"Trade wars," President Donald Trump recently declared on Twitter, “are good, and easy to win.” But it’s questionable whether the president’s proposed tariffs -- a tax of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum -- will be a war or an act of friendly fire.　Tariffs are generally not a good way to promote domestic industry. They encourage American producers to hunker down behind the tax’s protective wall, focusing on the captive local market instead of figuring out how to p

March 13, 2018

Now that the shock of President Donald Trump’s decision to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in May has worn off, it’s time to consider the broader strategic implications of how the US can best approach Kim’s lethal regime in particular, and Asia in general.　Let’s start with the tactical: Trump’s remarkable gamble of essentially “taking a meeting” with Kim is a fascinating new twist on traditional diplomacy. It will certainly capture headlines, but will it really change anything? Doubt

March 13, 2018

Seizing the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, North Korea started a peace campaign toward South Korea and the US. Different North Korea specialists and observers have different interpretations of North Korea’s sudden policy U-turn. Has the North Korean leadership’s siege mentality -- real or imagined, which it has been using as a tactical means to justify its totalitarian rule and military and subversive offensive against South Korea since the end of the Korean War -- turned into a pa

March 13, 2018

Steve Bannon went to Italy to root for the neo-fascists and populists who trounced Italy’s traditional parties in last week’s election.　Donald Trump’s ex-chief political strategist, who avidly encouraged the president’s most populist and nationalist instincts, now sees Italy as the model for the American future. He claims that Italy’s antiestablishment, anti-immigrant parties -- which avidly embrace conspiracy theories and idolize Vladimir Putin -- light the road that America must follow.　Yet I

March 12, 2018

It is vital to carefully assess North Korea’s real intent, thoroughly prepare a strategy and make other arrangements to force the country to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.US President Donald Trump has expressed his intention to hold talks with Kim Jong-un, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea, in an effort to denuclearize North Korea. Trump is said to be willing to have the summit talks by May, after a South Korean special delegation conveyed to him Kim’s desire for talks at the ea

March 12, 2018

Just a few weeks ago, the United States and North Korea were threatening to wipe each other off the face of Earth. Today, there is talk of an upcoming meeting, possibly in May, between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.It will be, indeed, an unprecedented encounter. The invitation came from Pyongyang via South Korea’s national security adviser Chung Eui-young, after his recent visit to North Korea. Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program will be on the agenda for the

March 12, 2018

"Beep beep” was the subject line of an email message I received a few weeks ago from former CIA analyst Robert Carlin, as Kim Jong-un was accelerating his diplomatic charm offensive. “So typical,” wrote Carlin in his brief text. “The North Koreans as Road Runner, the US as Wile E. Coyote.”Carlin makes a point that applies to many foreign-policy problems around the world. When it comes to global diplomacy, America under President Trump has become something of a hapless cartoon villain, detonating

March 11, 2018

If you had to pick a word that best describes the Trump presidency so far, it might be “surreal.” And few developments affirm that more than news that President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plan to meet for talks this spring. Supposedly they’ll discuss prospects for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Yes, “Little Rocket Man” and an American president whom Kim once referred to as a “dotard” in the same room, with a potential to make history.　Fast forward a few years: Trump and

March 11, 2018

US President Donald Trump’s plans for a trade war aren’t ostensibly focused on Europe, but Trump himself appears to think they are. He said on Tuesday that “the European Union has been particularly tough on the United States,” making it “almost impossible for us to do business with them.” Fact-checking Trump on this is pointless, but it’s worth pointing out that the US is on the verge of poisoning its favorite well for no obvious reason.　There is talk that Canada and Mexico could be excluded fro

March 11, 2018

President Donald Trump has upended expectations and interrupted the drumbeat toward war on the Korean Peninsula with his agreement to meet Kim Jong-un at “a time and place to be determined.” But what happens if talks with “Little Rocket Man” blow up on the launching pad?　The odds are high. Few analysts expect Kim to give up North Korea’s nuclear deterrent, which he sees as vital to his regime’s survival. (See: Moammar Gadhafi, 1942-2011.) Kim’s existential stakes and Trump’s mercurial brinkmansh

March 11, 2018

Donald Trump’s decision to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is in character. The US president loves outlandish plot twists that confound critics and supporters alike.Agreeing to this meeting was questionable. It’s something previous presidents have refused to do, and with reason: It’s a concession that demanded something valuable from the other side. Trump has not secured that, and he appears to have acted impulsively. This isn’t encouraging -- but the decision has been made and wha

March 11, 2018

In his chilling account of the Romanov dynasty, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore quoted Peter Stolypin, who was interior minister for Nicholas II, the last of the tsars: “In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness.”Montefiore explained that in the 300-plus years of Romanov rule, power had been an instrument not simply of governing, but of survival. He cited the aphorism of the French writer Madame de Stael: “In Russia, the government is autocracy tempered by

March 9, 2018

Donald Trump wants to help the steel industry in the US, and he’s announced plans for protective tariffs. By way of explanation, Trump claims that the steel industry has been “decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy.”　He’s correct about one thing: This has been a problem many decades in the making. But it’s a problem rooted in disastrous decisions made by the steel companies themselves when Trump was still in elementary school.　At the end of World War II, American steel had no real c

March 8, 2018