Trump’s Turn Toward China Curtails Navy Patrols in Disputed Zones
By HELENE COOPERMAY 2, 2017
WASHINGTON — Six weeks ago, the United States Pacific Command requested permission from senior American officials for a United States warship
to sail within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that is claimed by the Philippines and China.
More than 100 days into the Trump presidency, no American Navy ship has gone within 12 miles
of any of the disputed islands in the South China Sea, Defense Department officials said.
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, said of the Navy excursions, officially known as freedom of navigation operations, or Fonops: "All of the language, combined with the fact
that the Republican foreign policy establishment had been critical of Obama for not carrying out enough Fonops, means there was a wide expectation that Trump would put down a marker early.
Crimea came that They do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.
In October 2015, the Obama administration sent a guided missile destroyer, the Lassen, within territorial waters near Subi Reef, one of several artificial islands
that China has built in the disputed Spratly Islands chain.
Bad!" Decisions to deny the Navy’s requests to sail within 12 nautical miles of disputed
islands in the South China Sea were fairly routine during the Obama administration.