Ben Rhodes

President Obama has made the Asia Pacific region a focus of his foreign policy, and Vietnam - a large, growing economy in the heart of Southeast Asia - is critical to those efforts. ”

I think one of the critiques of me is that I thought I knew it all. But I was learning from the enormous resources available within the U.S. government who have a very different view of the world than many of the people commenting on foreign policy from outside of the government. ”

When it comes to Israel's security, our military and intelligence cooperation, that's off limits. That's protected. That's sacrosanct. ”

Talking and diplomacy is often seen as a concession in America, in a way that it is not in other places. ”

We don't have to kind of be in cycles of conflict if we can find other ways to resolve these issues. We can do things that challenge the conventional thinking that, you know, 'AIPAC doesn't like this,' or 'the Israeli government doesn't like this,' or 'the Gulf countries don't like it.' It's the possibility of improved relations with adversaries. ”

Laos is the ghost of American military interventions past. ”

By heralding President Xi Jinping's accession to permanent leadership, soliciting Vladimir Putin's reentry into the Group of Seven, and declaring that Kim Jong Un is 'beloved by his people,' Trump legitimizes the very behavior that U.S. presidents opposed for decades. ”

No matter what people may think about American foreign policy, there is broad and overwhelming interest in engaging with the United States on issues related to entrepreneurship. People associate this promise with America, and that's an extraordinary asset for our country. ”

Downturns in migration almost always prove temporary, as people adjust to changes in American enforcement. What doesn't change is the basic human impulse to pursue a better life in a place where they believe it's still possible. ”

The only place in the world where, I think, leaders have preferred Trump are in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia and Israel. ”