Column Archive

It wasn’t very long ago that Venezuela anchored one side of a left-right divide in Latin America, with the late President Hugo Chavez inspiring a wave of leftist electoral victories across the hemisphere. More recently, the region’s leftward drift has stopped, even reversed, but Venezuela is again the catalyst in the new political alignments. The current crisis in Venezuela has forced governments everywhere, but especially in Latin America, to clarify where they stand on the future of Nicolas Maduro’s presidency. It is no longer possible for Latin American leaders to issue fuzzy statements now that the Venezuelan opposition has declared […]

One of the unforeseen beneficial outcomes of the Trump era is the fertile debate it has fueled over America’s foreign policy and global role. As a candidate, Donald Trump questioned many of the pillars of U.S. foreign policy. As president, he has run roughshod over America’s core partnerships and values, to say nothing of the diplomatic protocols he has trampled in the process. After an initial period of shock and outrage, the foreign policy establishment has more recently seemed to recognize the opportunity such a moment offers. In addition to triggering a re-examination of many of the core assumptions of […]

The World Trade Organization now has more than 160 members, ranging from the United States to tiny Burundi, the poorest country in the world, according to the World Bank. Afghanistan and Liberia are the WTO’s newest members, joining in 2016, and they are similarly poor and underdeveloped. Under WTO rules, developing countries receive “special and differential treatment” in recognition of their higher levels of poverty and lower levels of capacity to implement certain trade obligations. Yet the WTO has no objective criteria that define the difference between “developed” and “developing” member states. Rather, countries can “self-declare” as a developing country, […]

Did the U.N. Security Council squander a chance to strengthen peacekeeping in December? 2018 was meant to be a big year for intergovernmental talks on how to improve U.N. operations. Yet Russia and the U.S. joined forces to torpedo a council resolution on potential reforms as the year ended. Why? Technical issues like reforming peace operations might already appear less pressing, given the council’s torrid start in 2019. Its permanent members are split over how to respond to the escalating crisis in Venezuela. Headaches from Iran to North Korea are likely to dominate the agenda this year. Nonetheless, a new […]

The idea of a pre-emptive American attack on Iran periodically resurfaces in Washington, despite the absence of any strategic logic. After abating following the 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the war drums are beating again, with the Trump administration ratcheting up the pressure. Is striking Iran an option? Iran is a longstanding and steadfast opponent of the United States. It promotes terrorism, extremism and instability in the Middle East, with brutal allies like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Iranian regime continues to develop advanced weaponry while repressing internal dissent. There is no question that the […]

A country’s gold reserves are meant to provide stability and financial ballast, not cash for everyday purchases. Only in the most extreme cases do they become a source of currency for vital supplies. That is exactly what is happening in Venezuela, where the political crisis has triggered the kind of international intrigue usually scripted in Hollywood. The embattled government of President Nicolas Maduro is trying to cash in its reserves while the opposition and its foreign backers maneuver to keep the country’s gold and any hard currency from its sale out of Maduro’s hands. This intrigue involving bank vaults and […]

The Munich Security Conference, which just wrapped up Monday, is like the Davos of trans-Atlantic security policy, replete with hollow pronouncements, cost-free posturing and, of course, gossip. But every once in a while, amid the conference’s bromides, real news happens. In 2007, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his speech in Munich to publicly declare the return of Cold War-style geopolitical competition. This year, too, something newsworthy happened at the conference, but newsworthy in the odd sense that something that has been obvious and apparent to everyone was suddenly acknowledged publicly. Like a couple that, after having slowly drifted […]

Trade negotiators typically prefer to discuss the details of agreements in secret while negotiations are ongoing, only revealing their handiwork when they are done. Even then, however, the length and legal density of trade agreements mean that only trade lawyers and industry specialists can readily figure out how a particular deal will affect ordinary citizens. For example, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as the revised NAFTA is known, has 34 chapters and is roughly 1,000 pages long, to say nothing of its hundreds of additional pages of specific tariff commitments, annexes and side letters. In the United States, the law governing ratification […]

