Tag: Trade
The end is nigh 2019
Except for my 401k, the teens have not been a great decade. We’ve watched the Arab spring turn into the Arab civil wars, Russia reassert itself annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine, China increase its overt and covert challenges to the US, and North Korea defy American efforts to limit or eliminate its nuclear and missile programs. The US has initiated trade wars, withdrawn from international commitments (including the Paris climate change accord as well as the Iran nuclear deal and the intermediate nuclear forces agreement), and abandoned its support for democracy and rule of law, not only but importantly in Israel and Palestine.
Several of these developments could worsen in 2020. The Iran/US tit-for-tat is more likely to escalate than de-escalate. Some Arab civil wars like Yemen and Syria are burning out, but others are spreading beyond the Arab world, with Turkey intervening in Syria and Libya, Russia and Egypt in Libya, and Iran in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Russia is not advancing in Ukraine, but it seems disinclined to withdraw via the Minsk II agreement that would re-establish Ukraine’s control over its southeastern border with Russia and allow a significant degree of autonomy for Luhansk and Donetsk. China and the US have reached a limited and partial agreement on trade, but no more comprehensive accord is in sight. North Korea is bound to test more missiles, if not nuclear weapons.
US mistakes are especially concerning. The withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal has freed Iran to begin to violate its provisions, accelerating the date at which Tehran will have all the technology it needs to make nuclear weapons. Global warming is accelerating and the arms race with Russia is quickening. NATO is not brain dead, but US leadership of the alliance is more in doubt than ever before due to the President’s inability to recognize the real advantages a multilateral partnership gives to American power projection. American abandonment of even the pretense of evenhandedness in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has opened the door to extremist Jewish ambitions to annex the West Bank.
Only 11 months remain before the next US presidential election. It will focus mainly on domestic issues like the economy, health care, religion, and race. But there can be no doubt the United States is less well positioned internationally than it was in January 2017, when President Trump took office. The rest of the world increasingly regards the U.S. as a menace to peace and security, not its guarantor. Excessive reliance on military force and erratic decisionmaking have reduced American influence. Even the relatively strong economy, which has continued to grow at the pace established in the Obama administration and thereby reduced unemployment to historic lows, has not propped up American prestige, because of Trump’s trade wars. Enthusiasm for America is at a nadir in most of the world.
We can hope for better and toast the prospects this evening. But there is little reason to believe the United States is going to recover until it gets new leadership, not only in the White House but also in the Senate, where the new year will see some semblance of a “trial” of President Trump on self-evident impeachment charges. He tried to extort Ukraine into investigating a political rival for his personal benefit using US government resources and has withheld cooperation with the resulting investigation. But few if any Republican Senators seem ready to acknowledge the facts. I might hope Chief Justice Roberts will refuse to preside over a sham procedure and insist on testimony, but he has given no hint of that yet.
America is a great country. It has survived many mistakes. But whether it can get through the next year without doing itself irreversible harm is in doubt. It could “acquit” and re-elect a president most of the world regards as more of a threat to peace and security than Vladimir Putin. Or it could, against the odds, redeem itself and its role in the world with a conviction, a good election free of international interference, and inauguration of someone the world and most its citizens can respect. Take your choice, America.
And happy New Year!
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Stevenson’s army, December 28-31
I was traveling over the weekend, so managed to miss some first-rate recommendations by Charlie Stevenson:
December 31
Forward: Protesters storm US embassy in Baghdad — in response to US airstrikes, as reported by WaPo and NYT stories.
– Likely changes in congressional representation after 2020 census.
– Chinese impact in Djibouti.
– Navy tries again to decommission carrier Truman and cut an air wing.
Backward: Sarah Binder reflects on Congress in 2019.
– FP lists top ten stories.
See you next year….
December 30
– NYT has long piece with previously unreported details of administration fights over Ukraine aid. OMB began working in June to halt aid; Trump met in late August with Pompeo, Esper & Bolton and rejected their unanimous advice to release aid.
