…there’s no question that the United States is at a level of political polarization unseen for many decades. Most of the attention to this phenomenon has focused on its effects on America’s internal politics, and some observers are clearly worried that the core institutions of the country might be at risk—understandable, given President Donald Trump’s open hostility towards some […]
President Trump appears to be getting advice on China policy from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It’s all starting to resemble a pro-wrestling match where one wrestler gets his opponent in a headlock, throws him to the ground and has him pinned—for a long two seconds—until he miraculously escapes. It’s good theater, but it’s tough on […]
The expectations were enormous: Perhaps Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un would, at a summit in Vietnam, finally declare an end to the Korean War…Instead, the second meeting between the two leaders ended in failure on Thursday, with a table set for a leaders’ lunch abandoned, a signing ceremony scrapped, and a terse statement from […]
US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un have wrapped up the first day of a summit in Hanoi that the American president hopes will get Pyongyang to curtail its decades-long push for nuclear weapons. The two-day summit comes after their first meeting in Singapore more than eight months ago, and is taking place […]
Does Trump indeed mark the end of an era? Or will he prove a transitory figure who created a mere interregnum in America’s quest for primacy after the Cold War? In speaking about America’s purpose, Trump himself has repeatedly made it clear that he seeks to overturn what he regards as the benighted policies of […]
…three factors are key: establishing common policy ground, forging trusting and respectful personal relationships, and managing leaders’ respective domestic politics. These “three P’s,” other differences among the cases notwithstanding, provide a strategic framework crucial to successful summit diplomacy. While neither Trump’s nor Kim’s record inspires much confidence that these lessons will be drawn, it’d be in their interest – and […]
February brings the most significant series of tests yet of whether President Trump can transform his disruptive U.S. foreign policy into concrete outcomes. The four to watch most closely are: negotiating a trade deal with China, denuclearising North Korea, rallying an international community to contain Iran, and democratising Venezuela. Read Here – CNBC
At the midpoint of Donald Trump’s first term, historians have struggled to detect the kind of virtues that offset his predecessors’ vices: the infectious optimism of Reagan; the inspirational rhetoric of JFK; the legislative smarts of LBJ; or the governing pragmatism of Nixon. So rather than being viewed as the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan or […]
It has become a commonplace to describe the foreign policy of U.S. President Donald Trump as unpredictable. But doing so mischaracterizes the man and the policy. In fact, although Trump’s actions may often be shocking, they are rarely surprising. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
The longest federal government shutdown on record lasted twenty-one days. There’s talk of this one lasting “months or even years.” That almost certainly won’t happen—the current partial shutdown would go from annoying headline to political crisis long before then—but it’s a sign we are in uncharted territory. Read Here – The National Interest
looking beyond borders 