On September 24th I attended the Current Events Conversation on President Trump’s Foreign Policy with Sam Stelnicki, which was located in the Smith-Steeb dorm. Several of us sat around a table and listened while Sam gave some basic background on United State’s foreign policy and then moved into an overview of the current President Trump’s foreign policy. There was a focus on the United States foreign policy with North Korea.

Sam began with discussing the history of foreign policy with North Korea to give everyone who attended a foundation to start the discussion. She explained that there has been a history of disagreements with North Korea and nuclear warfare. In history, North Korean leaders have signed and withdrew from treaties that state to stop all use and production of nuclear warfare. She continued with information on past presidents Bush and Obama and how  they were more lenient with the foreign policy compared to how Trump is today. Trump’s demandingness could be seen good or bad.

With this brief summary from Sam, we jumped into discussion. For the rest of our time anyone could pose a question or raise awareness to an idea. There was the idea brought up that possibly Kim Jong-un and previous leaders have a strong stance on nuclear warfare to distract North Koreans and the world from their bad economy. Someone promoted the realization that many “outsiders” do not really know the true Korea, that there supposedly are mock towns built for visitors. To look more into what fighting with North Korea could be like, we discussed that a war with them would most likely be an economic downfall and possibly cause more harm than good at this point in time. We proceeded to talk not only about Kim Jong-un, but Trump as president of the United States. Sam asked us a question that stuck with me, “If Trump was someone else or was less belligerent, would we support Trump’s decisions more?” These are a few of the things we discussed that night.

I gained information that has helped me, academically and personally, from this event. Before going to this event, I admit that I did not have much knowledge about Trump’s foreign policy. It was enriching to have knowledge added as Sam gave her presentation on foreign policy and hearing what the other scholars had to say. I believe that knowing this information is important, but I never really knew where or how to start, so this event assisted me in the process of making sense of an issue that is important today.

If I were to look at how these event topics could relate to previous coursework, I do not believe that I can relate these two. I am a health sciences major and the classes I will and have taken do not circle this realm of politics and policy. It is possible that I will be able to use this knowledge in a class in the future.

After attendance to this event there are a couple questions I could ask. The first would be to ask Sam where she got her information and to ask other scholars who knew alot, how they became so knowledgeable. Another question I could have asked is the opinions on what they thought Trump should do in relation to our foreign policy, especially when dealing with North Korea.