealand by a white supremacist, Trump said he did not think white nationalism was a rising threat around the world. “I don’t really,” he said. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”

One former senior administration official says he “took some hope and comfort that domestic terrorism was even mentioned” in the National Counterterrorism Strategy, because it meant agencies could use it as a hook to prioritize the threat with funding and manpower.

A senior administration official defended the final analysis.

“This Administration’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism was the first to ever include domestic terrorism,” the official said. “This issue continues to be a priority for this Administration, and the National Security Council has launched an interagency process focused on combating domestic terrorism in support of the President’s counterterrorism strategy.”

Why the White House pushed back so much is a matter of some debate. The former senior administration official noted that the White House, specifically the President, has a problem criticizing white supremacy, and says he “didn’t have expectation they would get behind it” — the brief mention of domestic terrorism as a threat in the National Counterterrorism Strategy — “because the preponderance of it involves white supremacy and that’s not something this administration is comfortable speaking out against, until the other day by the President and even that was pretty hedged.”

The former senior administration official noted Monday’s remarks following the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings were read from a teleprompter. “You don’t hear the President mention white supremacists when he’s speaking extemporaneously.”

The senior source close to the Trump administration acknowledged the President’s reluctance to criticize white supremacists was part of “an overlay” of all these discussions.

“You know it will trigger the boss,” the source said. “Instinctively you know he’s going to be averse to mentioning that.”

But, the official said, “primarily the people with their pen on the document,” were motivated by something else. “The last administration was too politically cautious in calling out the threat of Islamist terrorism,” the official said. “But that doesn’t mean we needed to overcorrect and ignore what was a surging domestic threat.”

The sources tell CNN that the one paragraph about domestic terrorism was the best the Department of Homeland Security officials could get. DHS went with an “all forms of terror” approach and “restructured offices and experts to be ideologically agnostic but focused on the threat wherever it morphed,” said the senior source involved in the discussions. “When it became clear the White House was going to say little if anything on domestic terrorism we asked that they at least say in the Counterterrorism Strategy that there would be a subsequent domestic terrorism strategy.”

But the White House would not agree to that, either, sources tell CNN.

During the lengthy back and forth, the senior source tells CNN, one White House official proposed that the National Counterterrorism Strategy focus radical Islamists and foreign drug dealers, since that would please the President.

“But those things don’t go together,” the source recalled. “That was part of the warped worldview they had there.”

[CNN]

Trump met with Nunes to talk intel chief replacements

President Donald Trump recently spoke to top House Intelligence Republican Devin Nunes about replacements for the country’s intelligence chief — the latest sign that Dan Coats’ tenure may be short-lived.

Nunes, who grabbed national attention with his controversial allegations of Obama administration surveillance abuses, met with Trump and other senior White House officials last week to discuss who could take over for Coats at the Office of Director of National Intelligence, according to three people familiar with the get-together.

Coats has run ODNI since early in the Trump administration, but his job security is the subject of constant speculation, especially after he gave public testimony on North Korea, Iran and Syria that diverged from Trump’s prior comments on the issues. The ODNI chief oversees the government’s intelligence agencies, coordinates the country’s global information-gathering operation and frequently briefs the president on threats each morning.

The meeting between Trump and Nunes has only fueled more chatter about Coats’ departure. The pace of Trump’s discussions with allies about potential replacements has ramped up in recent weeks, the people said.

Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who served as national security adviser John Bolton’s chief of staff, has been discussed as a possible ODNI replacement. Fleitz left his White House post in October 2018 to serve as president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank that has been sharply critical of “radical Islam.”

Some within the intelligence community have also promoted the ODNI’s current No. 2, Sue Gordon, as be a logical replacement for Coats. Gordon is a career intelligence official who is generally well-liked within the organization.

[Politico]

Trump declares national emergency over threats against US technology amid campaign against Huawei

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared a national emergency over threats against American technology, the White House said.

The move, done via executive order, authorized the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in consultation with other top officials, to block transactions that involve information or communications technology that “poses an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

Following the order, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the addition of Huawei Technologies and its affiliates to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List, making it more difficult for the Chinese telecom giant to conduct business with U.S. companies.

The addition means that U.S. companies cannot sell or transfer technology to Huawei without a license issued by the BIS. That could make it harder for Huawei to do business, as it depends on some U.S. suppliers for parts.

President Donald Trump backed the decision, which will “prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

The announcement has been under discussion for a year. It comes as the U.S and China remain locked in a trade dispute and could escalate tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The order had been opposed by small rural carriers, who continued to rely on Huawei equipment even after it was largely dropped by the larger telecommunications companies.

In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote that the administration will “protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services in the United States.”

