Remember those ….’never Trump ‘ letters?

Some Republican foreign policy people who seem to have correctly worry about Donald Trump’s grasp of foreign policy vs himself are highlighted in a Washington Post piece pointing to how the Trump Republicans want little to do with anyone dissing Trump, weather they are wrong or right….

Trump’s “America First” agenda has rattled traditional conservatives, as he has looked skeptically at multilateral alliances, free trade and democracy promotion. He has withdrawn the United States from some international treaties, criticized the United Nations and shown little interest in global human rights issues.

The question of how far Trump has strayed from Reagan’s principles has divided the never Trump group. Some praised Trump’s choice of conservative Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who helped dissuade the president from acting on threats to pull the United States out of NATO and shut down military bases in East Asia.

Some of the letter organizers, including Eliot A. Cohen, a State Department counselor in the Bush administration, and Max Boot, a Washington Post columnist who advised the 2008 presidential campaign of the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), have remained prominent critics of Trump’s policies and personal conduct.

But others have expressed admiration for his willingness to take a harder line on China’s trade practices, even if they remain uneasy about the tariff war between Washington and Beijing. And they asserted that Trump’s un­or­tho­dox personal diplomacy with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has opened an unexpected avenue to try at least to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Trump’s foreign policy “might not be as bad as feared and not as good as hoped,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political science professor who served on the National Security Council under George W. Bush and signed both letters.

Feaver, who stands by the letters and said Trump has validated much of what the experts warned of, said he is not seeking an administration position and thinks those who are will remain disappointed…..

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