| | | | Has the UK Found Its Center? | | Are British politics on the verge of realignment? Maybe or maybe not, but after months of shaky alliances, Brexit has finally stirred up the party structure in UK's parliament.
When eight Labour MPs defected and formed a new Independent Group, alleging anti-Semitism in Labour's ranks, Brexit was not their primary concern—but for three Conservative MPs who've joined them, Brexit was the basis. One more defection would make this new, centrist group the fourth-largest bloc in parliament, Robert Shrimsley points out in the Financial Times, predicting a few more defections to it from Labour. While the new group may not change the math in Brexit voting—and could just be a "false dawn" of centrism in the UK—it means the main parties have ceded the center and Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have failed to keep their ranks together.
As for Brexit-outcome ramifications, they key question is whether these MPs, newly free to speak their minds, will call for a softer Brexit or a second referendum—which could scare up more Conservative support for May's Brexit deal in the end, CNN's Luke McGee writes. | | What Trump Gets Right About Trade | | The US/China trade war is alarming for the global economy, but there's a silver lining to it, writes Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic adviser to the European financial-services giant Allianz. The future of trade depends on more than resolving tariff disputes; it depends on removing new obstacles, including intellectual-property theft and the forced transfer of technology—which are among the Trump administration's chief complaints about China.
While President Trump's tariff war is a throwback, it might wind up normalizing trade in a way that helps everyone. Cooperation has failed to address trade's new problems, and if it takes old trade weapons to fix them, then so be it.
The pain of a tariff war could be real, if it resumes in March—a UN official warned of a "massive" impact earlier this month—but if negotiations can resolve things other than a bilateral trade imbalance, Trump's tactics could end up providing a "beneficial disruption that helps reset international trade relationships and place[s] them on a firmer footing," El-Erian writes. | | After ISIS, More Questions than Answers | | | ISIS's territory is collapsing, but new questions have arisen, particularly in Europe, about what to do with fighters imprisoned in Syria and Iraq and those seeking to return—particularly after President Trump tweeted a threat the release "over 800" fighters if European allies won't take them back and put them on trial.
That's just one of the thorny questions that will arise post ISIS, Ishaan Tharoor writes in The Washington Post, chief among them funding reconstruction of destroyed territory, a security vacuum, a population that may not trust Western powers after the war, and an American president more intent on getting out than stabilizing or rebuilding former ISIS territory. | | How to Secure a Quadripolar World | | With the Cold War order long gone, and American hegemony fading, things are only getting more complicated for US foreign policy: The challenge, now, is to contain three emerging rivals in Russia, China, and Iran—which will require a careful balance of alliances in three world regions, writes Michael Mandelbaum in Foreign Affairs. The stakes are lower than in the Cold War, but holding together those sometimes-hodgepodge alliances will be tougher—and the Western world order and nuclear nonproliferation still hang in the balance.
It's a new model for containment, one that's emerging as domestic populism threatens American global commitment, generally, and as President Trump expresses less interest than his predecessors in coalition building and broad-scale engagement.
If it's any consolation to the American-built world order and its beneficiaries, American populism might not have taken hold of foreign-policy views, just yet: Americans' belief that the US "has a special responsibility" to play a leading role in world affairs climbed nine points, to 75%, between 2010 and 2018, meaning there's a chance Trump, or his successor, can maintain necessary alliances and check rising powers with the public's support. | | Discontent Finds a Peaceful Voice in France | | French President Emmanuel Macron's "grand débat"—a series of town-halls where French citizens can air grievances—seems to be working, John Lichfield observes in Politico Europe. From one event he attended (which did not feature Macron himself), it was evident that while many people are still angry at the leadership in Paris, the venting process is bringing a sense of relief, as discontent finds its voice in a forum other than street riots.
As a result, the gilets-jaunes movement appears to be fading, but now Macron will have to figure out what to do with the thousands of citizen recommendations being recorded in all these sessions—and how to turn them into policy. | | | | | | |
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