Worldcrunch
PARIS — Put any two Americans abroad (of a particular political bent — or not?) in the same room, and they’ll try at first to avoid the elephant in said room. It won’t last. The time has come to count down the days and hours to Friday’s inauguration of a bad-New-York-joke-turned-leader-of-the-free-world. An old Colorado friend […]
Russia has become a main theme in the U.S. In part, perhaps, this is a sign of success of the Kremlin’s politics. But both Putin and Trump will have to compromise if they want to change things.
I love Germany. I love Great Britain. I love Mexico. I love free trade. I like Angela Merkel, but I don’t know her. I liked President Obama. He was very nice. He was very nice in personal conversations. Maybe not so nice for the rest. NATO is obsolete. Apart from that, it’s still very important […]
-OpEd- Is this China’s big moment? The World Economic Forum in Davos is welcoming Chinese president Xi Jinping as a special guest. It’s the first time a Chinese leader has attended the event. It marks a historic moment, not least because it comes just a few days before Donald Trump will be sworn in as […]
It is yet another alliance of ideas that fiction could not have invented. The leftist vice president of Bolivia, who has never disavowed his Marxist past, is seeing eye-to-eye with a certain out-for-himself American real estate mogul with a taste for gold-plated everything. Writing for America Economia, Álvaro García Linera has penned a kind of […]
Pete Souza has worked for the Chicago Tribune, Life and National Geographic. He’s covered the war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of Barack Obama’s Senate career. He’s been the White House’s official photographer twice, for Ronald Reagan and for Barack Obama. At 62, Souza is always ready for another shot. But […]
WASHINGTON, DC — President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he has “NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” Trump, however, has a long history with Russia, trying repeatedly to build luxury properties in Moscow, holding a beauty pageant there, and benefiting from heavy investments from Russians in his properties around the world. It is not possible to verify whether Trump has no current deals or loans with Russian entities because he has refused to release his tax returns. But a look at Trump’s record since the 1980s shows that he and his family long have […]
-OpEd- PARIS — As far as beginnings go, this is a terrible start. As a matter of fact, it’s going badly before it has even started. Though American politics has no shortage of scandals, this is still unprecedented. One week before his inauguration, President-elect Trump finds himself under devastating fire. Accused of mixing with a […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Last year was full of surprises across the world: a spike of protectionist fever in the United States at the instigation of Donald Trump, an anti-globalization wave of populism in developed countries bogged down by mass unemployment, Britain’s planned exit for from the European Union, worries about a widening inequality gap, migration […]
The refrain has continued ever since Donald Trump stunned the world with his election victory: “But what will he actually do?” As the two-plus month interregnum winds down, ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration, some (but not all) of the answers have begun to emerge. The first clear message is that he will nominate whomever […]
Kim Jong-un will be celebrating his 33rd birthday this Sunday. Wishes and presents are usually in order on this type of occasion, but it’s difficult to see any desire the North Korean dictator hasn’t already seen fulfilled in his five years in power. For starters, the cult of personality has never been bigger in North […]
-Essay- PARIS — Changes, disruptions, earthquakes … We no longer know what word best describes the political events unfolding before our eyes. After former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost in the conservative primaries, and current Socialist president François Hollande chose not to run, Matteo Renzi resigned as Italian prime minister, becoming the latest European leader […]
The Ford Motor Company’s decision not to open an auto plant in Mexico — in a swift reaction to Donald Trump’s offhand threat to slap tariffs on all imported vehicles — is another sign that when the president-elect tweets, people pay attention. It’s also a reminder that Trump doesn’t need to build a wall to […]
PARIS — The victory of the Russians, Iranians and of the Syrian regime in Aleppo is a strategic turning point in the organization of international relations. It marks the West’s fading out and the return of power politics in the Middle East. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the war. Here are four […]
The rise of Donald Trump, as well as the growing power of populist leaders in Europe, will require a vigilant eye when the signs start appearing that puts basic democratic values in harm’s way. It is just beginning.
