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Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, transformed the island from a tiny third-world country in 1965 into a first-world city-state that is now one of the world’s most prosperous, least corrupt and best-educated societies. Yet after Lee’s death earlier this month on the 50th anniversary of the republic’s founding, questions remain about the durability of his legacy. While changes have been afoot in Singapore, particularly since Lee retired from politics in 2011, they are likely to develop into larger challenges as the city-state’s economic constraints become clearer and its politics more competitive amid growing regional and global uncertainties. Domestically, […]

In late February, the United States signed a trade deal with the East African Community (EAC), the bloc of five countries around Africa’s Great Lakes. In an email interview, Nora Carina Dihel, a senior trade economist at the World Bank, discussed U.S. trade with the EAC and the rest of Africa. WPR: What is covered by the recent U.S. trade deal with the EAC, and what impact is it likely to have on the economies of the EAC? Nora Carina Dihel: The new cooperation agreement signed by trade ministers from the five EAC countries—Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—and the […]

U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to secure an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program have exposed rifts with America’s long-standing Middle Eastern partners, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. While these three countries share important security interests with Washington, they are by no means fully aligned with the preferred American vision for the region. For its part, Saudi Arabia has always feared Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, no matter who sits in power in Tehran. Riyadh was no more supportive of Iranian claims to regional leadership, and in fact opposed efforts to enshrine Iran as America’s Middle Eastern […]