| | | | Why Team Trump Is Taking So Long to Put Together: NYT | | The Trump administration has been unusually slow in filling top government posts. The main reason? The President himself has been "exceptionally slow in nominating people," the New York Times reports.
"The White House says Senate Democrats are to blame for the vacancies, and it is true they have used obstruction tactics to delay the confirmation of some nominees," The Times reports.
"On average, however, among the group included in The Times's analysis, Mr. Trump's nominees have only taken nine days longer to be confirmed than Mr. Obama's.
"It is also true that Mr. Trump has taken longer to nominate these senior officials. Many departments have only one confirmed position -- the top job. Ten of the 15 cabinet agencies are operating without a deputy secretary, the second highest job in an agency. Several nominations for the No. 2 spots did not happen until after Mr. Trump was in office for 100 days, and some have yet to be announced."
| | What We're Getting All Wrong on Russia: Vanden Heuvel | | It's time for a new approach to America's ties with Russia. Dealing with an authoritarian government like the one headed by Vladimir Putin won't be easy, writes Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post. But this "moment calls for diplomacy and dialogue, not moral posturing and triumphalism."
"The bottom line is that opposition to Trump cannot become the same as opposition to common sense. Common sense dictates that we protect our democracy by strengthening our election systems to counter outside interference. It dictates an independent investigation of claims of Russian meddling in the presidential campaign," vanden Heuvel argues.
"But it also tells us that we cannot address many of our most urgent challenges…without the United States and Russia finding ways to work together when it serves our mutual interests. We do not have to embrace the Russian government to work on vital interests with it. And we cannot afford a revival of Cold War passions that would discredit those seeking to de-escalate tensions. Efforts to curtail debate could be a disservice to our country's security." - Disappointment in Moscow. Fareed says that Russia, for its part, is likely feeling extremely frustrated by the ongoing controversies.
"I think Russia thought it had an opportunity to make progress on its own interests. You only have to look at the scenes of Russians – especially the country's elites – in the wake of the U.S. presidential election result being announced to see how they were feeling.
"Let's be honest, there were virtually no other countries in the world that were celebrating the election of Donald Trump. Yet, after the election, Vladimir Putin was gloating and talking about how he was one of the few that predicted that Donald Trump was going to win.
"But fast forward to today, and Russia sees a White House that is paralyzed on Russian policy. And because they're paralyzed, policy making has devolved to people like Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is pretty tough on Russia, and to National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who is also pretty tough on Russia.
"So, I don't think Trump has had much room to maneuver. That said, I've found it interesting, as I discussed in my Washington Post column last week, that whenever Trump has a chance, he always gives Russia the benefit of the doubt. It's impossible not to have noticed that there consistently seems to him to be one country in the world that isn't ripping off the United States, that isn't the source of all our problems."
| | Congress, Want Some Health Care Tips? Look at Rwanda | | Those mulling the future of U.S. health care in the wake of the collapse of the Senate's bill should forget about comparisons to rich nations like Denmark. Instead, America should see what it can learn from Rwanda, suggests Eduardo Porter in the New York Times.
"[O]ver the past 15 years or so, Rwanda has built a near-universal health care system that covers more than 90 percent of the population, financed by tax revenue, foreign aid and voluntary premiums scaled by income," Porter writes.
True, he says, life expectancy in Rwanda still lags far behind that of the United States. But that doesn't mean there aren't lessons that can't be applied here.
One rule of thumb: "[I]t is best to consolidate the health care system into one big risk pool for the entire population, as Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam are aiming to do.
"Having several different pools -- one for the poor, another for the aged, another for employees of this or that company -- blocks the cross-subsidization from the rich to the poor, the young to the old and the healthy to the sick upon which insurance relies. It makes it tougher to control costs, as doctors and hospitals facing a cost-control squeeze in one pool might simply charge more to patients or insurers in the other." | | Beware the Regime Change Talk on Iran | | Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sounded in testimony last month like he was suggesting regime change could be the Trump administration's policy toward Iran. That would be a mistake, writes Michael Axworthy in Foreign Policy.
"A country that is essentially defensive and pragmatic in its foreign policy, and resilient internally, is not a good candidate for regime change. In its effective opposition to the Islamic State and similar groups, and its actions favoring regional stability, Iran deserves at least some praise, rather than blame," Axworthy writes. "The sensible policy would be to accept the existence of the Islamic Republic, to hope for its evolution in a more liberal direction perhaps, but to let Iranians decide that for themselves.
"America's talk of regime change in Iran is really a kind of self-indulgence; picking at the scab of the 1979-81 hostage crisis, and hitting back at one of former President Barack Obama's genuine foreign-policy achievements for purely internal domestic political reasons. But that kind of language could eventually lead to war, to everyone's detriment. The leadership of the free world demands more maturity and more common sense."
| | Are China's Drones a Threat to America? | | Washington might not like it, but other countries are increasingly able to secure a piece of the combat drone action -- with an assist from China, report Jeremy Page and Paul Sonne for the Wall Street Journal.
"State companies are selling aircraft resembling General Atomics's Predator and Reaper drones at a fraction of the cost to U.S. allies and partners, and to other buyers," they write.
"The Pentagon estimates China could produce almost 42,000 aerial drones -- sale value more than $10 billion -- in the decade up to 2023. Beijing's drone program began with old Soviet designs; more recently, U.S. officials say, China used espionage and open-source material to reverse-engineer U.S. drones. Beijing denies that."
| | The Key to Fixing the Venezuela Crisis? China | | | The road to resolving the political crisis in Venezuela might run through China, Bloomberg editorializes. After all, few countries can match the economic sway Beijing has over Caracas. "Venezuela owes [China] more than $62 billion for loans, and is behind in the oil shipments used for payment. A Venezuelan default -- or worse, a slide into civil war -- is not in China's interests," Bloomberg argues. "On the other hand, China could benefit from better ties with Venezuela's opposition parties, which have threatened to repudiate debt instruments that lack the legislature's approval. More broadly, Chinese aid and investments are crucial to Venezuela's escape from economic misery." | | | | | | |
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