[Tim Culpan] Trump’s ZTE tweet points to Pyongyang, Singapore, Oslo

US President Donald Trump’s sudden concern over Chinese jobs may indicate a realization that neither a failed nor a nationalized Chinese telecoms equipment maker would be in America’s best interests.　It may also indicate just how important his meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un really is.　To recap: ZTE Corp. is a Chinese company that makes telecoms equipment and mobile phones. It previously broke a US embargo on Iran by using American chips in equipment it sold to the Midd

May 15, 2018

[Rob Cohen] America needs a comprehensive economic development strategy

US President Donald Trump recently proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure program. This is a good idea with bipartisan support, assuming we can finance it. But infrastructure alone will not produce the long-term inclusive growth we yearn for. To achieve that, America instead needs a comprehensive economic development strategy.　That means America’s struggling communities have to simultaneously invest in many different types of capital to generate growth: infrastructure, health, education and sma

May 15, 2018

[Andy Mukherjee] Malaysia-Singapore union flickers back to life

Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, was a canny politician, an extraordinary statesman and an astute analyst of geopolitics. At times it was hard to tell which hat he was wearing.That seems to have been the case when, speaking to the press in 1996, a little more than three decades after his city was ejected by Malaysia and forced to become a nation-state, Senior Minister Lee boldly speculated on the idea of a re-merger.　Let politicians across the causeway that links the neighbors dro

May 14, 2018

[Jay Ambrose] Kicking George Washington out of church

My wife and I were docents of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, when I worked in nearby Washington, a city named for a former parishioner. Yes, George Washington went to church there. As I used to explain to tourists, he had even helped get the place built and had his own pew box, but docents will maybe be quiet about that now. Washington, you see, had slaves, and, in the form of a 150-year-old, marble plaque hanging in the sanctuary, he is being expelled from the church. As a politically z

May 14, 2018

[Faye Flam] Inspiring terms are simple. ‘Climate change’ isn’t.

Last week I chatted with Columbia University paleontologist Dennis Kent about some new work he and his colleagues published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about the surprisingly big influence of Venus and Jupiter on the climate of Earth. The gravitational tug of the second and fifth planets from the sun act to stretch Earth’s annual orbit like a rubber band, pulling it into a more oblong ellipse and then back to something very close to a perfect circle over a cycle of 405

May 14, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] China proves Marx right

What would Karl Marx think of contemporary China? China certainly seems to think highly of Marx, holding celebratory events this month for the 200th anniversary of his birth. The government even sent a large statue as a gift to his hometown of Trier, Germany. China is proudly parading Marx and his thought as an alternative to Western liberalism.　I think Marx, if he could be magically reincarnated, would love today’s China but not for the reasons Beijing might appreciate. He would see China as a

May 13, 2018

[Therese Raphael] What does Brexit mean? UK still can’t decide

It’s been nearly two years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. But the intervening period has done nothing to resolve the question of what that should mean.　Consider the latest Brexit-related fracas, which has seen members of Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet publicly squabbling about Britain’s future trade relationship with Europe. For many Brexit supporters, the debate has become a test of whether the UK is really leaving, or just pretending to.　This isn’t a polite disagreement:

May 13, 2018

[Daniel Moss] Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank shows US hasn’t learned

Is the US better off trying to shape the world as party to an imperfect international accord, or as an outsider insisting on better terms?　One lesson from the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 ought to be: Rejecting ideas from allies merely opens the door to alternatives over which the US will have zero control. This wisdom is newly relevant, not only because US President Donald Trump is chipping away at the Iran nuclear deal. Today the US frets about increasing Chinese influence in Asia and b

May 13, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Trump’s foolish abandonment of Iran nuclear deal makes US, Israel less safe

Nothing could better illustrate the dangerous incoherence of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy than his announcement Tuesday that he is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposing “powerful” sanctions on Tehran.Contrary to his woeful effort at explanation, this move will not make America safer. On the contrary, it means that Iran will restart a frozen nuclear program and reach bomb-making capacity sooner rather than later. Nor will Trump’s move constrain Iran’s regional misbehavi

May 11, 2018

[Alexandra Delano Alonso] Deported and adrift in Mexico

Each month this year, the United States has deported 15,000 migrants to Mexico. They join some 2.5 million others who have returned over the past decade -- some forced to leave by deportation orders, others by economic and political conditions.　 Back in the country of their birth, however, they face discrimination and exclusion anew. Nancy Landa, a young woman living in Tijuana after being deported in 2009, put it plainly when she made her story public: “Sometimes I feel that I have been more ac

May 10, 2018

[Chicago Tribune] Trump’s two nuclear crises

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump added Iran to his very short list (two names) of major nuclear crises that demand immediate and relentless focus. He defied European allies and made good on long-telegraphed threats to withdraw the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.　 The president didn’t mince words. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” he said. “The Iran deal is defective at its core.” Trump says t

May 10, 2018

[David Rothkopf] World leaders have figured it out: You can play America by playing to the president’s fragile ego

Never mind nuclear fears about North Korea and Iran. Set aside concerns about Russian cyberattacks. World leaders today are racing to harness a different source of power to tip the geopolitical balance in their favor.　From Moscow to Pyongyang, from Paris to Jerusalem, presidents, prime ministers and dictators-for-life are seeking to weaponize Donald Trump’s vanity.　Different leaders are using different approaches. South Korean President Moon Jae-in gave President Trump credit for a diplomatic br

May 10, 2018