| | | | Fareed: Trump's Astonishing Foreign Policy Takeover | | President Trump has recognized that the Republican Party base is ripe for an ideological revolution, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. Look no further than how he is remaking the party's foreign policy.
"His approach abroad appears to be designed to create a new Republican foreign policy that is much closer to the party's historical roots — distrustful of foreigners, alliances and treaties — and, in many senses, flatly isolationist. In his rallies, Trump describes America's closest allies as 'our worst enemies' and says they 'kill us' on both security and trade. 'We're the schmucks,' he bemoans about America in its dealings with NATO and the European Union," Fareed writes.
"The Republican Party has proved remarkably malleable ideologically. The party of law and order now has deep distrust of the FBI. The party of free trade is now far more solidly behind protectionism than the Democrats. The party that celebrated President Ronald Reagan's optimism about immigrants now contains a majority that supports separating families at the border and criminally prosecuting undocumented immigrants."
| | The Trump-Putin Summit Agenda Just Got Really Awkward | | The Justice Department on Friday "announced indictments against 12 Russian nationals as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election," CNN reports. That could upend any hopes Trump might have had of resetting US-Russia ties before his summit with Putin has even begun, suggests Fred Kaplan for Slate.
"Proceeding as planned, as if the indictment hadn't happened, couldn't help but raise questions — perhaps even among supporters — about his own complicity," Kaplan writes.
"Trump could also use the news as an excuse to escalate his war on the Justice Department and to cite the indictment's timing as evidence of efforts by the 'deep state' to thwart his presidency and to embarrass him personally.
"If he goes that route, he will be stepping into new realms of internecine conflict. The Justice Department could not possibly return an indictment of this sort — charging 12 individual Russian hackers by name — without close cooperation with several branches of the intelligence community, probably including the National Security Agency, which no doubt at some point hacked the hackers to see who was doing what." Russia wants to prevent "an escalation of US pressure," Frolov writes. "Moscow's main aim, which was derived after carefully observing Trump's summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, is to create momentum that would make it politically painful and personally humiliating for Trump to revert to confrontation."
| | The Nationalists' Simple Fantasy | | | Brexiteers have been pedaling a message strikingly similar to that of some US conservatives, suggests William Davies in The New York Times: Governing is simple, and experts are not required.
"A common thread linking 'hard' Brexiteers to nationalists across the globe is that they resent the very idea of governing as a complex, modern, fact-based set of activities that requires technical expertise and permanent officials," Davies writes.
"What happens if sections of the news media, the political classes and the public insist that only sovereignty matters and that the complexities of governing are a lie invented by liberal elites? For one thing, it gives rise to celebrity populists, personified by Mr. Trump, whose inability to engage patiently or intelligently with policy issues makes it possible to sustain the fantasy that governing is simple. What [former British Foreign Secretary Boris] Johnson terms the 'method' in Mr. Trump's 'madness' is a refusal to listen to inconvenient evidence, of the sort provided by officials and experts." | | No, Trump Didn't Just Help the Brexiteers' Case | | | Brexiteers might be tempted to welcome President Trump's tough criticism of Theresa May's proposed "soft Brexit" in an interview with a British newspaper. But the truth is that his comments hurt, not help, their cause, The Economist argues. "Key to the Brexit sales pitch before the referendum was that, on leaving the EU, Britain would be able to have the best of both worlds. It would maintain its links with Europe — many Brexiteers said it would even be able to stay in the single market — and yet be free to strike out to cut new deals with other countries. Mr Trump makes clear that in fact there is a choice to be made: do you follow EU regulations, or American ones? For Britain, the answer ought to be pretty clear. Nearly half its trade is with the EU, and less than a fifth with America." | | Why An Overlooked Peace Deal Is a Really Big Deal | | Largely overlooked this week with all the attention on President Trump and the NATO summit was the announcement of a peace deal between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The United States, for one, should welcome the progress, argues Daniel Runde for Foreign Policy.
"There are many benefits to achieving a peace deal. First, such an agreement would create a new economic dynamic in the Horn of Africa," Runde argues.
"Second, ending this conflict could open the door to political liberalization in Eritrea. Eritrea uses the conflict with Ethiopia as an excuse for not making any government reforms. Third, a peace deal would open a new dynamic in the dysfunctional and tension-ridden Horn of Africa. It is true that Eritrea has supported bad actors in its neighborhood. If Eritrea had peace with Ethiopia, it would feel more secure and Eritrea would be less prone to causing trouble in the region and more likely to reduce tensions. Fourth, if the United States and Eritrea had a new relationship, Eritrea could be our Plan B African military base, as Djibouti is getting a little too friendly with China." | | | | | | |
