| | | | Trump's BFF Starting to Regret His Trump Tower Sprint: Pesek | | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first foreign leader to meet with President-elect Donald Trump. His reward in the months since? Trump backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the US getting cozier with North Korea – and archrival China, notes William Pesek in Politico Magazine.
"American presidents have long treated Japan as their closest ally in Asia. What if Trump pivoted to China?" Pesek writes. "After months of Trump accusing China of 'raping' American workers, Tokyo was floored to hear him, when face to face with Xi in Beijing last November, touting their 'great chemistry.' Trump also gave Xi a pass on trade. With the TPP, Obama and Abe endeavored to create a bulwark against China's strategic ambitions. Tokyo now worries that a transactional Trump has a Sino-US grand plan in mind, one that cuts Japan out of the action."
"Trump prides himself on sizing up opponents. In retrospect, Abe's Trump Tower sprint smacks more of desperation and subservience than savvy, something that isn't lost on the president."
"Abe could respond by re-energizing TPP and inviting South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and India to help replace the US in the aggregate. He could pivot to Europe and tap growing Asian markets. He also could redouble efforts at home to rekindle Japan's animal spirits with a burst of structural reforms. What he can't do, though, is keep tolerating a White House that's giving Japan a raw deal."
| | The Problem with Trump's Easter Tweet | | President Trump may have tweeted Sunday that Mexico is doing "very little, if not nothing," to stop "people from flowing" through the country and into the United States. The facts suggest otherwise, Alex Horton writes in the Washington Post.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid flow to Mexico every year, including funds for strengthening its border with Guatemala, where migrants generally cross," Horton says.
"Billions in additional spending authorized by President Barack Obama in 2014 were prompted by thousands of unaccompanied minors arriving on the US-Mexico border, mostly Central Americans fleeing horrific crime waves and economic crises in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. About 300,000 migrants were detained by Mexican authorities in the next two years."
| | How Kim Is Winning on Talks Before He Talks | | | With a visit to Beijing and proposed meetings with the presidents of South Korea and the United States, Kim Jong Un is suddenly in demand. But in seemingly falling over themselves to meet the young ruler, other world leaders risk giving Kim the upper hand even before substantive talks begin, suggests Soo Kim in National Review.
"Note that Kim's upcoming meetings with the leaders of both South Korea and the United States have already elevated his international stature tremendously. On top of this, the South Korean government recently announced that its summit with the North will take place at the Peace House, a building just south of the border village Panmunjom — making Kim the first North Korean leader to set foot on South Korean soil since the Korean War. Additionally, the Trump-Kim summit will mark the first-ever meeting between a current US president and a North Korean leader. Kim scores again."
"That the leaders of Russia and Japan are willing — perhaps even anxious — to meet with Kim, while not unreasonable, only serves to bolster the young leader's legitimacy and his country's standing as a nuclear power. Insecurities and the instinctive preparatory measures by stakeholder nations fortuitously validate Kim as a head of state on a level with his counterparts. Again, Kim scores." | | What China – and Columbus, Ohio – Can Teach Team Trump | | US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports – and China's announcement Monday that it was responding with $3 billion worth of tariffs on US goods – have sent the Dow tumbling on growing fears of a trade war. But while the president was right to call China out on its trade practices, tariffs aren't the solution. For a better response, look to places like Columbus, Ohio, argues Rana Foroohar in the Financial Times.
"China may not play fair, but it plays the long game. This is the crucial point. While Mr Trump rails mostly against the trade deficit, China has an industrial policy designed to win the jobs of the future in strategic high-tech industries. This is the better strategy, as evidenced not only by what is happening in the Middle Kingdom, but also in the US," Foroohar writes.
"The Democratic mayor [of Columbus] went to the Republican city fathers and persuaded them to support a tax rise, the first in nearly four decades. They agreed, on condition that a chunk of that money would go into a public-private economic development partnership that focused on how to cultivate human capital for an era in which all value will reside in intellectual property, data and ideas.
"They connected community colleges with local companies, domestic and global (L Brands, JPMorgan, Worthington Industries, Honda) to train up a digitally savvy technical workforce. They renovated the crumbling downtown and created new housing stock to appeal to the millennials who had been leaving for greener pastures after their studies." - Does China's economic model hold lessons for America? Foroohar and Steve Rattner discussed this and more on Sunday's GPS. Watch the full segment here.
| | Good News from Authoritarians Central | | The former Soviet states in Central Asia have leaned more despotic than democratic in recent years. Indeed, just one of the "Stans" ranked in the top 150 of Freedom House's latest Freedom in the World index. But in one country, at least, there's room for some cautious optimism, The New York Times' Andrew Higgins writes.
"Uzbekistan's neighbors in Central Asia, all authoritarian with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, the smallest country in the region, show no sign of loosening up. Kazakhstan, ruled by the same leader since independence in 1991, still allows no real opposition, while Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have grown more repressive," Higgins writes.
"In Uzbekistan over the past year, at least 27 jailed high-profile dissidents, some of them held in prison for nearly two decades, have been released and about 18,000 people who were judged disloyal by the S.N.B. under Mr. Karimov have been removed from a blacklist that made it impossible for them to travel or get work.
"The government has also started to address one of Uzbekistan's most egregious and widespread human rights abuses — the dragooning of doctors, nurses, teachers, students and others to work as effective slave laborers during the annual cotton harvest."
| | President Trump is scheduled to host Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite at the White House on Tuesday. A RAND report released last month notes there is a growing imbalance between Russian forces and those of NATO members in the Baltics. Per the report: "Given NATO's current posture and capability…Russia can still achieve a rapid fait accompli in the Baltic states followed by brinkmanship to attempt to freeze the conflict."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to host Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani expected to join them Wednesday to discuss the situation in Syria. AFP says the three countries "have teamed up to forge a strong if brittle tripartite alliance aimed at holding ascendancy in Syria, taking advantage of the West's reluctance to engage militarily in the country."
Hungary holds parliamentary elections on Sunday. George Szirtes writes in The Guardian: "Hungary today is on the verge of full-blown autocracy. And now, with Viktor Orbán's threat of 'moral, political and legal' vengeance to come after [the] 8 April vote, the country is, as the rest of Europe cannot fail to see, in the act of stepping over the threshold." | | | | | | |
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