| | | | When the Flatterer-in-Chief Meets the Commander-in-Chief | | French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in the United States on Monday for the first state visit by a foreign leader since President Trump took office. But while Macron has struck up a warmer relationship with Trump than his European counterparts, the French public are going to want to see some concrete results from all the flattery, The Economist says.
"Mr. Macron does not seek to align himself unconditionally with the American president, although France took part in, and indeed pushed for, recent air strikes with America and Britain against Syrian chemical-weapons stocks. Nor is he after some sort of affectionate relationship, although he seems genuinely to have found a way to relate to Mr. Trump, another one-time political outsider. Rather, the French president's ambition is, at best, to encourage the American leader to use his influence in a more benign way and, at least, to keep him from inflicting real damage," The Economist says.
Macron "still has political capital to spend. His domestic economic policies may not be popular at home, where unions are leading strikes and students holding sit-ins. But a majority of the French like the way he has changed the country's image abroad. Mr. Macron's talk of grandeur and prestige goes down well, and the prospect of France acting as America's preferred European interlocutor makes up for reservations the French have about Mr. Trump. For now, Mr. Macron may look like the smartest European handler of the tricky American president. In the longer run, though, if he cannot secure tangible return for his efforts, he will run the risk of looking naive, or foolish, or both."
| | Trump Seems to Be Taking Kim's Bait: Boot | | | The Trump administration is setting high expectations for a potential meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. "Caution is in order, but Trump abounds with credulity," writes Max Boot in the Washington Post.
"Ah, but hasn't Kim now said that he is willing to allow US troops to remain in the South even after an agreement? Yes, and so did his father Kim Jong Il in the 1990s. The elder Kim said North Korea would be amenable to US troops staying 'as a peacekeeping force in Korea, instead of a hostile force against the North.' It's hard to know exactly what that means, but it suggests a small, symbolic, lightly armed presence that cannot credibly deter North Korea," Boot writes.
"Kim's latest pledge — to stop nuclear and missile testing — is not, as Trump tweeted, 'big progress,' because he has said it before and it can easily be reversed. Explaining this move, Kim claimed that his nuclear weapons program is complete and doesn't need any more tests. Even if that's not true, there may be a practical reason for closing the nuclear test site — repeated nuclear explosions deep in Mount Mantap may be bringing it close to collapse. The junior Kim is again following the example of his father, who in 2008 blew up the cooling tower of a nuclear facility to show he was serious about talks. Only he wasn't." | | Bye America, We'll Be Fine Without You… | | | The United States might be lurching toward protectionism, but the rest of the world is refusing to follow the Trump administration's lead, writes Peter Schechter for National Review. By the time America is ready to look outward again, it may be too late.
"The damage is, in part, reputational — that is already becoming clear. Just look at the subtle and not-so-subtle gibes from traditional allies in Ottawa, Brussels, Tokyo, and Mexico City. Canada's pitch to foreign investors used to rely on selling the country as the '51st state.' Today, our neighbor has sadly adjusted its spiel as the US is becoming a liability as much as an asset," Schechter writes.
"Whether Washington's protectionist turn lasts eight years or four, there's no doubt that the terms of engagement will have changed by the time we're ready to come back. The US will shift from rule maker to rule taker. Indeed, snickers abounded when the US expressed a recent interest in rejoining the TPP. The message from signatory countries was clear: Come back whenever, but take it as it is. Worse yet, the more we turn away, the more eagerly other powers — China first and foremost — step in, whether in Latin America, Africa, Asia, or Europe." | | Big Brother Is Getting Better at Watching You | | New Delhi has found a novel application for emerging facial recognition tech—to remarkable effect, according to the Times of India.
"Nearly 3,000 missing children have been traced in four days, thanks to the facial recognition system software that the Delhi Police is using on a trial basis to track down such children. The identities of the missing children have been established and efforts are on to help them reunite with their families." - No safety in numbers. The news is reminiscent of a report in the South China Morning Post earlier this month that police in Southeast China apprehended a fugitive after his face was picked out of a crowd of tens of thousands of people attending a concert.
Facial recognition initiatives in the country include the "creation of the world's most powerful facial recognition system by law enforcement agencies. The project, launched by the Ministry of Public Security in 2015, was under development in conjunction with a security company based in Shanghai, three people familiar with the matter told the South China Morning Post in October." "Chinese planners have announced their intention to tap the vast AI and surveillance infrastructure currently under construction to generate 'social credit' scores for all of China's 1.5 billion people. With a high score, traveling, securing a loan, buying a car and other benefits will be easy to come by. Run afoul of the authorities, and problems begin."
| | The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the latest iteration of President Trump's travel ban on Wednesday. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and others argue for CNN Opinion that contrary to protecting the United States from terrorism, it actually makes the country less safe. "The ban is so obviously, palpably, indeed explicitly anti-Muslim in nature that it has -- understandably -- offended Muslim-American communities around the world, including in the United States. Yet those are precisely the communities that can prove critical for identifying and responding to individuals becoming radicalized by groups like ISIS and al Qaeda."
The leaders of North and South Korea are expected to sit down for a historic meeting Friday. CNN reports that South Korea is literally turning the volume down on its diplomacy with its announcement that it "has turned off loudspeakers that blast propaganda across the highly militarized border with North Korea."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to meet with President Trump in Washington on Friday. Bloomberg reports that Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have been engaging in a little tag-team diplomacy ahead of their separate meetings with Trump this week, aiming to defuse "transatlantic tensions prompted by Trump's America-first approach on global trade. Europe's two most powerful leaders will also seek to salvage the international agreement aimed at halting Iran's nuclear program, which Trump has threatened to tear up." | | | | | | |
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