President-elect Donald Trump sent a signal to Beijing "we are going to be much tougher," by agreeing to speak with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen by telephone, and the United States will no longer "automatically do what the Chinese want us to do," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday.
"We have gone through a long period where we basically tried to take care of the Chinese and hoped they would mature into a democracy," Gingrich told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "I think Trump has a different view, and all he did was accept a call from the freely elected leader of a democracy of 23 million people."
But while there has been outcry over the conversation, the Obama administration has sold Taiwan "over a billion of dollars in weapons."
"We have a strong policy against the Chinese invading Taiwan," Gingrich said. "I think it's a very dangerous area. But I don't think they stumbled into this. They spent two weeks preparing for this phone call."
Meanwhile, it is a large mistake to think the Chinese could signal North Korea to back down from its aggressions, Gingrich said.
"North Koreans have a deep tradition of not trusting the Chinese, the Japanese or the United States or United Kingdom," Gingrich said. "They are so cut off from the rest of the world, I don't think they have any notion of what life is like outside of North Korea."
Gingrich also said he believes Trump will change President Barack Obama's deal with Tehran over its nuclear powers, after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said "some man" was elected, without calling Trump by name, and then saying Trump might desire to rip up the deal.
"Think of what that sentence just said," Gingrich said. "One side rips up the deal, the deal is ripped up. It's an illusion for the dictatorship of Iran to think they can single-handedly impose Obama's bad agreement on president-elect Trump.
"Obama should release all the unclassified documents. Then he should declassify as many of the documents as he can so the American people can look at it. If the deal is so bad, we ought to rip it up."
Gingrich also praised Trump for taking his time when it comes to naming a new secretary of State, and confirmed the addition of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to the the list of possible contenders.
"Remember that John Foster Dulles who was secretary of state for President [Dwight] Eisenhower was an international lawyer," Gingrich said. "He wasn't at the State Department; he was at Harvard. He had thoughtful track [record] of dealing with countries all over the world. The other thing people ought to look at."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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