[Joe Nocera] Trump administration playing dirty with automakers

The sad degradation of the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division continues. An agency charged with upholding the nation’s antitrust laws, without fear or favor, has become just another tool President Donald Trump uses to reward his friends and punish his enemies in corporate America.I don’t know how else you can characterize the news, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, that the DOJ is investigating four major automakers that agreed to abide by California&rsq

Sept. 9, 2019

[Adam Minter] Time to regulate outer space

Last week, the European Space Agency reached out to warn Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies that one of its satellites might collide with a SpaceX communications satellite. When ESA first raised such concerns in late August, the chances of a crash were 1 in 50,000; SpaceX had said then that it didn’t think the risk was high enough to justify action. Now the odds had narrowed to 1 in 1,000. Yet ESA received no reply.Eventually the space agency unilaterally moved its satellite

Sept. 9, 2019

[Peter Singer] Why climb Everest? Don’s set goals on status

In 1953, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, I was 7 years old. For a time, I was immersed in the stories of the epic climb. It seemed like an achievement for all of humankind, like reaching the South Pole. Would there still be any frontiers left, I wondered, by the time I grew up?A photo of the southern summit ridge of Everest has brought these memories back to me. But what a different Everest this is! The splendid isolation of th

Sept. 8, 2019

[David Ignatius] Trump unclear on China strategy

As we move into the fall, there’s one overriding foreign-policy priority for America: Find a strategy to deal with a rising China that protects US interests but doesn’t subvert the global economy. China is the challenge of our time, and the risks of getting it wrong are enormous. Huawei, the Shenzen-based communications powerhouse, argues in a slick new YouTube video that its critics want to create a new Berlin Wall. That’s not true -- Huawei and other Chinese tech companies ha

Sept. 8, 2019

[Liam Denning] Ohio’s great Chinese power conspiracy theory

An entity dubbing itself “Ohioans for Energy Security” has a warning for the good people of the Buckeye State: The Chinese government is quietly invading our American electric grid; intertwining themselves financially in our energy infrastructure.Before we get into the details of the one-minute ad in which a suitably ominous voice intones those words over much footage of President Xi Jinping, some context: Ohio recently passed legislation to subsidize struggling nuclear and coal-fire

Sept. 5, 2019

[David Ignatius] US losing information war with Russia

Richard Stengel, a former Time editor who became the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, writes that he was once an information “idealist.” He believed that in the marketplace of ideas, the truth would ultimately prevail. Not anymore. “I think we all now know that this is a pipe dream,” writes Stengel in a disturbing memoir of his three years on the communications firing line. “Unfortunately, facts don’t come highlighted in yellow. A

Sept. 5, 2019

[Nir Kaissar] Ending inequality is not as easy as it seems

Buried among the storylines about global trade and political intrigue from the G-7 summit last month is perhaps the most noteworthy one of all. Business for Inclusive Growth, or B4IG, a coalition of 34 multinational companies with more than 3 million employees and revenues topping $1 trillion, unveiled an initiative to tackle inequality with help from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.In its “pledge against inequalities,” the B4IG states what should be obvious

Sept. 4, 2019

[Ana Palacio] Twilight of the global geopolitical order

We live in an era of hyperbole, in which gripping accounts of monumental triumphs and devastating disasters take precedence over realistic discussions of incremental progress and gradual erosion. But in international relations, as in anything, crises and breakthroughs are only part of the story; if we fail also to notice less sensational trends, we may well find ourselves in serious trouble -- potentially after it is too late to escape.The recent G-7 Summit in Biarritz, France, is a case in poin

Sept. 4, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] S. Korea should choose Affluent Boulevard, not Poverty Lane

There are many funny street names in the Unisted States. Some reflect positive nuance and idiosyncrasy, while others sound negative and weird. Google provides a host of funny street or road names in America. Some funny names include Frying Pan Road in Virginia, Roast Meat Street in Connecticut, Chicken Dinner Road in Idaho and North Sandwich Street in New Hampshire. Other amusing names are Anyhow Road in New York, Pillow Talk Court in Las Vegas and Billy Goat Strut Alley in Kentucky. There are s

