The White House’s announcement last month that the United States will offer millions of coronavirus vaccines to its two immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada, is a welcome step toward the reversal of the Trump administration’s “America First” policies. But for humanitarian, economic and strategic reasons, it must be just the first step toward an intentional program of U.S. leadership to vaccinate the Americas. In the global struggle against COVID-19, Latin American and Caribbean countries have fallen behind. Weak health systems, uncertain leadership, high numbers of informal workers and bad luck have created a perfect storm in the region. Even as [...]
Over the course of the past five years, a number of figures on the Democratic Party’s left wing, supported by grassroots organizations and advocacy groups, have been expanding the range of discussions about U.S. foreign policy. The progressive agenda that has emerged, although not a formal platform, is beginning to play a more prominent role in policy debates in Washington’s foreign policy establishment, including within the Biden administration. In this week’s Trend Lines interview, Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, joins WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss what a progressive foreign policy would look like and how [...]
There is perhaps nothing so difficult or so important as thinking independently in the face of a gathering consensus. Very few people have the courage displayed by Rep. Barbara Lee, who just three days after the attacks of 9/11 cast the sole vote in Congress opposing the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which gave the Bush administration broad discretionary powers to wage war against terrorists. Lee’s opposition was not based on naïveté or ideological purity, both of which can be the source of what otherwise resembles iconoclastic thinking. Rather, she had the prescience and lucidity to see the dangers [...]