The Trump administration has pushed allies around the world not to adopt the company’s next generation 5G network technology, which American officials have warned could be used for spying by the Chinese. Those efforts have had mixed results in Europe, where several countries declined to stop doing business with the company.

Huawei has forcefully denied allegations that it is not independent from the Chinese government.

In recent months, the U.S. has taken a number of steps against the firm.

In January, the Department of Justice announced a slew of charges against two units of the company, including for stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile USA. And both Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese technology firm, were barred from most U.S. government contract work by the 2019 Defense Authorization Act.

In December, Canadian authorities arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou to serve an extradition request from the U.S. government, which has alleged that the company defrauded several banks by concealing payments from Iran in violation of sanctions against that country.

Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the executive order. Earlier Wednesday, David Wang, an executive at the company, told The Wall Street Journal that such an order would be misguided.

[NBC News]

IVANKA TRUMP TWEETS, THEN DELETES, PHOTO WITH ‘NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY’ DOCUMENT

First daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump tweeted a photo of herself with World Bank President David Malpass, with the cover of a document titled “National Security Strategy” visible in the image. She subsequently deleted and then reposted the photograph with that document cropped out, raising questions about why she did that.

Trump on Sunday night tweeted the photo showing her and Malpass, full body, with the cover of the national security strategy document on a small table in the foreground.

“Great catching up with my friend @WorldBank President David Malpass and discussing the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi),” she wrote in the tweet.

On Thursday afternoon, journalist Luke O’Neil noted on Twitter that Trump had since deleted the post. O’Neil shared screenshots of the post before the first daughter deleted it, including one zoomed in on the national security strategy document.

“I literally do not know for sure if that is bad but it seems like it?” O’Neil continued to tweet. “As I said I don’t know if it’s bad or not fact she deleted it just made me think so. It’s not top secret material or anything just weird that she’s talking about it with the world bank unless it isn’t.”

O’Neil then included a screenshot of the same image still live on Trump’s Instagram story and concluded, “Anyway not my problem.”

Hours later on Thursday, Trump reposted the photo with the same caption but cropped it to remove everything below her waist, thus cutting out the national security strategy document from the image.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Newsweek on Friday.

Journalist Vicky Ward, author of the recently released Kushner Inc., which is about Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, told Newsweek on Friday that such “impulsiveness” by Trump “is exactly what drove General Kelly to distraction,” she said, referring to former White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly.

Kelly, who stepped down from that position at the beginning of 2019, was asked during an interview Tuesday at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas if it was complicated to have President Donald Trump’s family working in the government.

“They were an influence that has to be dealt with,” replied Kelly, without naming Ivanka Trump or Jared Kushner, the only members of the president’s family working in the West Wing.

Ward said that Ivanka Trump “can’t be bothered with rules—which is why Kelly—and former White House counsel Don McGahn wrote a note to the file about the Ivanka’s and Jared’s security clearances, because normal vetting procedures showed they should not have them.

“What’s more important to the White House senior adviser? Reading a manual on U.S. national security strategy and carefully following its guidelines (which might suggest/demand you rid yourself of business conflicts)—or putting it on a coffee table to impress visitors?” asked Ward.

[Newsweek]

Trump withdraws from UN Arms Trade Treaty

President Donald Trump speaking to the National Rifle Association, a group that made a multimillion investment in his campaign, declared his administration will not ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty — a treaty supported by the Obama administration that is aimed at regulating the international arms industry.

“The United Nations will soon receive a formal notice that America is rejecting this treaty,” Trump said in a speech at the NRA convention in Indianapolis. The treaty was not supported by the NRA.

“We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment,” Trump said to applause and acknowledged the “happy faces from the NRA over there.”

Trump signed a document before the crowd, which he said was a “message asking the Senate to discontinue the treaty ratification process and return the now-rejected treaty right back to me in the Oval Office, where I will dispose of it.” The move, however, is mostly symbolic. The Obama administration submitted the treaty to the Senate, but it was never ratified after facing opposition. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not signaled how lawmakers will move forward with the president’s request.

Immediately, gun control advocates spoke out against the president’s decision to back away from the treaty, which seeks to make it more difficult to sell weapons to countries that are under arms embargoes, often because of conflict.

“The Arms Trade Treaty is designed to keep guns out of war-stricken countries and prevent dangerous situations from descending even further into chaos. It is a treaty supported by our allies, but in opposing it, the president instead chose to stand with countries such as North Korea and Syria,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, an organization aimed at preventing gun violence.

As he took the stage, it appeared that a phone was thrown at but did not strike the president. ABC News has reached out to the Secret Service.

During his speech, Trump jumped from defending Second Amendment rights to building a wall to touting economic numbers.

The president argued that while Democrats advocate for undocumented immigrants, they want to “disarm law-abiding citizens.”

