Of Four Options Facing Trump in Qatar, Only One Is the Right Choice
Three weeks after President Trump’s closely watched meeting with Arab leaders during his visit to Saudi Arabia, the No.1 question for Trump’s foreign policy team is how to navigate in a region that appears to be moving headlong toward open conflict. So…
As Trump Abdicates Global Leadership, Europe Moves to Fill the Vacuum
ROME—Donald Trump has Europe quaking. His performances at the NATO and G–7 summits last week have left the Continent more uncertain of its trans–Atlantic ties than at any time since the early postwar years. From Paris to Berlin to Rome,…
How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers
Joel Whitney talks about his book Finks, which exposes the agency’s corruption of American culture during the Cold War. “The past is a foreign country,” L.P. Hartley famously wrote as he opened The Go–Between. There is a pretty tristesse in…
Journal Entry #21
Something for Memorial Day. NEW YORK, 29 MAY—This past week, in anticipation of a couple of weeks’ travel, I finished work on the transcript of an excellent interview I conducted early in the spring. Readers of my column will know…
Are China’s Hidden Liabilities Behind Moody’s Ratings Downgrade?
Concerns about China’s “massive debt burden” and slowing economy are causing new concerns after Moody’s Investor Services sounded a full-blown alarm this week downgrading China’s credit rating on sovereign debt from Aa3 to A1. Why would Moody’s cut China’s rating…
Trump the Diplomat? Will He Charm or Harm US Relations?
Whoever put together President Trump’s first foreign tour has a good grasp of the grand gesture. When he departs Friday, his main stops are Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican, making Trump the first U.S. leader to visit the seats…
Journal Entry #20
Tipping Over. NORFOLK, CONN., 17 MAY—To begin, a couple of quotations. No. 1: “We are seeing in the U.S. a developing schizophrenia. There is no other way I can explain the accusations against the acting [sitting] U.S. president that he…
How China Is Building the Post-Western World
Beijing’s Belt and Road project may be the largest single infrastructure program in human history. Not infrequently, I bang on in this space and elsewhere about “parity between West and non-West.” I consider achieving this the single most pressing necessity…
Trump Does Have Real Connections to Russia—and Here’s Why
When President Trump handed foreign policy over to his generals a few weeks ago, his plans for a new détente with Russia were dead in the water, and Secretary of State Tillerson was more or less out of the picture….
From Xi to Duterte: Why Trump Holds His Enemies Closer
President Trump is suddenly talking to a lot of the world’s “strongmen”—two in the past week—and proposing to talk to others. Should he be? In most cases, the answer is an emphatic “Yes,” and this seems to be Trump’s thinking,…
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