Trump is wrong about a lot of things when it comes to trade, including that the trade arrangements to which the United States is a party reflect poor negotiating skills. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly reflect U.S. negotiating preferences. But Trump does have a point that some of the negotiators’ priorities don’t reflect those of […]
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s maiden state visit to Pyongyang this week may signal an economic re-engagement with the hermit kingdom, according to Chinese state media. Ahead of the visit, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily has suggested, via its social media account, that restoring bilateral economic relations would be on the agenda. Read Here – South China Morning […]
Forty years after the revolution that ousted the Shah, Iran’s unique political-religious system and government appears strong enough to withstand US pressure and to ride out the country’s current economic difficulties. So how should the US minimize the risks to the region posed by the regime? Read Here – Project Syndicate
Beyond the US, the fragility of growth in debt-ridden China and some other emerging markets remains a concern, as do economic, policy, financial and political risks in Europe. Worse, across the advanced economies, the policy toolbox for responding to a crisis remains limited. The monetary and fiscal interventions and private-sector backstops used after the 2008 […]
In the inquiry into who would be the strongest Democratic Presidential nominee in 2020, Donald Trump is what might be called a hostile witness. “Joe Biden is a dummy,” the President said last week, on his way to Iowa, where Biden, who spent more than three decades in the Senate and eight years as Barack Obama’s Vice-President and one […]
Undeterred by decades of carnage and the disastrous outcomes of prior conflicts, ideologues within the Trump administration are clamouring for military action against Iran. The exact basis for this escalation varies. There is little doubt that Osama bin Laden would have loved to see the United States attack and overthrow another of Al Qaeda’s enemies, this […]
Demographics may not be destiny, but for students of geopolitics, they come close. Although conventional measures of economic and military power often receive more attention, few factors influence the long-term competition between great powers as much as changes in the size, capabilities, and characteristics of national populations. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Tensions in the Gulf are an eerie echo of the tanker war that erupted in the late eighties during the eight-year conflict between Iraq and Iran. The tanker war was launched in 1984, when Iraq attacked Iran’s oil terminal and oil tankers at Kharg Island, in the northern Persian Gulf. Iran responded by striking tankers—initially […]
It has taken nearly 30 years, but half of all eastern German regions finally have a positive migration balance with western German states. For the first time, more people are moving from West to East than the other way around. That is primarily due to the fact that fewer and fewer people are leaving the […]
Trump’s hostile behaviour is reinvigorating efforts to turn the euro into an alternative to the world’s dominant currency. If only the Europeans could find some way to do it. Read Here – Foreign Policy
looking beyond borders 