| | | | A Trap Trump Might Have to Walk Into | | North Korea might be setting a trap with its apparent willingness to discuss denuclearization. And the Trump administration might have little choice but to walk into it, suggests Stephen Collinson for CNN.
"As North Korean leader Kim Jong Un skillfully maneuvers to split Washington and Seoul, and plays out an intricate strategic dance that could draw in crucial powers Russia and China, Trump has little option but to watch," Collinson writes.
"To do anything else would splinter the US-South Korean alliance -- which will be crucial to solving the nuclear crisis -- and could fracture global pressure on Pyongyang and put the US on a glide path toward a horrendous war.
"But by allowing the diplomacy to unfold, Trump risks being played in the same old game of North Korean brinkmanship and provocations followed by offers of dialogue and trawls for concessions that have tripped up past presidents." "Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is not merely about the removal of North Korea's nuclear potential. It is also about the US force structure in the Peninsula, and potentially even the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea," Stratfor says.
"Kim said the removal of the North's nuclear weapons would be contingent on the guaranteed safety of his government and the removal of threats against the North — but the North frequently refers to the U.S. military forces in the South as being a threat against the North. The suspension of missile and nuclear tests may not include shorter range systems…and it also may not include satellite launches, something North Korea claims it has the international right to carry out."
| | Cohn's Tenure was Awful. We'll Probably Miss Him: NYT | | Gary Cohn's tenure as President Trump's top economic adviser was marked by a misguided tax cut and "shambolic" proposal for revamping US infrastructure, The New York Times editorializes. "Yet, for all his flaws, Mr. Cohn most likely represents the high-water mark for economic thinking in this administration."
"The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, another former Goldman banker, sent currency markets reeling recently when he talked flippantly about weakening the dollar. Kevin Hassett, who is the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has peddled nonsense about how the corporate tax cut will increase wages for working families when in fact most credible experts rightly predicted that it would principally benefit investors. In another corner, Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, and Peter Navarro, a White House trade adviser, are goading the president to start a destructive trade war with the rest of the world.
"With the cranks and nationalists ascendant in Trump World, whoever replaces Mr. Cohn is unlikely to be any better than he is, and possibly quite a bit worse." "[T]he power of the presidency over this thing we call 'the economy' never has been and still is not particularly significant absent an immediate crisis. The presidency can act to staunch an economic collapse, as it did in 2008-2009, though even there, it requires Congress, the Federal Reserve and other actors to play a substantial role. Most of the time, however much presidents take credit when times are good and are blamed when times are bad, their ability to manage the economy is far more limited than most – including the occupant of the Oval Office—believe," Karabell argues.
"One reason is legal. Yes, if the president had the power to start a real, no-holds-barred trade war by pulling out of the World Trade Organization and slapping a blanket 25-50 percent tariff on all imports, that would indeed by an economic game-changer. Markets would crater; commerce would come to a sudden and painful halt; economic activity would plunge; and prices would rise. But the president doesn't have that authority, either constitutionally or in delegated authority from Congress."
| | The Dangers of a Prince's "Hyperactivity" | | | It's true that Saudi Arabia has long been too slow to change. But the "hyperactivity" of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman brings its own dangers, too, warns Roula Khalaf in the Financial Times.
"From the decision to allow women to drive to reining in the powers of the religious police, [bin Salman] has pursued social reforms with overdue boldness. Long accused of exporting radical ideology that fed the ranks of extremist groups such as Isis, Saudi Arabia appears determined to break the overbearing influence of the clerical establishment on society. The kingdom itself, and the world, will be safer for it," Khalaf says.
But he has also "taken Saudi Arabia's hostility towards its regional rival Iran to new heights. The war in Yemen against Iran-backed rebels has cost billions of dollars and much more in lost Yemeni lives. The Saudi intervention has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and accusations of war crimes. There have been other misguided actions: the boycott of Qatar and the detention of Lebanon's prime minister have sparked unnecessary tension."
"MbS's allies argue he is in a rush to make up for lost time and must counter Iran's expansion of influence across the Arab world. The youth of Saudi Arabia are cheering him on, they say. That may be true. But opening up several fronts at once, while accumulating domestic enemies in clerical and royal circles, is dangerous even for the most experienced leader." | | China Defends Itself Against…Itself | | China has been dramatically ramping up its investments in security. But what's unusual is who much of this security appears to be aimed at – its own citizens, suggests Josh Chin in the Wall Street Journal.
"Beijing's budgets for internal and external security have grown faster than the economy as a whole for several years, but domestic security spending has grown far faster—to where it exceeds the national defense budget by roughly 20%," Chin notes.
"In Xinjiang the government has woven a web of surveillance, with checkpoints, high-definition cameras, facial scanners and street patrols; the region spent $9.1 billion on domestic security in 2017, a 92% increase from 2016, according to local government budget data."
"The budget for domestic security covers regular and paramilitary police, courts, prosecutors and prisons. Chinese authorities are experimenting with cutting-edge tracking tools, tapping social-media accounts to punish politically incorrect speech and, in some places, trying to get residents to inform on each other using smartphone apps."
| | Tillerson Steps into a Dragon-Shaped Shadow | | Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has arrived in Ethiopia for the start of a scheduled five-nation trip to Africa. He'll find himself walking in the shadow of a growing US rival on the continent, suggests Paul Schemm in the Washington Post.
"Increasingly, the United States has been eclipsed in Africa by China, which has aggressively boosted its activities on the continent — extracting resources, providing loans and building much-needed infrastructure across the continent," Schemm notes.
"In Ethiopia, Tillerson's first stop, China has built an electric rail line connecting the capital to the port in neighboring Djibouti and is involved in scores of other projects throughout the country that have made Chinese nationals a ubiquitous sight on the streets."
"American aid also tends to be accompanied by American views on human rights and governing, and Tillerson will probably have to address the political crises in Kenya and Ethiopia, while Nigeria is facing a key election next year. Djibouti and Chad are also often criticized on human rights issues.
"Many African leaders have noted that these concerns rarely come up when dealing with China." | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment