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"For years, the Armenian-American community has called on US presidents to officially recognize the 1915 mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Their failure to do so has been a perennial feature of American politics for decades," Hagar Hajjar Chemali, founder and CEO of Greenwich Media Strategies LLC writes on CNN website on the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day marked annually on April 24.

Reflecting on U.S. President Donald Trump's stance on the Genocide issues, the author noted that despite his well-known disregard for facts, the one president uniquely positioned to speak the truth after so many of his predecessors have refused is Donald Trump.

"This is because of two defining aspects of his approach to international relations: he doesn't care what other countries think about his foreign policy; and he wants to achieve what he believes his predecessors could not."

The author then refers to historical facts, and the need to appropriately honor those killed.
"It upholds our values as a nation to speak truth to power. It also answers the call of a key American constituency: the United States is home to roughly 1.5 million Americans of Armenian descent -- the second largest population of Armenians outside Armenia. But these reasons have always been there and every modern-day US president surely understood them."

It is noted that up to this point, the Trump administration has been following the apparent tradition of not making a declaration. President Trump's statement last year on Armenian Remembrance Day, made weeks before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington, like every other such statement before it, fell short of recognizing the Armenian genocide.
"But now the time is ripe for President Trump to make the genocide declaration," writes the columnist, suggesting President Trump likely doesn't care what Turkey thinks anyway, just as he doesn't care how other countries react to his other foreign policy decisions as illustrated in a number of his foreign policy moves.

In the authors opinion, the Genocide recognition would underscore US resolve to hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable and would also demonstrate a willingness to unapologetically uphold its principles without fear. "That kind of approach gives the United States leverage in negotiations or other diplomatic pursuits -- for example as they relate to supporting Vice President Mike Pence's promise to defend Christians in the Middle East or the persecution of other minorities -- because others will know the United States is not afraid to speak the truth."

"For a President apparently unconcerned with diplomatic fallout and undeterred by threats of unsustainable retaliation, recognizing the Armenian genocide on this year's Armenian Remembrance Day is an easy win -- not only for the United States and the Armenian-American community, but for a President who has a global reputation for indifference to truth," the article concludes.