| | | | World to Trump: We're Moving On | | President Trump is expected to deliver an "America First" message in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday. But the question for many nations is increasingly not so much whether America should be front and center of trade negotiations, but how much they should bother with it at all, suggest Ana Swanson and Jim Tankersley in The New York Times.
"As the world's largest economy and architect of many international organizations and treaties, the United States remains an indispensable partner. But as the global economy gains strength, Europe and countries including Japan and China are forging ahead with deals that do not include the United States," they write.
"Thirty-five new bilateral and regional trade pacts are under consideration around the world, according to the World Trade Organization. The United States is party to just one of them, with the European Union, and that negotiation has gone dormant. The United States is also threatening to withdraw from one of its existing multilateral agreements — the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada — if it cannot be renegotiated in the United States' favor.
"'Maybe there was some sort of presumption on the part of the president and his team that if the US said stop, this process would come to a halt,' said Phil Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an economist in the George W. Bush administration. 'What this shows is that's not true. The world just moves on without us.'"
| | Two Minutes from Doomsday? | | The Doomsday Clock – a symbolic timepiece set by scientists to reflect the chances of a man-made global catastrophe occurring – is now the closest to midnight it has been since the height of the Cold War.
Explaining the decision, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists pointed to misuse of emerging technologies, the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the ongoing threat of climate change as key factors.
But it adds that "there has also been a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its long-standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict US actions—or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening." - Buying time. Derek Johnson, executive director of Global Zero, suggests for CNN Opinion that while "'nuclear buttons' sit on the desks of more authoritarian men than at any moment in history," there's still time to roll back the threat.
"We can buy ourselves some breathing room with any number of emergency measures currently circulating in Congress, like the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act; by starving Trump's nuclear ambitions of the eye-popping funds they require; and by demanding diplomatic engagement with nuclear-armed adversaries, first and foremost the North Koreans."
| | What Team Trump Got Wrong About the Dollar | | There are good and bad impulses in the Trump administration's economic policy. The Treasury Secretary's suggestion in Davos this week that a weaker dollar is good for the United States is an example of the latter, the Wall Street Journal editorializes.
"What a spectacle: The man whose signature is on the greenback tells the world he wants its value to be lower so the US can beggar its neighbors on trade. Mr. Trump has also said he favors a weak currency, and the buck has fallen some 8% in his first year," the Journal writes.
"A weak dollar makes the US worse off because Americans don't live in an economic bubble. They buy from abroad because other countries make things Americans want or need. US manufacturers import components to produce value-added goods like machinery and aircraft that are exported. Dollar devaluation makes those imports more expensive, which undermines competitiveness vis-a-vis foreign rivals. Commodities like oil and copper are traded in dollars so a weak dollar requires more of them. This is good for dictators in places like Venezuela. For Americans, not so much. - Backpedaling? President Trump said Thursday that he actually expects the dollar to get "stronger and stronger," Reuters reports.
"Trump said he believed [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin's comments were taken out of context, the United States was strong economically and in other ways, and that nobody should be talking about the dollar."
| | The "Semi-Authoritarian" Threatening the EU? | | | The transition to democracy in Eastern Europe, which at one time seemed inexorable, "is starting to unravel," Neil Buckley and Andrew Byrne argue in the Financial Times. Look no further than Hungary, and the rise of a nationalist leader who many believe could undermine the European Union itself. "In power for the past eight years, and four more in a previous government, [Prime Minister Viktor] Orban has set up Europe's most successful example of nationalist-conservative rule. His methods are being copied in nearby Poland, while populist-nationalists are also in government in neighboring Austria," they write. "The EU has struggled to respond as Orban's Fidesz government has used two election victories to pass a new constitution and reshape Hungary according to its will. Critics say it has eroded judicial independence and appointed staunch loyalists to key positions. It has turned state-owned media into a propaganda machine, and helped loyal oligarchs buy up most independent media. Since Orban built razor-wire border fences in 2015 to keep out refugees from Syria and the Middle East, moreover, his nationalism has become even harder-edged. "Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford university, who was present at Orban's speech in 1989, says Hungary is 'not in the strict sense a dictatorship. But it is certainly not a liberal democracy any more. It is some kind of hybrid regime, a semi-authoritarian regime. That poses fundamental questions about the nature of the EU — whether it is indeed a community of democracies.'" | | Vote for Your Favorite…Civil Servant? | | | American Idol returns to US screens in March. But over the past few years, viewers in several countries have had a chance to be inspired by homegrown idols of the non-musical variety, The Economist reports: Integrity Idols. "In the same week as two civil servants in Nigeria appeared in court for embezzling funds earmarked for International Anti-Corruption Day, the finalists of 'Integrity Idol' were announced. In this reality television show, honest civil servants working in corrupt countries compete for glory, fame and, occasionally, a live chicken. The show is a hit: over 10 million people have watched it and more than 400,000 have cast their votes in favor of their Integrity Idols," The Economist writes. "'Integrity Idol' started in Nepal in 2014 and has since spread to Pakistan, Mali, Liberia, Nigeria and South Africa. Five finalists, vetted by a panel of judges, are chosen to be interviewed." "'Integrity Idol' claims to steer clear of politics. Elected officials may not be nominated. Nor, in some countries, may people in the army. Even so, the show delivers a punch in the face to crooked politicians and their cronies, sometimes just by its timing: in Liberia last year, it aired while presidential elections were embroiled in fraud investigations." | | The Good and the Bad News About Inequality in Europe | | | The good news for Europe? Overall, income inequality hasn't really grown over the past decade, and doesn't pose the same challenge for the continent as elsewhere, according to a new IMF report. The problem? The gap between generations has grown dramatically – and the young and working-age Europeans are falling behind.
"Before the global financial crisis, the relative poverty of young (18-24) and older people (65 +) in Europe was similar. But since the crisis, a major gap has developed. As a consequence, one in four young people in the region are at risk of poverty—living with incomes below 60 percent of the median," the IMF finds. "The rise of the so-called 'gig' economy, and increases in temporary contracts, exacerbated the problem and further decreased job stability, particularly for the young. Unfortunately, as young people lost jobs or could only find part-time work, they were left without a sufficient safety net." | | | | | | |
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