Commentary
Commentary: Britain’s deluded hopes for a painless free-trade deal
Watching the slow-motion crash of Britain’s exit negotiations with the European Union is a disconcerting experience. A state that once ran a global empire is looking second-rate as the government’s implausible expectations about what it may be able to achieve in the talks are dashed. The British lack of realism, especially about vital future trading arrangements with the EU, reflects divisions within a government weakened after Prime Minister Theresa May lost her Conservative majority at the general election in June. But it also shows the government’s dismaying lack of historical and strategic understanding about how Britain lost its clout outside the European club more than half a century ago.
Commentary: Britain stumbles toward a new deal with the U.S.
To paraphrase a former U.S. secretary of state, Britain has lost a community but not yet found a friend. That the island is adrift became ever clearer last week as British officials made little progress in their third round of talks over the best way to exit the European Union.
Commentary: The downside of banning Americans from North Korea
Sixty-four years after North Korea and the United States signed an armistice to suspend the Korean War, the U.S. State Department has forbidden American citizens from traveling to the hermit state. The notice was put in the federal register on August 2; it becomes effective on Friday.
Commentary: A win for Trump’s gas diplomacy
Last week, American liquefied natural gas (LNG) made its way to the somewhat unlikely market of Lithuania. The former Soviet republic traditionally bought its gas from Russian state company Gazprom; this was its first shipment from the United States. For President Donald Trump, that must have been a gratifying sign of the success of his administration’s nascent energy diplomacy.
Commentary: Putin's weird war gets ever riskier
September will be a nervous month in Eastern Europe. On September 14, Russia will unleash what may be its largest military exercise since the Cold War. In Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and elsewhere, officials are openly concerned that the “Zapad (‘West’) 2017” drills near their borders will be used as cover for a military attack.
Commentary: The conservative case for Republicans to stop lawmaking in secret
When Congressional Republicans return from recess next week without anything to show for their party’s unified control of Washington, it will be time for them to attempt something radical: a return to regular order in both houses of Congress.
Commentary: Beyond regular security, another way to prevent extremist attacks
Spain’s counter-terrorism laws are among the toughest in Europe. Its immigration policies are restrictive and the razor-wire fences at its borders are menacing. Yet this didn’t deter a group of young, male, Muslim immigrants – some born in Morocco, some in Spain to Moroccan immigrant families – from turning violently on their neighbors on August 17, killing 15 people in a series of attacks in and around Barcelona.
Commentary: As global hostilities rise, Trump is no help
"Not this August, nor this September," wrote Ernest Hemingway in the summer of 1935 as international tensions in Europe and beyond began to simmer. "But the year after that or the year after that, they fight."
Commentary: The fight for internet freedom in Trump's America
One of the great things about America is that if you don’t like the government, you have the right to speak out against it. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, ordinary citizens have been voicing dissent on the Internet and in the streets. Recently, an extraordinary request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) threatened to make people increasingly afraid to exercise that right.
Commentary: Bannon’s departure may harm U.S. foreign policy
Steve Bannon made many enemies during his stormy seven-month tenure at the White House. He clashed with Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as top economic advisers and national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Bannon was also a divisive force for the country, instrumental in decisions like the travel ban barring people from several Muslim majority policies from entering the United States; a supporter of building a wall with Mexico, and a conservative blamed for stoking white voters’ resentment towards minorities.
Commentary: The elephant in the room at the NAFTA talks
The first round of long-awaited talks on modernizing NAFTA finished Sunday, with Canada, Mexico and the United States issuing a statement that they had made “detailed conceptual presentations “ of their positions. Negotiators from the three countries will meet again in Mexico on September 1 to continue trying to revise the trade pact. But while all say they are keen to see a new deal emerge, they still have to navigate the political risks attached to any commercial agreement.
Commentary: Here's what to do with those reviled statues
Statues live. The Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville certainly does. The majority of Americans, including his fellow Republicans, disapprove of Donald Trump’s defense of Confederate monuments and his tardiness in condemning the white supremacists whose protests against a decision to remove the Lee statue led to the violence that killed a woman demonstrating against them.
Commentary: Trump’s dangerous dismissal of right-wing militants
In the wake of the bloody havoc in Charlottesville last weekend, and with more white nationalist protests planned for other cities in the weeks ahead, Donald Trump is being widely lambasted for equivocating about who is responsible for the violence. But his penchant for minimizing the threat of domestic far-right and white supremacist militants isn't new. Like other conservatives, Trump has avoided confronting this threat, or even acknowledging its reality. And he's turning that denial into policy.
Commentary: Aung San Suu Kyi’s free press dilemma
Aung San Suu Kyi is treating the press in Myanmar poorly, and that may impede her efforts to democratize the conflict-wrought country. But is Suu Kyi’s apparent authoritarian streak mere caution? Expanding civil liberties too forcefully could bait the former junta into retaking full control of the Southeast Asian nation, setting back the cause of liberty and democracy.
Commentary: Understanding Kim Jong Un’s nuclear game plan
On October 3, 1942 – 75 years ago this year – a prototype German V-2 rocket launched from the German military firing range at Peenemunde in the Baltic reached an altitude of 84.5 kilometers (52.5 miles.)It was, by some definitions, the first human-built object in space.
Commentary: From Putin to Zuma to Trump, voters put personality over policy
Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa, survived a no-confidence motion in the country’s parliament earlier this week. It was the eighth since he took office eight years ago.
Commentary: Trump’s dysfunctional NSC a threat to national security
The White House National Security Council (NSC) has no shortage of crises at the moment. Nuclear and missile proliferation on the Korean Peninsula, Islamic State-inspired attacks in western countries, the political and economic crisis in Venezuela and Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Georgia and Syria, to name just a few.
Commentary: Signing a new Russia sanctions bill shouldn’t stop Trump trying to get closer to Putin
The U.S.-Russian relationship is in a downward spiral. President Donald Trump just grudgingly signed a bill imposing additional sanctions on Russia, while Russian President Vladimir Putin angrily ordered 755 U.S. diplomats to leave the country.
Commentary: Amid White House chaos, a rise of the generals
When White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney was asked why President Donald Trump had appointed former Marine officer John Kelly as chief of staff, Mulvaney had a simple explanation. “You know that he enjoys working with generals,” he said.
Commentary: Europe’s leaders struggle over a Trump strategy
“We have to understand, that we Europeans must fight for our own future and destiny,” said Angela Merkel. This was the German chancellor speaking to a crowd of supporters in May, after a testy few days of a G7 summit that included reports in German news media that Donald Trump had called her country “very bad” for selling so many cars to the United States - and saw the U.S. president emerge as the only G7 dissenter on combating climate change.
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