With more sanctions for China and curbs on NAFTA, Donald Trump is fulfilling his campaign pledges to curtail globalization — free trade and vast business interests be damned.
Tag: trump
-OpEd- PARIS — The gravity of the situation at the White House grows clearer each day. The anonymous article published by the New York Times in which a high-ranking official from the Trump administration describes the internal resistance, coupled with the publication of “Fear,” in which the investigative journalist Bob Woodward, celebrated for his role […]
NEW YORK — The New York Times published an extraordinary column this afternoon by an anonymous contributor identified as a “senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure.” (In a tweet, and perhaps inadvertently, the Times also described its op-ed columnist as a man.) It’s readily apparent why the writer’s job would be threatened. His column describes a White House mired in subterfuge and scheming because President Donald Trump isn’t able or fit to carry out his duties. “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” […]
The Argentine pontiff, used to navigating politics in Buenos Aires, is battling at a whole different level now. And his papacy may hang in the balance.
Spare a thought for the globe-trotting European stock salesman. Europe’s equities have seen 25 straight weeks of fund outflows, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, wiping out all of 2017’s inflows. It’s the only region recording meaningful outflows this year — even emerging markets, performing far worse, can’t make that claim. So why can’t Europe get any love? The push factors are obvious: From Brexit to the Italian budget, Europe is still a continent that has a reputation for in-fighting for global investors. At the same time, the pull factors are lacking: Economic and earnings growth is decent but unimpressive […]
-Analysis- BERLIN — World politics is currently dominated by “strongmen,” those leaders who see themselves anointed to negotiate “deals’ among themselves to chart the world’s destiny. Vladimir Putin’s Russia, in alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, has stifled the Syrian people’s rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, allowing his Damascus regime to regain almost complete control […]
News used to be a cherished staple for writer and conflict-resolution expert Aldo Civico. But when Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential elections, he had to take a break — for sanity’s sake.
The President’s former lawyer pleads guilty on the same day his former campaign chairman is convicted of financial crimes. The hand of special counsel Robert S. Mueller is significantly strengthened. What happens now?
A view from Russia on the topic of Russian-American relations: time to keep a low profile.
-Analysis- Turkey is a country with extreme social differences. If the inflation rate rises, the lira tumbles and price stickers in supermarkets are rewritten daily, which means those who already have little can afford less and less. The current currency crisis is making the poor even poorer. But it will not spare the rich for […]
The U.S. president wants to impose his will and whims on all partners. The EU, for the sake of its own security, needs to resist.
-OpEd- This must have been the moment he was waiting for: an energetic handshake with Donald Trump, with a smile and a deep look into his eyes to top it off. The two men seemed to be sealing a fresh pact. Cameras flashed, capturing the important moment for newspapers and history books — the five […]
The world can do a lot better than incarcerate migrants en masse, or turn away boatloads of desperate passengers, argues former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos.
-Analysis- MUNICH — As far as industrial strategies and international competition are concerned, there’s no greater contrast than that between Europe’s resignation and China’s iron determination. It’s not surprising that it was China — and not Europe — that proposed to form an alliance against Trump’s raving protectionist madness. With little success: Even Washington’s harassment […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — After many weeks of claiming, dishonestly, that European allies “owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back” — in fact, Europeans spend far more money on European defense than does the United States — and after referring to NATO members as “delinquent” and worse, President Donald Trump appears to have handed America’s European allies an ultimatum: Pay up, spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on the military, do it fast — or the United States will pull out. We can “go it alone,” he told them, by some accounts. During the news conference […]
As Donald Trump stares down NATO, we may be witnessing the dying days of the post-War alliance between Europe and the U.S..
-Analysis- PARIS — A historic, surreal handshake between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. A G7 summit in Canada that officially confirmed the rift between Europe and the United States on international trade. And, between these two events, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani gathered for the […]
-Analysis- With smiles and handshakes and words of mutual warmth, President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un entered the history books in Singapore on Tuesday as the first sitting leaders of their countries ever to meet face to face. Whether their summit turns out to be a truly historic event depends much more on what comes next. The United States and the world community have tried before to rein in North Korea. Three recent presidents were parties to agreements in which North Korea pledged to halt its nuclear activity. In each case, the commitments crumbled, the promises proved meaningless, […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — With his most recent visit to Vienna, made on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now met Austria’s 32-year-old Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for the second time this year. Meanwhile, Richard Grenell — U.S. ambassador to Berlin and a Donald Trump confidant — has called Kurz a “rock star” in a recent interview […]
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump often seems as though he’s stuck in the “80s. But maybe the better comparison is to the 1680s, not the Reagan era. Consider his announcement Thursday of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from the European Union, Canada and Mexico. These countries not only supply about half of our imports of these metals; they are also among our closest allies. Astonishingly, the White House claims that alienating these important military allies is necessary “to protect America’s national security.” These trade policies, and the supposed rationale behind them, bear an uncanny resemblance to classical mercantilism. […]
TOKYO — Since Japan“s fiscal year starts in April each year, it is in May that the country’s major corporations announce their financial statements for 2017. Most top Japanese companies have had notably great results. The net profits of Toyota and Mitsubishi, for example, hit new all-time highs for their three and ten-year results respectively. […]
It’s time for other countries to push back rather than just sit back and accept the consequences of Trump’s me-first approach to trade and diplomacy.