In a normal election cycle, the meeting of the U.S. Electoral College goes virtually unnoticed. The 2016 race to the White House, however, has been anything but normal. Recent allegations from both the CIA and FBI that Russia essentially “hacked the election,” come as the apparent state-by-state electoral college loser Hillary Clinton leads the overall […]
WORLDCRUNCH NOTE TO READERS: This article was originally published in Kommersant on Nov. 10, two days after Donald Trump’s election win. Since then, there have been reports that Russian computer hackers may have interfered in the U.S. election in Trump’s favor. Also Trump had since called Taiwan’s president, sparking a diplomatic row with China. Nevertheless, […]
After Donald Trump’s surprise victory last month, the first serious question — both in the U.S. and around the globe — was: Will he actually do all that stuff? The answer appears to be tilting toward a, Well, Hell Yes, that is as surprising to some as the election itself. The most blatant example so […]
PARIS — I first heard the news with a text message from my son late last Friday night: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen had spoken by telephone with Donald Trump. I cannot describe the joy I felt. This was the best piece of news for Taiwan in more than 30 years, even eclipsing for me the […]
Earlier today, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma, as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt, a New York Times investigation once revealed, has previously sent letters to government agencies that were actually drafted by energy-industry lobbyists. He has also legally challenged the Obama administration’s regulation of fossil fuels. […]
-OpEd- PARIS — “The era of multiculturalism is over …” This was the proud declaration of Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, back in the summer of 2015. One year later, Theresa May, the new British prime minister, took it one step further: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you’re […]
-Analysis- BEIRUT — On the morning of Nov. 9, as the U.S. presidential votes were being counted, residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which has been under total siege since July, were trying to find some consolation in dark humor. “I think Trump will win in the elections because he is the real face of American politics,” Najmaldin Khaled, an English teacher and editor at the Shahba Press Agency, said in a group conversation on WhatsApp, which residents of Eastern Aleppo use to communicate with the outside world. “Trying to look at the bright side of it, no more claims about […]
The death of Cuba’s Fidel Castro offers an early glimpse at how U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will need to balance his pro-growth economic plans and allegiance to business with the hard-line campaign pledges that helped him win the election. Trump has promised to reverse the improved U.S. relations with Cuba forged by President Barack Obama over the past two years unless the Caribbean nation met his demands for more political and religious freedoms. Reince Priebus, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, reiterated that message on Sunday in an interview on Fox News. Priebus said the U.S. needed “a better deal” from […]
-Analysis- Populists sometimes have good ideas. Taking advantage of historically low interest rates to launch a stimulus plan, for example, is a good idea. Standing up to China, which is massively subsidizing its steel exports and restricting freedom to invest in the country through law and might, is another good idea. So too is rethinking […]
-Analysis- I want to avoid all possible misunderstandings so I’ll go straight to the point: I believe Donald Trump’s victory was the effect of an irreversible decline of representative democracy as a viable system of government. What leads me to this conclusion is not my antipathy towards the campaign that led him to victory, nor […]
ST LOUIS — I’m the guy who never answered the phone when caller ID said “Number Unavailable.” I don’t want every opinion, every perspective, and every trend to be visible to those who would mold public opinion. I am suspicious that had the power brokers in Washington known what was coming, they’d have found a way to get Hillary Clinton into office. I didn’t want that. I’m fed up. Enough is enough. I want my country back. This is supposed to be a government of the people — not of the banks, lobbyists and foreign donors. I am one of […]
TIJUANA — Martin Pina stands in the courtyard of the “Casa del Migrante,” which was founded 29 years ago by Catholic Scalabrinian missionaries to help migrants in this teeming Mexican border city. Sporting a tattoo of his mother Belinda on his left arm and Mexican singer Selena on his right, Pina says that he had […]
WASHINGTON — Melania Trump (or Melania Knavs, as she was called before she married and moved into Trump Tower) will be the only first lady since 1829 to have been born outside the United States. John Quincy Adams’ wife, Louisa Adams, was the last, having been born in England when the U.S. was still a […]
La Jornada, Nov. 14, 2016 As U.S. president-elect Donald Trump begins to reveal if and how he will follow through on his campaign promises, Mexico is keeping a close eye on his immigration plans. In an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” program on Sunday night, Trump indicated that his pledge to build a wall between […]
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump will face wide-ranging questions about his ethics and integrity from the moment he enters the White House in January. The president-elect says he’ll turn over his vast financial holdings to his kids. But many doubt a blind trust will insulate him completely, potentially exposing him to conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts on a range of domestic and foreign issues as no president before. During the campaign, Trump branded his opponents with nicknames such as “Lyin Ted” and “Crooked Hillary.” Yet more than Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton, he lied and shrewdly assumed […]
-OpEd- They said he could never win. At best, Donald Trump was seen as a voice for a growing number of desperate Americans. Trump was a symptom of the political and cultural misery of the working classes in the United States — the empire of our time. His strongest critics portrayed him as a monstrous, […]
Not much is known for sure of Trump’s foreign policy agenda, which is why Angela Merkel does not stop at the perfunctory congratulations to Donald Trump.
The election of Donald Trump is a shocking event for millions of Americans. And not only Americans. The man set to move into the White House has spent the past 18 months crossing lines of both basic decency and what we still like to call modern democracy. Beyond any fair debate on points of policy, […]
International newspapers and commentators chime in on an unexpected victory and the unpredictable nature of the incoming “Leader Of The Free World.”
From Italy, India and Indonesia through to 10 other countries, the name was heard in many a language around the world today: T – R – U – M – P. Trump Wins, How TV News Called It In 13 Countries par Worldcrunch
In one of the most stunning election results in modern democratic history, Republican candidate Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the race to become the 45th president of the United States. Winning the world’s most powerful job in his very first run for public office, the 70-year-old real estate tycoon and television reality star defeated […]
After a long day at the voting booths, Americans, and the world, watched and waited to see who the next American president would be. In the final, and to many, shocking, twist to this historical and polarizing campaign, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Trump, the billionaire businessman turned […]
What Trump has done is nothing short of cataclysmic.
PARIS — Is it over yet? With the U.S. presidential election just days away, people across the globe are as excited to be done with the whole sordid spectacle, it seems, as they are to finally find out who wins. Suspense is building. But so too is a general sentiment of “we just can’t take […]
Turkey has grown silent. Since the failed military coup in July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown across Turkish society has featured a particular focus on journalists working for opposition newspapers. According to Reporters Without Borders’ Julie Majerczak: “Turkey has become the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” But the crackdown goes well beyond press freedom. Two […]