President Donald Trump tweeted a somewhat cryptic message about China and North Korea on Tuesday: “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!”
The tweet seemingly came from nowhere, just a few minutes after Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, had said “I think we’ve had positive movement with China over the last five months in this administration.”
The impetus for Trump’s line-in-the-sand tweet was, on the surface, the death this week of the American college student Otto Warmbier, who was tortured and abused for 18 months before being shipped back to the United States in a coma, before dying a few days later. The administration has long viewed China as an important partner in placing pressure on North Korea, since it’s the hermit kingdom’s most important trading partner.
But after a promising start to the campaign—which kicked off at an April summit between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago—the president appears to be running out of patience. The agreement between Xi and Trump to halt Chinese coal exports to North Korea has been undermined by a recent increase in Russian energy exports to them. And U.S. efforts to convince China to take action against large Chinese companies operating in North Korea have gone unheeded. Trump’s tweet, then, could be interpreted as a final public “warning shot” toward China before the administration begins pursuing other options against the North Koreans.
That warning shot comes just in time for a visit to Washington by one of Beijing’s highest-ranking diplomatic officials, state councilor Yang Jiechi. Yang met on Wednesday with secretary of State Rex Tillerson and secretary of Defense James Mattis for a “diplomatic and security dialogue.”
And Yang, who is also a former Chinese ambassador to the United States and a former Chinese foreign minister, will have meetings in the White House on Thursday with national security adviser H.R. McMaster. It’s not clear yet whether Yang will also meet with Trump.
The Big Senate Health Care Event of the Year
At his Wednesday night rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President Trump hinted at what may be in the Senate’s version of the American Health Care Act. “I think and I hope, I can’t guarantee anything, but I hope we’re going to surprise you with a really good plan,” Trump said.
“I’ve been talking about a plan with heart,” he added. “I said, ‘Add some money to it.’ A plan with heart.”
The unveiling of the Senate Republican bill at 9:30 on Thursday morning will reveal exactly how much “heart” is in this new bill. A Washington Post report on a draft version of the legislation says it “largely mirrors” the bill the House of Representatives passed last month. “While the House legislation pegged federal insurance subsidies to age, the Senate bill would link them to income as the ACA does,” reports the Post. “The Senate proposal cuts off Medicaid expansion more gradually than the House bill, but would enact deeper long-term cuts to the healthcare program for low-income Americans. It also removes language restricting federally subsidized health plans from covering abortions, which may have run afoul of complex budget rules.”
But will the new bill have enough support in the Senate? Republicans I talked with on Capitol Hill are not optimistic that the conference can get the bare majority to support it, facing possible defections from both the center (Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) and from the right (Mike Lee and Rand Paul).
Meanwhile, Trump aides traveled to Capitol Hill Wednesday night for a briefing with GOP Senate leadership. The White House has remained quiet about its views of and outlook for the forthcoming legislation—and what the president means when he says he wants to “add more money” to the Republican health-care proposal.
Trump’s Special Election Victory Lap
The newly elected Republican members of Congress can thank Vice President Mike Pence, House speaker Paul Ryan, and a few organizations like the NRCC and the Congressional Leadership Fund—all of whom made appearances or raised and spent money for one or both of the GOP candidates—for their victories Tuesday night. President Trump, on the other hand, traveled to neither Georgia nor South Carolina to campaign for Karen Handel or Ralph Norman. But that didn’t stop him from taking a victory lap on Twitter as the votes came giving Republicans two congressional seats in special elections.
“Congratulations to Karen Handel on her big win in Georgia 6th. Fantastic job, we are all very proud of you!” Trump tweeted Tuesday night. “Ralph Norman ran a fantastic race to win in the Great State of South Carolina’s 5th District. We are all honored by your success tonight!”
“Well, the Special Elections are over and those that want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN are 5 and 0! All the Fake News, all the money spent = 0,” he tweeted later.
Despite a $24 million deluge of spending for Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, Handel won with a comfortable margin of 4 percentage points. In South Carolina, Norman edged out his Democratic opponent Archie Parnell by 3 percentage points.
The elections were the last of five scheduled to fill seats vacated by congressmen tapped to serve in the Trump administration. Republicans retained all five seats.
The victory seemed to energize Trump, as Ossoff, whose campaign promised to “Make Trump Furious,” had run as much against the president as against Handel. On Wednesday morning, Trump excoriated Democrats for making opposition to his administration their signature issue.
“Democrats would do much better as a party if they got together with Republicans on Healthcare, Tax Cuts, Security,” he tweeted. “Obstruction doesn’t work!”