“Great nations do not fight endless wars,” President Donald Trump said in his recent State of the Union address—one of the few lines that may have appealed to both ends of the political spectrum. Debate is raging in the United States over how quickly to disengage from Syria and Afghanistan, as frustration with these seemingly interminable conflicts has grown on the political right and left. Trump grasps this frustration and seems inclined to pull American forces out of both places. But every time Trump mentions military withdrawal, security experts, political leaders and military commanders push back. Trump’s statement about not […]

Is there any chance that President Donald Trump would see the recent election in tiny El Salvador as an opportunity to take a different, more humane approach to his campaign against the influx of migrants and asylum-seekers from Central America? That seems like a very long shot, but Trump would do well to consider the possibility. In the presidential election earlier this month, Salvadorans sent a powerful message to their own leaders—one that may also just hold a key to reversing the stream of desperate families pouring out of their country toward the United States. At the very least, El […]

Just when it looked like France’s Emmanuel Macron had weathered the storm that’s been battering his presidency for the past three months, new allegations from an old scandal have surfaced, raising questions about Macron’s level of exposure. They add to the trouble Macron still faces from the Yellow Vest movement, which though reduced in numbers, has been distilled to a resilient and hardened base of support. While the movement no longer poses a direct threat to his political survival, it is now Macron’s reaction to the protests that could undermine his legitimacy. By early December, the spontaneous emergence, rapid growth […]

Washington and Beijing are a little over two weeks away from their self-imposed March 1st deadline to reach a sweeping trade agreement that addresses China’s alleged unfair trade practices. If they fail, and the current truce in their trade war ends with no deal, the costs will be substantial for both sides. The United States imports more goods from China than any country in the world—roughly $500 billion in 2017—and a breakdown in the talks could lead to even higher tariffs on at least half of that. Right now, under the tariffs steadily imposed by President Donald Trump, the U.S. […]

Can multilateral development institutions survive the era of Trump? Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump nominated a new president of the World Bank, a post traditionally occupied by an American. Aid experts were worried, if not necessarily surprised, that the White House nominee—Treasury official David Malpass—has a history of criticizing bodies like the bank. Commentators picked up on congressional testimony by Malpass from 2017, in which he supported the administration’s view “that globalism and multilateralism have gone too far,” and promised to limit or end U.S. support to underperforming aid institutions. He was more positive about the World Bank in […]

China and Taiwan marked the Lunar New Year holiday this week with dueling propaganda videos showcasing their respective military might, released on social media. It was the latest sign that North Korea may no longer be the world’s most volatile hotspot, the nation most likely to unleash a major crisis that could spiral out of control. Now that dubious distinction may be shifting to Taiwan. The root of the problem is, of course, that China considers Taiwan an inextricable part of its territory ripped away in 1949 when the government of the Republic of China, facing military defeat against communist […]

Back in December, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition decided to dissolve parliament and call new elections, the news inspired a chain reaction of yawns. Despite Netanyahu’s growing legal problems, the overwhelming consensus was that he was headed for another victory, one that would allow him to break the record of Israel’s founder, David Ben Gurion, as the country’s longest-serving prime minister. To be sure, the election, scheduled for April 9, is still Netanyahu’s to lose, but the inevitability of another victory by Bibi, as he is known, and his rightist Likud party is now in doubt. Voters who […]

The standoff pitting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against National Assembly leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president two weeks ago, continues to paralyze the country. It has also highlighted a political divide outside Venezuela—in particular in the U.S. between advocates and critics of the Trump administration’s pursuit of regime change in Caracas. That debate has broader implications for the formulation of a progressive foreign policy framework in the runup to the U.S. presidential election in 2020. After the U.S., joined by most of the governments of South America and Europe, recognized Guaido as the legitimate head of state, a […]

The scale of the humanitarian disaster in Venezuela is almost inconceivable. Despite the world’s largest proven oil reserves, the economy barely functions. People struggle just to survive. Store shelves are nearly empty of food, medicine and other necessities. The few goods available are out of reach for most people because of hyperinflation that the International Monetary Fund estimates reached a shocking 1 million percent in 2018. An estimated 3 million Venezuelans have already fled to neighboring countries, and more will likely join them. Last fall, the Pharmaceutical Federation of Venezuela estimated that only around 20 percent of needed medicines were […]