"It's really ultimately about leadership." -- Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
JS Online Excerpt:
Greenfield, Iowa — As he continued to call for President Barack Obama to cancel a state visit for China's president, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Thursday he had not challenged the Communist country's leader when he met with him in 2013.
"Those are things governors should not be involved in," the White House hopeful told reporters at a stop in Greenfield, southwest of Des Moines. "When (Wisconsin state officials) do trips other places, we don't talk about foreign policy.
He's partly right. He wasn't in China to do foreign policy. He was there on behalf of Wisconsin to do trade policy.
But IT IS the governor's place to pause and review a trade mission he embarked on for his own state and say, "You know, in light of China's recent intrusions into the economy, their currency manipulation, human rights abuses, intellectual property theft and cyber attacks on our country, I as the Governor of Wisconsin cannot allow my state to honor their transgressions with any trade. Other American governors can honor them with trade if they so choose, but I won't."
Sure, you might think if he uses his executive state power to cancel those industry trade agreements, Walker would be sending a terribly wrong signal that Wisconsin doesn't honor contract law or business agreements ...lol.
OK, that's being a little facetious. But think about how and why Walker unceremoniously nullified the train contract with the spanish company Talgo. To be quite honest, what wrong did Talgo ever do to Wisconsin or the U.S. to deserve such poor treatment from Walker? Did they steal intellectual property? Practice civil rights abuses? Cyber attack Wisconsin government computers? Nope. Talgo did not do a damn thing wrong.
Still others might think Walker would only be punishing his own people and state economy by cutting off China trade. But so what?
Remember that Walker thought President Reagan's most significant foreign policy statement was his decision to bust a 1981 strike of air traffic controllers, firing some 11,000 American workers. Who in the world would connect that to foreign policy? Well, Walker did.
Walker believes Reagan set the tone not just domestically but around the world by those dramatic punishing actions. Walker claimed that if you're willing to that to your own people on your own soil, it shows allies and adversaries alike that he (Reagan) was someone not to be messed with.
So, Walker is in a similar position to make a defining statement for his presidential campaign to allies and adversaries just like Reagan was in 1981. Instead of just talking or chastising others, Walker, if he has the courage of his convictions, should cancel all state government and B2B import/export trade agreements with China.
Because maybe some presidential candidate forty years from now might say that that was Walker's most significant foreign policy achievement.
ADDITIONAL:
Crooks and Liars - Scott Walker Says He Didn't Chastise Chinese President In 2013 Meeting
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