HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — It appears that former President Donald Trump does not believe that Guam is where America’s day begins.
Guam has been a U.S. territory since 1898, being placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy. The Organic Act of 1950 conferred U.S. citizenship on Guamanians and established the territory’s local government. The Organic Act also transferred federal jurisdiction over Guam from the military to the Department of the Interior.
Guam has served as a strategic military location in the Indo-Pacific region, often referred to as the “tip of the spear,” which has made the island a target of repeated threats from opposing forces such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, known as North Korea.
However, as reported in The Atlantic, the former president had little regard for the safety of the island and some 160,000 U.S. citizens during his administration when then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly warned Trump of the threat Guam would face if North Korea fired off nuclear weapons at the island.
The Atlantic report, titled “The Patriot – How Gen. Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump,” described how the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military adviser to the president, the secretary of Defense and the National Security Council, made attempts to restrain the former president from making impulsive military decisions.
Milley, as reported in The Atlantic, “is supposed to focus (the president’s) attention on America’s national security challenges and on the readiness and lethality of its armed forces.”
But The Atlantic characterized the first 16 months of Trump’s term, as “not normal because Trump was exceptionally unfit to serve.”
The report stated that officials worried about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal as Trump entered a “cycle of rhetorical warfare with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.”
At certain points, Trump raised the possibility of attacking North Korea with nuclear weapons, according to New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt’s book, “Donald Trump v. The United States.”
Kelly, Gen. Joseph Dunford, a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2019, and others tried to convince Trump that his rhetoric – publicly mocking Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” for instance, could trigger nuclear war.
“If you keep pushing this clown, he could do something with nuclear weapons,” Kelly told him, explaining that Kim, though a dictator, could be pressured by his own military elites to attack American interests in response to Trump’s provocations,” the report stated.
But the warning fell on deaf ears, reportedly prompting Kelly to spell out for Trump the consequences that could befall Guam.
“Kelly spelled out for the president that a nuclear exchange could cost the lives of millions of Koreans and Japanese, as well as those of Americans throughout the Pacific. Guam, Kelly told him, falls within range of North Korean missiles. ‘Guam isn’t America,’ Trump responded,” The Atlantic reported.
Adelup: ‘No comment’
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s administration chose not to respond to the former president’s assertion about Guam, telling The Guam Daily Post, “No comment.”
In February 2019, Leon Guerrero took notice of Trump’s focus on the military.
At the time, the governor said, “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to keeping our military strong. Guam has a strategic role in our nation’s military. Therefore, our island must remain a priority to our federal government – and that means our construction industry and economic progress must not be hampered by federal policy.”
According to Post files, this was said in response to Trump’s State of the Union address, which the governor characterized as “a strong call for unity at a time of increased partisanship in Washington, D.C.”
“It’s easy to focus on our disagreements, but I appreciate that President Trump called on every American to find common ground, so we can work together in strengthening our nation,” Leon Guerrero said at the time.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Maquoketa, Iowa.
