| | | | Iran Is Weathering the Storm | | As it enters year two of President Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign, Iran has suffered, Henry Rome writes at Foreign Affairs. Its oil exports have dropped from 2.4 million barrels per day to fewer than 500,000, its economy entered a recession, and its currency value plummeted, Rome writes. And yet, things are stabilizing, with inflation set to fall and its GDP growth set to approach zero.
Thanks to a relatively diversified economy (Iran relies on oil far less than Saudi Arabia, for instance), Rome concludes Tehran is doing fine—and can well afford to wait out the remainder of Trump's first presidential term. Rather than caving, it's likely to resume provocations, like proxy activity and nuclear development, meaning the "second year of maximum pressure may be more tumultuous than the first." | | Are Mass Protests the New Status Quo? | | Reacting to the spate of protests that have raged in countries rich and poor, free and autocratic, The Economist wonders why these movements are all coinciding now. Economics could play a role, but the magazine proposes a few alternative reasons: the excitement of protesting, the trendiness of solidarity, and the seeming futility of traditional political channels. The last sentiment is reinforced, the magazine writes, by looming climate problems and social media's amplification of agreeing voices, which make it seem the government doesn't listen to a unified cry.
"Little suggests these trends are about to go into remission," the magazine writes. "In which case, this … wave of protest may not be the harbinger of a global revolution, but simply the new status quo." | | Protests Show Democracy Is Alive And Well | | | Disconcerting as those demonstrations may be—particularly the violence that has resulted, as with the killing of protesters in Iraq—Pankaj Mishra argues at Bloomberg that they prove democracy is alive and well. While analysts have seen democracy declining globally in recent years (it's eroded while trends of populism and digital authoritarianism have emerged), the demonstrations are a counterpoint: "For, if democracy means rule of the people, and a demand for social equality, then we are witnessing its flowering in the most populous parts of the world," Mishra writes. The challenge, he argues, is to prevent today's movements from being coopted by demagogues seeking their own gain. | | Trump's Economic Warfare Hasn't Worked | | "Trump came to the presidency at the perfect moment to attempt a more aggressive approach to economic coercion," writes Daniel Drezner, in an essay published in the most recent issue of The Washington Quarterly. Successive US administrations (and new sets of laws) had honed the use of sanctions, America had embraced its central position in global finance, and exploiting that centrality enjoyed bipartisan support.
Trump has pursued that opening with gusto, deploying some form of economic pressure against Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, Pakistan, India, China, and the EU, by Drezner's count. "Whether through tactical issue linkage, traditional tariffs, financial statecraft, export controls, or combined uses of multiple measures, the Trump administration appears to have sanctioned almost every major economy in the world," Drezner writes.
And yet, Trump's economic statecraft hasn't worked, Drezner finds: The US-China trade war has mostly yielded "collateral damage," USMCA contains few upgrades to NAFTA, Mexico didn't bend to tariff threats over border policies, and even South Korea offered no real concessions on its trade pact. Drezner gives a few reasons for this failure: For one, the Trump administration has failed to couple economic pressure with effective diplomacy. For another, Trump's demands have escalated sharply (for instance, his ask of Iran amounts to regime change), signaling to adversaries there's no deal to be had and leading them to simply retaliate. Finally, the US has offered no carrots along with its sticks—something other world powers, like China and the EU, are doing with Belt and Road deals and trade packages. As a result, Drezner concludes, the US has degraded its ability to use economic pressure—and has put into doubt the open trading system—at a time when other countries are getting better at the same game. | | | | | | |