-WaPo reveals backchannel of Giuliani & Cong. Pete Sessions negotiating with Maduro.
–US struck forces linked to Iran in Iraq & Syria in response to attacks in Kirkuk that wounded Americans. Here’s Reuters background.
– NYT explains al shabab’s strengths.
– Armed Services chairmen vow smaller NDAA next year. It was amazing to me how many foreign policy and non-defense matters were shoehorned into the bill. But, then, few other bills were debated in the Senate.
December 29
– NYT has long article documenting Trump administration’s demotion and disregard of scientific expertise.
-Newly released documents show how banker David Rockefeller maneuvered to help the shah of Iran.
-Hard to dispute:article calls Sen. McConnell the “most consequential US politician of the past decade.”
December 28
– NYT says Russia is ahead in hypersonic weapons.
– Congress is more assertive against Trump on foreign policy.
– Huawei is making nice in Europe and winning.
– Fed study says Trump tariffs backfired.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, December 21 and 22
December 22
– Washington awaits North Korean missile test with policy in disarray, NYT says.
– WSJ says Navarro endures on trade issues.
-Former CIA official reflects on Post’s Afghanistan articles. I agree.
-Newly released emails show OMB blocking Ukraine aid 90 minutes after Zelensky phone call.
– NYT compares political situations of Nixon and Trump.
December 21
– The administration forced Congress to back down on a provision in the omnibus spending bill that would have forced early release of military aid to Ukraine.
– NYT can track you by your phone, and they did it on the president.
-WaPo lists the contenders fighting in Libya.
– NYT says there’s vote rigging in Venezuela..
– The fight over control of the world’s financial system.
– FP explains why US and Israel don’t have a formal alliance.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, December 20
– NYT has the tick tock on how Pelosi and Lighthizer got to Yes on the USMCA trade deal with labor support.
– WaPo shows sequence of Trump’s belief in Ukraine interference in 2016. Former Trump officials link it to Putin’s influence.
– There’s still hope: the special House committee on modernization urges specific reforms. There’s their release.
BTW: both Houses have adjourned until January.
– India cracks down with detentions and internet suspension.
– A Tufts prof says cybersecurity experts are being driven out of government.
– One of the most significant unreported [other than FT] stories is this: China is set to open enough new coal-fired plants to equal Europe’s current capacity.
PS: SecState Pompeo has lunch scheduled today with Trump. Will he finally announce his plan to return to Kansas and run for Senate?
And a supplement:
I found several more items worthy of your weekend time.
– Ward Just has died. He was an outstanding WaPo reporter from Vietnam until being wounded. He then turned to fiction, and wrote some of the most realistic Washington novels I’ve ever read. [Only Thomas Mallon comes close.] His political characters are true and complex.
– The Vietnam draft lottery spawned decades of valuable scientific research because it produced truly random samples for later study. Some of the vet/nonvet results are deeply troubling. [FYI, I lucked out: my birthday was 312 in the lottery.]
-CFR has its latest report on what to worry about in 2020. [We’ll read this in the spring course.]
– Reuters says Saudi oil fields attack came from the north, thus likely Iran.
– Atlantic Council has a good new report urging “managed competition” with China, with justifiable heavy emphasis on economic issues like R&D and trade.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Little England
The Curator Emerita of the Smithsonian and I spent last week in London. You’d think we would have something interesting to say about the election and Brexit.
We don’t.
The fact is no one we spoke to mentioned the election or Brexit without prompting. When prompted, the people we were talking with made it clear they would not vote for Boris Johnson and opposed Brexit, but their preferences varied. This, in a nutshell, is a major reason for the Conservative landslide, which gave Prime Minister Johnson control of parliament. The Brexiteers remained overwhelmingly united within the Conservative fold, disappointing the Brexit Party. The anti-Brexit vote got split up among Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, Scottish Nationalists, and others. And Labour managed to put forward the worst candidate ever: manifesto thumping Jeremy Corbyn.
