Tag: Trade
Stevenson’s army, August 31
In an extraordinary story, WaPo reports that John Bolton has repeatedly been excluded from invitations to presidential policy meetings on Afghanistan and even denied access to the Taliban negotiations documents. Bolton’s only denial of the story was that he and his staff did not leak. It’s unclear whether this story was prompted by Bolton supporters who want him to resign in protest of Administration policies or opponents who want to further marginalize him by making this known to the world. [It is not unusual for senior officials to fall in and out of favor with a president. Nor is it unusual for one faction to try to exclude opponents from policy meetings. People in the Clinton and Obama administrations, for example, told me of deliberately excluding Richard Holbrooke from meetings because he was deemed disruptive. But to sideline the person in charge of the interagency process from a key policy matter is not a good sign.]
Another puzzling development Friday was a presidential tweet with what appears to be a classified intelligence photo of an Iranian missile site along with a Trump statement that the US was not responsible for the failed launch. NYT has background on both matters, including a discussion of the law on covert actions.
WaPo had a piece discussing Gen. Mattis’ refusal to criticize President Trump, linking it to broader issues of civil-military relations and whether retired senior officers can adjust to political roles like SecDef. Civ-mil scholars like Professors Karlin and Peter Feaver are quoted.
CBO’s latest economic report has details on the impact of the trade wars on the US economy. See box 2.2 in the full report.
NYT tells the sad story of the rise and fall of the president’s personal assistant and how she built large groups of supporters and opponents by how she controlled access to the Oval Office.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, August 26
[The Congress class starts next week, so I’ll be giving extra emphasis to news about the legislative branch.]
Congress will be in session only 15 days in September, then recessing for two weeks [Jewish high holidays]. Lawmakers have to fund the government, probably by passing a short term continuing resolution. They dodged a bullet by approving a two year budget topline and suspending the debt limit last month.
Another July accomplishment was a new law making it easier for congressional offices to do constituent casework that requires some kind of approval paperwork.
In an apparent effort to preclude further stock market declines, President Trump said the Chinese had called and wanted to restart trade talks. Bloomberg says the Chinese Foreign Ministry knows of no such calls, and other US officials previously said there would be more talks next week. Anyway, the president has now discovered the International Emergency Economic Powers Act [IEEPA] and thinks it would allow him to forbid US companies from having Chinese customers or subsidiaries. Here’s background on IEEPA from the Congressional Research Service, and another paper on broader national emergencies laws. [Note that both CRS and FAS have CRS papers now.]
The Atlantic has a piece showing China’s effective soft power at work.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, August 17
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– I’m really troubled by the efforts by Trump and Netanyahu to make US policy toward Israel a partisan matter. I think any member of Congress should be able to visit any country which receives overt US economic or military aid — and aid should be suspended or cut when they can’t.
– FSOs complain that Trump administration is naming far more political appointees than past administrations.
– Axios tells how USTR determined winners and losers from the China tariffs.
– BTW, some good news: the security clearance backlog has been reduced.
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Trump greenlights repression
President Trump yesterday tweeted that the Chinese government is assembling forces for a possible crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong:
Our Intelligence has informed us that the Chinese Government is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong. Everyone should be calm and safe!
While he said “our intelligence” reported this, the videos of Chinese forces are all over the internet, including some released by Beijing. Frightening protesters out of the street is easier than chasing them out.
Compare Trump’s statement with Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s (no friend of mine):
Any violent crackdown would be completely unacceptable. … The world is watching.
Trump’s relatively neutral hope that everyone will be calm and safe is a green light to Beijing that they can crack down, albeit one with plausible deniability for Trump. If they do crackdown and things go badly, Trump can say he didn’t encourage them. In the meanwhile, he gets credit in Beijing for the soft tone.
Trump will also be applauded in Beijing for backing down on some of the tariffs he had promised to impose in September on consumer goods from China. There was a real risk that they would signal to Americans the truth: consumers pay tariffs, not the exporting countries. That on top of the collapse of US agricultural exports to China threatened to generate real domestic resistance to a tariff war that Beijing is clearly winning. The Chinese have much more effective ways of protecting the government from domestic dissent than Trump does.
Not that the Chinese aren’t hurting. They have let their currency float downwards for good reasons: they need to maintain their exports and try to counter their slowing growth, which is slumping towards 6%. That’s fast compared to the US, but not necessarily fast enough to keep a lid on discontent. Of course the Chinese will eventually have to face the recession that is inevitable in any capitalist economy, but they will want to put it off as long as possible for fear of the social consequences.
That fear is what makes Beijing so anxious and stubborn about the Hong Kong protests. The protesters are demanding:
- Complete withdrawal of the extradition bill
- Withdrawal of the “riot” description used about the 12 June protests
- Amnesty for all arrested protesters
- An independent inquiry into alleged police brutality
- Universal suffrage for the Chief Executive and Legislative Council elections
Essentially the protesters are asking for electoral democracy, accountability, amnesty, and an independent judicial system. If Beijing concedes those things to Hong Kong, what is to stop mainland Chinese from demanding the same?
The short answer is the People’s Liberation Army. No doubt some in Beijing are arguing that it will be easier to stop the protests in Hong Kong than if they spread.
The hardliners have a friend in the White House. The man has no convictions. Everything is transactional. He doesn’t hesitate to sell American values for a bowl of Chinese porridge.
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Stevenson’s army, August 13
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– I’m mildly persuaded by this piece arguing that Boris Johnson’s game plan is to win an election, and that’s more important than Brexit.
– Jeffrey Lewis discusses what the failed Russian test with nuclear release might mean.
– NYT says Afghan army is in sad shape.
– Why did Trump delay Chinese tariffs today? Vox suggests retail pressures; I’d add the sinking stock market.
Or maybe these polls.
– Former Senate Leader Harry Reid calls for an end to the legislative filibuster. WRONG. WRONG. BAD!
– Interesting Dutch report on Russian cyber threats.
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Stevenson’s army, August 10
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– RollCall says OMB has released the hold on some of the foreign aid money.
– WSJ says Turkey will send migrants back to Syria.
– FP says CIA will keep resources in Afghanistan.
– FP says Iranian intelligence services are fighting with each other.
– IG lists the damage done by the Tillerson hiring freeze at State.
– NYT notes how divided Democratic presidential candidates are on trade.
To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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