“Democrats want to disarm law-abiding Americans while allowing criminal aliens to operate with impunity. But that will never happen as long as I’m your president. Not even close,” the president said.

Trump also claimed he had successfully fought back against the corruption “at the highest levels” in Washington in his speech at the NRA’s annual convention in Indiana, held one week after special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report was released to the public.

“All was taking place at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. You’ve been watching, you’ve been seeing. You’ve been looking at things that you wouldn’t have believed possible in our country. Corruption at the highest level a disgrace. Spying, surveillance. Trying for an overthrow. And we caught them. We caught them,” he said.

Earlier, Vice President Mike Pence took a swipe at newly announced Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday saying that the nation is not in a battle for the “soul of America.”

[ABC News]

Trump Reportedly Told Border Agents to Do Something That’s Illegal

President Donald Trump unsuccessfully pushed to close the border in El Paso, Texas, told Border Patrol agents to turn back migrants despite the fact that doing so would be illegal, and has been pushing to reinstate a more aggressive family separation policy than the one that tore apart more than 2,500 families last spring, CNN reported on Monday. 

Last month, Trump ordered since-ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to shut down some or all El Paso border crossings the next day, on March 22, at noon, according to CNN. Nielsen told Trump that would be a bad and even dangerous idea, and that the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, has been very supportive of the President. She proposed an alternative plan that would slow down entries at legal ports. She argued that if you close all the ports of entry all you would be doing is ending legal trade and travel, but migrants will just go between ports. According to two people in the room, the President said: “I don’t care.”The federal government is required to process migrants who cross the border without authorization and allow asylum seekers to make their cases for protection if they demonstrate a “credible fear” of being persecuted in their home countries. Trump reportedly told Border Patrol agents in Calexico, California, on Friday that they should simply force back the migrants they encounter.Behind the scenes, two sources told CNN, the President told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don’t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, “Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room.” After the President left the room, agents sought further advice from their leaders, who told them they were not giving them that direction and if they did what the President said they would take on personal liability. You have to follow the law, they were told.Trump has also spent months pushing to reinstate some form of the family separation policy that he was forced to abandon in June, CNN and NBC News are reporting. Trump is calling for a more comprehensive version of the policy than the one that was adopted across the border last spring. Instead of separating families who cross the border without authorization by prosecuting them for illegal entry, Trump also wants to split families who come to official ports of entry to request asylum, which now requires weeks of waiting.According to multiple sources, the President wanted families separated even if they came in at a legal port of entry and were legal asylum seekers. The President wanted families separated even if they were apprehended within the US. He thinks the separations work to deter migrants from coming. Sources told CNN that Nielsen tried to explain they could not bring the policy back because of court challenges, and White House staffers tried to explain it would be an unmitigated PR disaster. “He just wants to separate families,” said a senior administration official.

The CNN report comes three days after Trump unexpectedly pulled his nominee to lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one day after Trump pushed out Nielsen, and the same day the New York Times reported that the hardline head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services—the DHS agency responsible for legal immigration—is also expected to leave government soon. Trump’s most important asylum crackdown, known as Remain in Mexico, was also temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Monday.

[Mother Jones]

Trump Overrules Own Experts on Sanctions, in Favor to North Korea

President Trump undercut his own Treasury Department on Friday with a sudden announcement that he had rolled back newly imposed North Korea sanctions, appearing to overrule national security experts as a favor to Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

The move, announced on Twitter, was a remarkable display of dissension within the Trump administration. It created confusion at the highest levels of the federal government, just as the president’s aides were seeking to pressure North Korea into returning to negotiations over dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

“It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”

The Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Friday against Iran and Venezuela, but not North Korea.

However, economic penalties were imposed on Thursday on two Chinese shipping companies suspected of helping North Korea evade international sanctions. Those penalties, announced with news releases and a White House briefing, were the first imposed against North Korea since late last year and came less than a month after a summit meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim collapsed in Hanoi, Vietnam, without a deal.

It was initially believed that Mr. Trump had confused the day that the North Korea sanctions were announced, and officials said they were caught off guard by the president’s tweet. Asked for clarification, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, declined to give specifics.

“President Trump likes Chairman Kim, and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary,” she said.

Hours later, two officials familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking said the president was actually referring to additional North Korea sanctions that are under consideration but not yet formally issued.

That statement sought to soften the blow that Mr. Trump’s tweet had dealt to his most loyal aides. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, personally signed off on the sanctions that were issued on Thursday and hailed the decision in an accompanying statement.

“The United States and our like-minded partners remain committed to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea,” Mr. Mnuchin said in the statement. He described the sanctions as part of an international campaign against North Korea that “is crucial to a successful outcome.”