-Analysis- From Washington to Tehran to Pyongyang, the world’s attention this week has been consumed by nuclear diplomacy (and lack thereof). Talk of bad manners and misbehaving politicians, in light of such high stakes, might seem beside the point. And yet … Yesterday, in a closed-door meeting at the White House, special assistant Kelly Sadler […]
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump yanked the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal this week and will reverse decades of policy in Israel next week, in each case acting on a campaign pledge and intuition that he argues has already proved more successful than traditional diplomacy. He is aggressively moving forward with his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This week Trump sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to visit the rogue nation for the second time to continue preparations and bring home three American prisoners released by the Kim regime in a sign of […]
PARIS — “Remember the Eighth of May. History may recall it as the day the United States abandoned its belief in allies.” Edward Luce’s opening sentence in a scathing column penned Wednesday for the Financial Times is probably as close as anybody can get to capturing the European spirit following Donald Trump’s announcement that he […]
-OpEd- MUNICH — Donald Trump may have extended the grace period by one month, but make no mistake about it, he’s still holding a gun to Europe’s head in the tariffs dispute. The EU shouldn’t have any illusions: To get what he wants, Trump will continue his attempted extortion. And why not? It’s worked elsewhere, […]
Israel’s offensive against the Iran nuclear deal could be an opportunity for European leaders to improve it.
-Analysis- MOSCOW — The list is long: the scandal around the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, an unprecedented expulsion of Russian diplomats, sanctions leading to the fall of the ruble and a hit on aluminum giant Rusal, retaliatory sanctions, strikes on Syria and over-the-top rhetoric of official Moscow during and after all-the-above crises. […]
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — Americans love to contemplate – and legislatively promote, to whatever degree possible – the virtue of hard work. Here in the United States, we already work more hours per year than our English- speaking counterparts in Britain, Canada and Australia – not to mention those enviable denizens of European social democracies, who enjoy the kind of leisure time only our highest-paid workers can afford. So perhaps it’s not surprising that several new pro-work policy ideas are enjoying attention on the left and the right. On the right, work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance represent […]
The German chancellor’s upcoming visit to Washington will be a sober affair, particularly in contrast to the glitzy, red-carpet welcome the White House gave her French counterpart.
Leftist presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is Mexico’s answer to Trump. AMLO’s details are vague, but his poll numbers are rising.
The U.S. trade deficits that have prompted the Trump administration to raise tariffs have a result of the universal use of dollars and are unrelated to ‘unjust’ trading practices.
We should not be proud of of the insufficient response against the Damascus regime, but total inaction would be even worse.
-OpEd- Tensions are reaching a bursting point over Syria! Just as Saddam Hussein’s (hypothetical) possession of weapons of mass destruction led U.S. President George W. Bush to invade Iraq, the (alleged) use of lethal gases on Douma, a district in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta controlled by Islamists, now allows Donald Trump to announce harsh reprisals. Once […]
For decades, economists scorned protectionism as a losing proposition. Now some have begun to admit that not everyone benefits from open markets.
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Syria, How Did It Come To This?
-Analysis- PARIS — The Syrian population continues to endure various armed conflicts. Despite all the attention this war gets from international, political and humanitarian organizations, it is now more than seven years since it began — and Syria is suffering from three open wounds. On April 9, at dawn, the Tayfur air base, located between […]
-Essay- WASHINGTON — On Nov. 8, 2016, Erik Hagerman was struck by a bolt. Donald Trump was victorious, the last thing he wanted to hear. So on that very day, the 53-year-old former Nike corporate executive swore that he would avoid everything that happened in, and to, America after election day. He did not want […]
WASHINGTON — How many times have we heard that this is the year of the woman? Let’s just say, several. Each decade for the past century or so seems to have presented a fresh feature to justify yet another proclamation of historic import. From suffrage (1920) to the pill (1960) and legalized abortion(1973) to Gloria Steinem and Ms magazine (1972) to “Reviving Ophelia” (1994) — fast-forwarding to the recent pink-capped Women’s March (2017) and the #MeToo movement (2017) — women have been pushing their way forward to reach parity with men. Many of the original goals have been reached. Women […]
The U.S. president will cast a long shadow over the upcoming Summit of the Americas gathering in Lima, Peru — even if he decides not to show up.
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — The nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next secretary of state signals President Donald Trump’s determination to quit the landmark Iran nuclear deal, which could cause it to unravel, according to national security and arms-control experts. If Pompeo is confirmed, Trump will have at his side an adviser who is equally […]