Sept. 3, 2019

[James Stavridis] Burning Brazil threatens America’s security

When I headed the US Southern Command a decade ago, I took a trip to the Brazilian military’s jungle training site near Manaus in the Amazon River basin. I spent time both in the jungle with Brazilian troops and on the river, meeting with some of the 300 indigenous groups that populate the region, which spans nine South American nations. I came to understand that Brazilian pride in controlling much of the rain forest is palpable and well-deserved. Now, of course, that pride is being challe

Sept. 3, 2019

[Robert J. Shiller] The Trump narrative and next recession

US President Donald Trump concluded his remarks at the recent G-7 summit by inviting the assembled leaders to hold next year’s meeting at his Doral country club near Miami, describing a fantasy-like world of “magnificent buildings” whose “ballrooms are among the biggest in Florida and the best.” It was yet another instance of Trump’s public narrative, which has been on a rising growth path for nearly a half-century.One can observe this by searching Trump&rsquo

Sept. 2, 2019

[Noah Smith] Of course there’s science in Malaysia

Some right-wing intellectuals believe that immigration harms US society by admitting people from cultures they consider inferior. The argument has a very old pedigree -- writing in 1896, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Francis Walker warned against taking in “beaten men from beaten races.”This notion was always terribly wrong, and global economic development is offering added proof.In a recent interview, law professor Amy Wax reasserted a version of Walker’s hoa

Sept. 2, 2019

[Chon Shi-yong] Kim and Trump: A dangerous bromance

When they hurled insults at each other such as “little rocket man” and “dotard,” and traded threats of nuclear annihilation, few could imagine that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump would develop such a lasting bromance in so little time. Like any other close relationship, there must have been some sort of chemistry between the 36-year old North Korean leader and the septuagenarian US president. Think not only about their age g  ap and geo

Sept. 1, 2019

[David Ignatius] Why Macron’s Iran gamble didn’t pay off

What really happened in Biarritz last weekend, with the mysterious visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif? US officials saw it as a bit of diplomatic freelancing by French President Emmanuel Macron that sought to foster negotiations but highlighted the obstacles that are in the way.The intrigue surrounding the summit was described by knowledgeable sources who requested anonymity to describe the sensitive diplomacy. “It felt like a gamble,” said one source, a bet by Ma

Sept. 1, 2019

[David Ignatius] Is a weary public tuning out?

You could say many things to describe a week in which President Trump got in a snit about buying Greenland, called the Federal Reserve chairman an “enemy,” reversed his position repeatedly on China and rebuffed European allies by saying he’s ready to invite Russia to a global summit at one of his Florida golf resorts.But “exhausting” would be the word at the top of my list after Trump’s whirling-dervish performance. Yes, I’m shocked, confused, sometimes

Aug. 29, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] The sickening hypocrisy of a leftist ideologue

The air over the Republic of Korea remained clear through this summer, thanks to the southeasterly winds blowing from the Pacific Ocean. As the cooler season approaches, we are again worried about seeing gray skies full of fine dust from China -- in addition to the political, economic and security problems that are already affecting the nation and seem unlikely to go away anytime soon. Externally, relations between Seoul and Tokyo have sunk to their worst level since normalization of ties in 196

Aug. 28, 2019

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Is stakeholder capitalism back?

For four decades, the prevailing doctrine in the United States has been that corporations should maximize shareholder value -- meaning profits and share prices -- here and now, come what may, regardless of the consequences to workers, customers, suppliers, and communities. So the statement endorsing stakeholder capitalism, signed earlier this month by virtually all the members of the US Business Roundtable, has caused quite a stir. After all, these are the CEOs of America’s most powerful c

Aug. 28, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] The importance of local news

Below the Washington Post’s masthead sits the phrase “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” The phrase appeared shortly after Donald Trump became president in 2017 in response to his attacks on the press. Critical media coverage causes Trump to lash out at the media by accusing it of spreading “fake news.” The phrase is aimed at upholding freedom of the press amid unprecedented attempts by a president to influence media coverage. It also touches on another side to the news a

Aug. 27, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Noticing the invisible things that are precious in life

Although the famous maxim says “Seeing is believing,” it is amazing how many precious things in life are, in fact, invisible. Take air, for example. Without air, we cannot survive and will die in a few minutes, yet we take it for granted because it is invisible. If something is not visible, we forget about it and do not appreciate it fully. Not only is air invisible, but so is wind. We enjoy a pleasant cool breeze, but we cannot see it. “Who has seen the wind?” British po

Aug. 27, 2019