[Mac Margolis] Latin America’s left needs better heroes

For a man behind bars, former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been on a tear. In recent weeks, his followers have taken to the streets in his name. Foreign celebrities and world leaders including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate have sung his praises. Even Pope Francis reportedly sent him blessings. No other candidate comes close in the polls for the Oct. 7 presidential elections.　That’s not half bad for the political leader whom two Brazilian courts found guilty of graft and money

Sept. 3, 2018

[Mitchell Schnurman] Best thing about Trump’s trade deal: ‘We didn’t blow it all up’

Maybe President Donald Trump has learned a better way to make deals in Washington: Negotiate instead of walking away.　Or maybe opponents have figured out how to sway the president: Present a strong united front with business and political leaders from across the spectrum.　On Aug. 27, Trump and officials from Mexico announced a breakthrough in trade talks that paves the way to refresh the North American Free Trade Agreement.　Many details are unclear and the process still faces a public review and

Sept. 3, 2018

[Nathaniel Bullard] Electric vehicles’ day will come, and it might come suddenly

Last week, California’s state legislature approved a bill requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. It’s a landmark for power sector decarbonization, and if Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, it will require a transformation of the state’s energy system.　California already gets 29 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy, and it has already reduced statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. As I

Sept. 3, 2018

[James Stavridis] Taiwan is not bargaining chip with China

I first visited Taiwan in the 1970s as a young officer serving in an American destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet. A small, dynamic nation at the northern edge of the strategically crucial South China Sea, the Republic of China (as Taiwan prefers to be known) was locked in a Cold War duel of geopolitics with its vastly larger cousin across the Taiwan Strait, the People’s Republic of China.　I returned to Taiwan last week for meetings with senior officials -- President Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Mi

Sept. 2, 2018

[Noah Smith] Imagine if shareholders didn’ come first

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill -- the Accountable Capitalism Act -- that would require large companies to create corporate charters that take account of the interests of workers, customers and communities in addition to shareholders. To enforce this dictum, it would give each company’s employees the power to elect 40 percent of the corporate directors.　Right now, US corporations are set up to maximize the value of their shareholders. According to classic free-market theory, this wi

Sept. 2, 2018

[Christopher Balding] How US-Mexico pact could turn tables on China

When President Donald Trump announced a trade pact with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, attention immediately turned to Canada. But it’s in China -- which wasn’t mentioned -- that the greatest impact could be felt.　In abandoning Nafta, the US appears to be moving toward a single trade bloc that might also embrace Canada. The Mexico accord tightens rules of origin on automobiles, so that 40 percent to 45 percent of their content must be made by domestic companies whose

Sept. 2, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Serbia and Kosovo may be ready to end their feud

An agreement between Serbia and Kosovo to settle a long-standing dispute over their mutual border is becoming more than an abstract idea. The countries’ leaders have held initial talks on a so-called border correction, a process that could offer a way to ease their accession to the European Union. The conversation went well enough for Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo President Hashim Thaci to appear together over the weekend at a news conference in the Austrian town of Alpbach.　The

Aug. 30, 2018

[Volker Perthes] Sustaining Europe’s security trip

Despite the tensions generated by Brexit, the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have stood together in disputes between the European Union and the United States. If their unity can be sustained, Europe’s “big three” (E3) will serve the EU very well in a tumultuous future.French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and UK Prime Minister Theresa May seem to have read from the same script regarding US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear

Aug. 30, 2018

[Shuli Ren] Grab a shovel, China’s ready to build again

Build, baby, build. Infrastructure spending in China is heating up again. But this time, the government wants help. Beijing entered the year with a tough stance on debt, tightening its purse strings to head off the risk of a Minsky moment. The Ministry of Finance lowered its fiscal deficit target to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product, the first cut since 2013, and went so far as to halt all government-funded work in Xinjiang, an area bigger than France. As a result, infrastructure growth grou

Aug. 29, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Putin won’t be swayed by hunger strikes

Last week, the hunger strike by Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov in a Russian prison crossed the 100-day mark. That exceeds the 66-day protest that caused the death of Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands in 1981, and is close to the length of the 1986 fast by Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko, who stopped at 117 days, but died 10 days later.　Sentsov’s decision to refuse food until Russia frees all of its Ukrainian political prisoners (various lists contain between 64 and 71 names) has

Aug. 29, 2018

[Jeffrey Frankel] The depth of the next US recession

The US economy is doing well. But the next recession could be very bad.The US Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that GDP growth in the second quarter of 2018 reached 4.1 percent -- the highest level since 2014, when it was 4.9 percent. Another year of growth will match the record 10-year expansion of the 1990s. Add to that low unemployment, and things are looking good.But this cannot continue forever. Given a massive corporate debt and a soaring US stock market, one possible trigger for a do

Aug. 29, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] When and why the world went wrong

What exactly has gone wrong, and when and why? The open, democratic world order based on egalitarian rights and the rule of law -- liberalism, for lack of a better term -- is under increasing pressure. The signs, serious and less so, are everywhere.　The trend has now hit so many nations that the explanation has to be global. Social media are frequently cited as a driving force, but I would like to consider an alternative or perhaps complementary possibility for the breakdown of liberalism: As Wo

Aug. 28, 2018

[Noah Smith] Japan’s baby bust could be an experimentation

Japan’s population is shrinking. There are about 127 million people in the country today, but by 2050, this is projected to drop to about 102 million -- and to keep falling thereafter.　This will cause all sorts of problems. A shrinking population is also an aging one -- a smaller base of workers supporting a larger number of retirees means lower living standards for everyone. An older population also tends to be less productive. Additionally, a shrinking population means a shrinking domestic mar

Aug. 28, 2018