Regardless of whether the former president is ultimately indicted, the case points to a problem that’s bigger than Trump: The U.S. government has become addicted to shrouding its actions behind a veil of secrecy, especially when it comes to national security.
Read moreTrump Got China All Wrong. Now Biden Is Too.
Toughness in the face of China may be good domestic politics, but it is still bad policy if the goal is enhancing U.S. economic power and global security.
Read moreHere’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party
As tempting as it to take the rise of conspiracy theories as a singular mark of a partisan internet-fueled age, however, there’s nothing particularly modern or unique about what is happening now.
Read moreTrump’s China Tariffs Failed. Why Isn’t Biden Dropping Them?
In an interview this week, President-elect Joe Biden said that he’s not planning to reverse tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the United States as quickly as he plans to reverse other Trump-era policies…
Read moreHow Biden Could Wind Down the Imperial Presidency
Once Biden undoes some of what Trump has done, he could leave his most indelible and important mark by rolling back that trend in American governance, ceding presidential powers back to Congress and the states, making it harder for any subsequent president to abuse the power of the office.
Read moreTrump’s TikTok Policy Is Just a New Kind of ‘Security Theater’
After weeks of uncertainty following President Donald Trump’s executive order on TikTok—ordering its Chinese parent company to divest its American operations within 90 days—the video app that has stolen the hearts, if not the data, of millions of teens has found an American partner: Oracle.
Read moreWe Don't Just Need More Stimulus — We Need Smarter Stimulus
With the Republican-led Senate only just now unveiling its first draft of a next stimulus package and passage of a final bill dependent on weeks of arduous negotiations between Congress and the White House, the already-tenuous economic recovery just became more tenuous.
Read moreNo Matter How Dire the Coronavirus Threat, Fear Is Not the Way Out
And he would recognize in the United States today something very similar to early 1933, that in the throes of a viral pandemic, we are mired in a psychological one as well: we are in the grip of fear, and it is paralyzing us.
Read moreIf Trump Says it, Does That Mean it's Not True?
Fear of the disease is rational, but the response of “Stay home until there is no fear” is not. We need to start solving this problem — and opening schools, regardless of who says what.
Read moreTrump Picks the Worst Possible Moment to Attack China
It would be difficult to select a worse moment not just to escalate the rhetoric against China for its culpability in the globalization of COVID-19 but to consider a raft of economic sanctions.
Read moreTo Survive the Pandemic, Washington Needs to Learn How to Listen
But it also reveals a problem in how the United States has handled the crisis so far: A policy vacuum is being filled by one set of experts rather than a more comprehensive approach that balances risks and shifts when necessary.
Read moreCan History’s Biggest Stimulus Stave Off a Coronavirus Depression?
he New Deal set the standard for big government intervention. Then came the pandemic of 2020.
Read moreTrump Is Actually the President We Need Right Now
This past week, however, one thing became clear: Donald Trump may be exactly the president we need now.
Read moreThe U.S.-China Trade Deal Was Not Even a Modest Win
If you detect a note of skepticism already creeping in, it’s because this pseudo-deal deserves not just skepticism but calling out as a dramatic failure of U.S. policy that will have lasting and deleterious effects.
Read moreDon’t Blame Just Trump for U.S.-China Hostility
The Trump administration, with its fixation on trade balances and its view that the Chinese have ripped off U.S. consumers for decades, clearly initiated the current trade war. But the truth is that American animosity to the rise of China can’t all be attributed to President Donald Trump.
Read moreRating Donald Trump: At least he's not George W. Bush
For those who believe Donal Trump is the worst POTUS ever, let’s stipulate something else: nothing he has done would rank in the top five of what George W. Bush did in the first term of his presidency in terms of sheer, utter, unequivocal harm to the United States.
Read moreStop Saying America’s Problems are Like Ancient Rome’s Decline
What Trump Doesn’t Get About the Chinese Economy
As President Donald Trump escalates his trade war with China, the administration is adamant that China is bearing the brunt of the tariffs. “They’re not hurting anybody [in the United States],” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “They’re hurting China.”
Read moreListen, Here’s Why the Value of China’s Yuan Really Matters
The China-US trade conflict is taking a more severe turn. President Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports; the Chinese government responded by allowing its currency, the yuan, to fall to more than 7 to the dollar—the lowest in a decade. The US government then formally labeled China a “currency manipulator,” which carries no formal penalty but sets in motion a process that might lead to sanctions by the International Monetary Fund.
Read moreHow Hidden Billions Are Making the Rich Richer
For the British journalist Oliver Bullough, the Paul Manafort trial was simply one more glimpse into a world he calls “Moneyland,” a shadow system of trillions of dollars of hidden assets that transcends nations, feeds corruption and “quietly but effectively” is “impoverishing millions, undermining democracy, helping dictators as they loot their countries.”
Read more