| | | | Will Impeachment Change Trump's Foreign Policy? | | Examining how impeachment might influence President Trump's dealings with foreign countries, Robert E. Kelly makes some forecasts at the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog: Trump's unpredictable diplomacy will likely sway more wildly as domestic pressure mounts, Kelly writes, then calm down as Trump gets distracted by it. If Trump is removed from office, US foreign policy will likely go back to how it was before his presidency, Kelly predicts.
The phone call that prompted impeachment, meanwhile, will only erode US power, Mira Rapp-Hooper argues at Foreign Affairs. American power persists because allies agree to go along with it, Rapp-Hooper writes, and as Trump has wielded it excessively—exploiting the dependency of a vulnerable ally, in Ukraine—she posits the episode will only turn allies away. | | Khamenei: The Opposite of Trump | | That's how Karim Sadjadpour depicts Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a Time magazine cover profile. President Trump has spent his life opulently and in the public eye; Khamenei has spent his religiously, shunning excessive publicity. He prefers narrow, private negotiations, while Trump hashes out broad topics in the open. Having "obscure[d]" his power behind Iran's network of institutions, and able to inspire followers across the region, Khamenei has "emerged as the most powerful person in the Middle East," Sadjadpour writes—and one who evidently sees no purpose in talking to Trump. Unlike other autocrats, Khamenei is one Trump can't woo with flattery, Sadjadpour concludes.
Iran's regional strategy, meanwhile, seems to be paying off, James Dorsey writes at LobeLog, citing Saudi signals of willingness to talk. Surveying regional dynamics at the National Review, Victor Davis Hanson advises Trump and US policymakers to play it cool, when it comes to Iran. Its leaders are trying to provoke conflict, he supposes, but America needn't get drawn in. | | The centrist playbook of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton has fallen by the wayside, writes The Atlantic's Tom McTague, as party politics have fundamentally changed in both countries. In the era of Clinton and Blair, leaders were the bane of party activists, confronting the passionate fringes, seeking compromise, and hewing to the middle; nowadays, as with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, they trumpet their activist bases.
Brexit might signify the best example: As McTague points out, "there is no 'third way' between Remain and Leave—you must choose a side." | | With Japan, Trump Achieves 'TPP-Minus' | | After President Trump recently concluded a trade deal with Japan, analysts are noting it reproduces a smaller-scale version of what the US and Japan would have had under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), from which Trump withdrew. US and Japanese negotiators will ostensibly work toward a follow-on deal, but their agreement doesn't include explicit provisions on autos and entails lesser agricultural commitments from Japan than under TPP, writes Matthew P. Goodman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who calls it "TPP-minus" on those fronts.
Significantly, it's the first Trump trade deal to lower US tariffs, writes Jeffrey J. Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. It includes solid measures to prohibit barriers to the flow of data and digital products, he argues, but it might run afoul of WTO rules if the two sides can't conclude a more comprehensive follow-on deal soon. | | The Middle East's Explosive Landscape | | | The Middle East's next war might be one no one wants, Robert Malley writes in Foreign Affairs. Despite its lack of economic integration, the region is one of the world's most politically integrated; movements from the Muslim Brotherhood to Iranian and Saudi influence spill across the region's borders, while proxy forces open the possibility of deniable attacks—and, with them, miscalculations by the region's various powers. All of which means a war could very well arise unintentionally, Malley writes—all the more reason for the US to employ cautious, de-escalating policies. | | | | | | |
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