| | | | Bill Taylor's Message to Ukraine—and Trump? | | Bill Taylor, America's top diplomat in Ukraine, writes in a new op-ed for Ukrainian weekly Novoye Vremya that work remains in Kiev "to strengthen rule of law and to hold accountable those who try to subvert Ukraine's structures to serve their personal aims, rather than the nation's interests." Which raises an obvious question: Who is he talking about?
Taylor took over as chargé d'affaires in Ukraine after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was forced out—and it was Taylor, a longtime diplomat, whose closed-door testimony (since released in full) roiled Capitol Hill in late October, as Taylor alleged the Trump administration had indeed sought investigations in exchange for military aid and a presidential meeting—and that an "irregular" policy channel existed. Taylor was the official who texted US Ambassador to the EU (and ally of President Trump) Gordon Sondland that he thought this was "crazy."
Taylor's op-ed appears aimed at reassuring Ukraine; he drops in the aforementioned corruption line at the end, by way of acknowledging challenges ahead. He lauds President Volodymyr Zelensky's reform efforts, writes that he is "optimistic about Ukraine's strength, dynamism, and progress," and pledges that Kiev "can count on the United States' committed partnership and support." And yet, given Taylor's own testimony, one wonders if the "irregular" channel would agree. | | Will 'America First' Outlive Trump's Presidency? | | Conventional wisdom holds that after President Trump leaves office, US foreign policy "will snap back into its old familiar shape," Nikolas K. Gvosdev writes for The National Interest—but that belief may be misplaced. Gvosdev points to a new book on conservative nationalism, Age of Iron by Colin Dueck, which notes that Trump has exposed real foreign-policy divisions in the GOP. The president has demonstrated "a constituency within the Republican party for renegotiating or even abandoning existing arrangements (in terms of trade, alliances, etc.) if they cannot be shown to advance and safeguard U.S. interests, usually defined in material and economic terms (rather than ideological or humanitarian)."
America won't turn isolationist, Gvosdev writes, but we're witnessing a genuine "renegotiation" of what US world engagement might look like beyond Trump's presidency. | | Is the Trade War the Problem, or Is China? | | The US-China trade war is widely seen as weighing on the global economy, but Christopher Balding wrote recently for Bloomberg that China's domestic demand is a bigger concern. In a "broad global market where goods can easily be substituted," Balding writes, the US is managing to do just that, and total US trade hasn't declined amid escalating tariffs. But Chinese imports have.
"Whereas the composition of U.S. purchases remains close to long-term trends, China is showing declines across most product types and geographic partners," Balding writes. "Chinese imports from the rest of the world fell 5% this year through September." Which tells him China's true GDP growth may fall short of the reported 6% figure, a troubling sign. "For years, China drove global demand for many raw materials, accounting for more than 50% of annual growth in output," Balding writes, and the "subsequent downshift has had an enormous spillover impact." Today's global slowdown may have more to do with the end of rapid Chinese expansion, Balding suggests—a deeper trend than tariff spats. | | The End of Latin America's 'Pink Tide' | | Latin America's "pink tide" began in 1999; by its end, "leftist politicians had scored impressive victories, capturing the presidency in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru," as Hampton Stephens wrote in the World Politics Review last year. The tide was then receding, with Venezuela's economic collapse and Brazil's rightward turn under populist President Jair Bolsonaro, Stephens wrote; Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia had elected their own center-right governments, The Economist noted in September, as it rolled back further. With the resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Angus Berwick writes for Reuters, the last of the "pink tide" leaders has gone—and as center-right governments have celebrated his departure, while leftists in Mexico and Argentina have lamented it, Berwick writes that Morales's exit has polarized the region.
But as The New York Times writes in an editorial, the protests against Morales weren't about left-right politics; rather, they were about democracy and the rule of law. Morales installed loyalists in state institutions, and as he neared "the two-term limit for presidents set in the Constitution he himself had helped introduce, he called a referendum that would have allowed him to stay in office indefinitely. When it was defeated, he had the Supreme Court, by now stuffed with his loyalists, rule that limiting his time in office somehow violated his human rights." His exit may have drawn split reactions across the region, but in the Times' analysis, his ouster doesn't signal a political tide, pink or otherwise. | | The Quantum-Computing Race Is On | | Google's October announcement that it had achieved "quantum supremacy," Arthur Herman writes in The Wall Street Journal, marked "a crucial moment for America's national security, which depends on winning the race to do what quantum computers will do best: decrypt the vast majority of existing public-key encryption systems."
Regardless of whether the breakthrough lives up to its hype, Herman writes, quantum computing will change everything, as it will render obsolete the encryption that protects everything "from banking and credit cards to the power grid." China transmitted quantum data from a satellite in 2016 and is out-investing the US, Herman writes, warning of Beijing's motives: "China aspires to develop the code-breaking 'killer app,' which means protecting U.S. data and networks from quantum intrusion is a vital security interest." That means the US will need quantum computing power to defend its networks—possibly sooner than later. | | | | | | |
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