The most overt political voice we heard all week was a demonstration heading up Haymarket to Piccadilly Circus chanting “Boris Johnson is not our prime minister!” It was mostly younger people shouting with real passion, but not enough votes.
Others we spoke with just wanted it all over. They seemed tired of talking about it. Unlike Americans, whose daily conversation in the capital is all about Donald Trump, many in London seemed to want to ignore Boris Johnson. Life, and even politics, has so much more to offer.
That said, no one should underestimate the impact of what the Brits have done. I’ll be surprised if it takes their economy less than a generation to recover, as companies that once used the United Kingdom as their base for European operations are moving out, any trade deal with the EU will not be as advantageous as membership, and the UK’s government budget will need to expand to make up for the functions the EU used to perform and for the 4.5 billion-pound abatement the UK received in 2018 as a member state.
Perhaps just as significant: the Kingdom is unlikely to remain united. Both Northern Ireland and Scotland want to stay in the EU. Scotland is on track for a second referendum on secession, sooner rather than later. Northern Ireland is bound to be disappointed with whatever Brexit brings, as it will increase either the trade barriers with the rest of Ireland or with Britain.
Anyone who think the US will rush to the rescue with some fantastic deal on trade and investment is smoking our latest legalized substance. The UK has far less negotiating leverage without the rest of the EU than it will in a bilateral transaction.
What it boils down to is Little England, not the Global Britain the prime minister has promised.
I hasten to add that we spent a wonderful, even if rainy, day in Cambridge, where I had visited 55 years ago while hitchhiking around England and Wales. Great Saint Mary’s Church, which was open, and Trinity College Chapel, which was not, are reminders of how much England has endured and survived. Seeing The Backs again was a thrill, even in typical Cambridge weather:
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Stevenson’s army, December 14 and 15
December 15
NBC says Trump plans to pull 4,000 US troops from Afghanistan.
NYT says US secretly expelled two Chinese officials for spying at SOCOM base.
NYT says Chinese believe they just won the trade war with the US.
What goes around comes around: a judge has invoked a law passed by GOP Congress to limit Obama against Trump.
Trump campaign briefs press on its plans. Looks pretty good for them.
Dartmouth prof doubts effectiveness of various campaign reforms. Note especially the data on term limits.the evidence is at best equivocal on the effects of term limits. Some studies find they would actually enhance the power of special interest groups. The problem is that incumbents who lack a reelection incentive can reduce the effort they devote to their jobs, becoming less attentive to their constituents and working less on the legislative process. The political scientists Alexander Fouirnaies and Andrew B. Hall, for instance, use data from 1995 to 2016 to show that legislators facing term limits sponsor fewer bills and miss more votes. This shift can increase the influence of outside forces such as interest groups and lobbyists, who will happily fill the vacuum in expertise and effort created by term-limited legislators. These dynamics played out in California after term limits were enacted in 1990 that restricted members of the Assembly to three terms (six years) and state senators to two terms (eight years). Observers found that these short limits scrambled the legislative process, discouraging legislators from acquiring experience while in office and creating constant turnover in leadership positions. Lobbyists, staffers and other unelected figures seemed to gain power as a result. In response, good-government groups endorsed Proposition 28, which passed in 2012, reducing lifetime limits to 12 years but allowing legislators to serve all of that time in one chamber.
Prof. Brands and others say Trump has abandoned the Carter Doctrine of protecting oil fields.
December 14
– British expat Andrew Sullivan says Boris Johnson won with “Trumpism without Trump.”
– I look at the electoral maps and conclude that more and more people voted their amygdala instead of their pocketbooks. Same trend in the US.
– WSJ says USMCA sets a model for future trade agreements. I agree.
– There’s pushback on the Post’s Afghanistan series, from a Dartmouth prof and Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings.
– WaPo notes winners and losers from first US China trade deal.
– NYT says Ukraine is looking for a US lobbyist. [They all do eventually.]
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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