Sanctions are one of America’s most powerful tools for pressuring rogue nations. Mr. Mnuchin has taken great pride in bolstering Treasury’s sanctions capacity and often says that he spends half of his time working on sanctions matters.

Tony Sayegh, a Treasury Department spokesman, referred questions about Friday’s sanctions confusion to the White House.

John R. Bolton, the president’s national security adviser, had also hailed the earlier action against North Korea in a tweet on Thursday: “Everyone should take notice and review their own activities to ensure they are not involved in North Korea’s sanctions evasion.”

Mr. Trump has been eager to strike a deal for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons arsenal and, in turn, hand him a signature foreign policy achievement that has eluded his predecessors. Hawks in the administration, such as Mr. Bolton, have been wary of trusting Mr. Kim despite Mr. Trump’s professed strong personal connection to the North Korean leader.

Last month, Mr. Trump was criticized for defending Mr. Kim over the death of Otto F. Warmbier, an American college student who died in 2017 after being imprisoned in North Korea. Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. Kim’s claim that he was not aware of Mr. Warmbier’s medical condition.

But in recent weeks there have been increasing signs that the thawing relations between the two countries could again turn frosty.

This month, a vice foreign minister of North Korea, Choe Son-hui, accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mr. Bolton of creating an “atmosphere of hostility and mistrust” despite the chemistry between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim.

In another sign of hardening on Friday, North Korea withdrew its stafffrom the joint liaison office it has operated with South Korea since September. The office was viewed as a potential first step toward the Koreas establishing diplomatic missions in each other’s capitals. But North Korea has expressed frustration with how South Korea has been handling its role as a mediator with the United States.

The talks between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim broke down because North Korea wanted the United States to roll back some of its most economically painful sanctions without the North immediately dismantling its nuclear program.

As the linchpin of the global financial system, the United States relies on sanctions as one of its most powerful tools for international diplomacy. Officials at the Treasury and State Departments, including career staff members and political appointees, spend months carefully drafting sanctions based on intensive intelligence gathering and legal research.

The North Korea sanctions were no different, and the White House held a formal briefing on Thursday afternoon to explain the rationale behind the actions.

During the briefing, senior administration officials pushed back on the idea that the sanctions sought to increase pressure on North Korea. Instead, they said, the new measures were meant to maintain the strength of existing sanctions.

But one of the senior administration officials strongly rebutted any suggestion that the administration would ease some sanctions as confidence building, or in return for smaller steps by North Korea.

“It would be a mistake to interpret the policy as being one of a step by step approach, where we release some sanctions in return for piecemeal steps toward denuclearization” said the administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity. “That is not a winning formula and it is not the president’s strategy.”

While it is not unusual for the White House to have comment and even final approval of major sanctions, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed doubts about Mr. Trump’s ability to execute sanctions policy responsibly.

In 2017, Congress passed legislation imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting the president’s authority to lift them. Under pressure from his own party, Mr. Trump reluctantly signed the bill.

The reversal on the North Korea sanctions drew swift condemnation on Friday from Democrats, who accused the president of being reckless with national security.

“Career experts at the Treasury Department undertake a painstaking process before imposing sanctions,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee. “For Donald Trump to overturn their decision via tweet because he has an inexplicable fondness for one of the world’s most brutal dictators is appalling.”

He added, “Without a well-conceived diplomatic strategy, Trump is simply undermining our national security by making clear that the United States is not a trusted foreign policy partner.”

Some Republicans also pushed back against the president, with Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado saying that North Korea sanctions should be imposed. “Strategic Patience failed,” he tweeted. “Don’t repeat it.”

Mr. Trump’s decision stunned current and former Treasury Department officials, some of whom wondered if the move was planned in advance as a gesture to Mr. Kim. Others feared that America’s vaunted sanctions regime had been compromised.

“For an administration that continues to surprise, this is another first — the president of the United States undercutting his own sanctions agency for imposing sanctions on Chinese actors supporting North Korea,” said John E. Smith, the former director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, who left the department last year. “It’s a win for North Korea and China and a loss for U.S. credibility.”

Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was deputy Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, said the sudden backtracking on a decision that would normally be made with comment from intelligence agencies and the National Security Council was perplexing.

“Reversing sanctions decisions within hours of making the announcement that you would impose them in the first place is a head-spinner,” she said. “This reversal signals the injection of some peripheral consideration or factor that only the president seems to know about and that may have nothing to do with national security.”

The Trump administration did issue some new sanctions on Friday. The Treasury Department announced sanctions against Iran, targeting a research and development unit that it believes could be used to restart the country’s nuclear weapons program. It also imposed sanctions on Bandes, Venezuela’s national development bank, and its subsidiaries, as part of its effort to topple the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

[The New York Times]

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