02/28/2022 / By JD Heyes
Former President Donald Trump railed at his ‘successor’, Joe Biden, and his amateurish Obama-era diplomatic team for creating yet another foreign policy disaster with Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
On the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday, Trump told Fox News Digital that there is a real possibility the conflict elevates into the next world war.
In addition, Trump said that the Biden regime will have to “do a lot more than just sanctions” to stop Putin, while also stating flatly that the invasion should “never have happened.”
“It is a horrible thing. It would never have happened under any circumstance, and it is what it is,” Trump told the outlet. “But there’s great bravery being shown, and I think they’re doing one hell of a job—much more so than anybody would have thought possible.”
Asked if he had a “message” for Putin, Trump said he didn’t, but noted nonetheless, “I just think it’s a shame that this is going on. It’s something that should not be going on.”
“Thousands of people, I mean, this can lead to much bigger than this one area,” Trump went on to warn. “This could lead to a lot of other countries and can lead to world war. …You never know how it starts, in a world war.”
“You never think a war is going to come out of it,” the 45th commander-in-chief went on to say. “All of a sudden, you end up in a world war. This is a very dangerous period for our nation, for the country.”
The former president also had a harsh assessment of the Biden regime’s sanctions against Putin, as well as those imposed by some NATO allies.
“They’re going to have to do more than just sanctions, I suspect,” he added. “But sanctions are not, you know, Putin—he understands how to avoid sanctions, and he goes through other countries. He goes to China as an example.”
He said the sanctions “have to be strong, and they have to be swift, OK, to use a word, because that is a very powerful sanction, as you know, SWIFT.”
That is true. According to a private-sector intelligence report from Forward Observer on Thursday, China is prepared to offer Russia access to its international payments system after the U.S. and other allies moved to boot the Kremlin from the larger SWIFT system.
“Should the U.S. decide to implement SWIFT sanctions, China is prepared to offer its Cross-Border International Payments System (CIPS) as an alternative to SWIFT. The CIPS alternative would prevent the U.S. and its allies from imposing restrictions on Russian international hard-currency transactions. CIPS uses China’s Yuan as its primary currency, which provides a lower 1% inflation rate in a currency that has gained 8% on the U.S. dollar since the COVID recession,” the report noted.
Asked to give his opinion as to whether he believes Putin would have invaded if he were still in office, Trump said he couldn’t say “right now.”
“Well, I tell you what, I would do things, but the last thing I want to do is say it right now, because if somebody asks me that is in a position where they can utilize whatever it is I give them,” Trump said. “But I certainly wouldn’t want to be talking about it on television or to the media too much.”
Trump also indicated that Russia and, to another extent China, were emboldened by the pathetic and deadly pullout of Afghanistan on Biden’s watch.
“Getting out was a good thing. I had it down to two thousand soldiers,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “We were going to get out with strength and dignity, but to take the soldiers, the great Army out first— we took our Army and Marines—we took them out first to do that and leave the Americans behind, leave other people behind, leave $85 billion worth of equipment behind.
“I really think that was the most embarrassing—one of the lowest points in the history of our country,” Trump added. “And President Xi and Putin, they watched that, and I think they probably came up with ideas that they didn’t have before seeing it because it was grossly incompetent.”
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Biden regime, conflict, Donald Trump, escalation, invasion, Joe Biden, President Trump, Putin, Russia, Russian invasion, sanctions, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, White House, World War III, WWIII
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