| | | | Fareed: The American Left's Isolationism | | Venezuela is a test for the Trump administration—but also for the Democratic Party, which needs to find its voice on foreign policy, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column.
Venezuela's crisis has revealed "worrying signs that the new Democratic foreign policy could turn out to be a reflexive isolationism that is not so different from President Trump's own 'America First' instincts," Fareed writes.
Liberal voices have called for America not to meddle in Venezuela's affairs and to let Venezuelans determine their futures, but "[d]oes one really have to explain that Venezuela's problems have been primarily caused by its own nasty government? That the Venezuelan people have not been allowed to determine their own future or pick their own leaders for years, going back to Hugo Chávez's rule?" Fareed asks. | | Will the US Ask China for a Loan, Amid Its Trade War? | | The US Treasury needs to borrow more money—a stunning $12 trillion over the next decade, by one estimate—and it's not getting as much help from China as it used to, The Financial Times' Gillian Tett writes. China has been a reliable buyer of US Treasury bonds, but its holdings have quietly dropped.
Last year, US deficits hit their highest mark since 2013, and Bloomberg reported in October that Treasury planned to borrow more, in part, to finance Trump's tax cuts, which have cut revenue. Treasury could offer bonds more attractive to US buyers, but a question remains: From whom will the US borrow?
The situation raises an uncomfortable prospect, if one that's unlikely to succeed, of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking China for a loan, whilst squaring off over trade—a distinctly un-Trumpian move. | | A Bad Sign for Climate Change: The World Wants More Oil | | | The Economist points to a stark reality: Oil demand is rising, and major producers intend on pumping more, not less—a development that will not help the world meet emissions-reduction and warming targets.
Rising emissions would be the biggest obstacle to mitigating climate change, but other problems loom against that larger one: The world isn't getting any leadership from the US, The Washington Post writes, and a better funding mechanism may be needed to help countries implement climate plans, Sagatom Saha writes in the World Politics Review. | | America shouldn't, Hudson Institute Director for South and Central Asia Hussain Haqqani writes in Foreign Policy, arguing that the framework under discussion—withdrawal, in exchange for peace and denial of terrorist safe haven—looks a lot like the Soviet withdrawal conditions of 1988. Cracks have already appeared in US/Taliban negotiations, as the State Department denied a Taliban claim that the US had promised to withdraw half its troops by April.
Trump's desire to withdraw points to a larger question about America's role in the world: While Trump is right to reject the role of world policeman, Haqqani writes, America should accept the more-limited role of umpire. The Wall Street Journal, for its part, agrees, writing that Trump seems to misunderstand that keeping troops abroad can maintain stability and that he "shouldn't mislead his supporters at home and upset friends abroad by suggesting that peace can be purchased by American retreat." | | Will the World Bank Take a Free-Market Turn? | | President Trump's nominee to run the World Bank, David Malpass, laid out his vision in a Financial Times op-ed, giving a nod to "freer markets … that have lower taxes, fewer regulatory burdens." Those are long-held tenets of the so-called Washington Consensus on model governance, and Malpass appears poised to uphold them.
While Malpass has criticized the bank, he won't "look to burn [it] to the ground" if he's installed as president, Ian Bremmer writes at Time, predicting instead Malpass will reform its bureaucracy while pushing developing countries to seek more private financing. | | | | | | |
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