| | | | The Elephant in the White House Monday? | | President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House on Monday. Joining them was a looming elephant in the shape of growing Israeli concerns about US policy on Iran, suggests Josh Lederman for the Associated Press.
"For all his talk about brokering the 'ultimate deal' between Israelis and Palestinians, Trump's long-awaited peace plan has yet to arrive, even as Palestinians and other critics insist it will be dead on arrival. And although Israel's government is overjoyed by Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital — with a US embassy set to open in the holy city in May — misgivings are percolating under the surface over Iran, where Israel sees Trump's efforts to date to crack down on Israel's arch-enemy as lacking," Lederman writes.
"One major, growing concern: that the United States is acquiescing to Iran's growing presence in Syria and influence in Lebanon — two Israeli neighbors."
"Israel is [also] increasingly worried that Trump is backsliding on a pledge to 'fix' or dismantle the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Of particular concern is that Trump may push new restrictions to prevent Iran from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the US, but will allow Iran to keep developing medium-range ballistic missiles that could strike Israel."
| | Why America Could Get Left in the Koreas' Dust | | The visit Monday by a high-level South Korean delegation to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un – and the expected trip to Washington by South Koreans to brief the Trump administration on that meeting – suggests diplomacy on the peninsula is entering a new phase. But the United States doesn't seem to be ready, writes Gerald Seib in the Wall Street Journal.
"[A]s this moment arrives, the Trump administration hasn't confirmed an ambassador to South Korea or a permanent assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs. The State Department's special representative for North Korea policy has just resigned, and the military commander in charge of Pacific forces soon will leave, to be replaced by an officer light on Asian experience. There is uncertainty about America's position on negotiations," Seib writes.
"In short, an outbreak of diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula has begun, and the US could find itself behind the curve, unable to adequately protect its interests or steer the process. There is also a risk that the arrival of diplomacy will prompt South Korea to cancel planned military exercises with the US, a step the US fears will send a dangerous signal of weakness."
| | Team Trump Is Falling into China's Trap | | The tariffs on steel and aluminum announced by the White House last week were merely the latest evidence that Xi Jinping's China is running rings around Trump's America, argues William Pesek in the Nikkei Asian Review. Trump is stuck in the past, he suggests, while China has its eyes firmly set on the future.
"Pulling out of the Paris climate accord allowed Beijing to assume the mantle of global leadership. Erecting walls around America cedes greater influence to Xi's 'Belt and Road' and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank schemes," Pesek argues.
"Trump, in the meantime, risks an epic own goal by gambling that the route to increased US wages runs through action against Beijing. With the imposition of tariffs, giant tax cuts and a weaker currency, Trump is endeavoring to recreate the US economy that existed in 1985. It was a nostalgic moment, back in the days when Washington could bend the developing world to its will. As Trump drags the US backward and reopens coal mines, Xi is investing trillions of dollars preparing for the world China will encounter in 2025 -- one dominated by batteries and other renewable energies, artificial intelligence, robotics and self-driving transport." - "Amid the usual Trump reality show in Washington this week, it would be easy to miss what's happening in China," Fareed argued in Sunday's Take.
"But it is huge and consequential. China is making the most significant change to its political system in 35 years. What impact will this have on China and the world? That's the question every policymaker, business executive and investor should be asking."
Watch Fareed's full Take from Sunday's show
| | The Soft Underbelly of Democracy? Young People | | The growing appeal of populist parties and politicians around the world has revealed democracy's surprising soft underbelly, suggests Yascha Mounk in The Guardian. Don't be fooled by the fact that young people went for Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, and voted against Brexit. Young people are becoming less committed to democracy – and they have little or no experience of how bad the alternatives are.
"In countries like Germany, the UK and the US, for example, the number of young people who locate themselves on the radical left or the radical right has roughly doubled over the course of the past two decades; in Sweden, it has increased by more than threefold. Polling data for populist parties bears out this story as well. While young people were less likely to vote for Trump or Brexit, they are much more likely to vote for antisystem parties in many countries around the world," Mounk writes.
"Marine Le Pen, for example, can count young people as some of her most fervent supporters. In this, France is hardly an exception. On the contrary, polls have found similar results in countries as varied as Austria, Greece, Finland, and Hungary."
"The very fact that young people have so little idea of what it would mean to live in a system other than their own may make them willing to engage in political experimentation. Used to seeing and criticizing the (very real) injustices and hypocrisies of the system in which they grew up, many of them have mistakenly started to take its positive aspects for granted."
| | Italy to Europe: We're Getting Sick of You | | | It's unclear who will lead Italy in the wake of its general election Sunday. But one thing should be crystal clear as days or even weeks of haggling begin, writes Jason Horowitz for The New York Times. Italian voters are sick of the country's establishment – and the European Union. "Any government will be difficult to form without the insurgent Five Star Movement, a web-based, populist party less than a decade old. The party was poised to become the country's biggest vote-getter, winning about a third of the votes cast — its best showing ever," Horowitz writes. "The new Italian political landscape does not mean that the anti-establishment forces will get the chance to govern together, or that they even want to. But their strength at the polls was a strong indicator of voter anger after a prolonged period of economic stagnation and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants from Africa and elsewhere." "The most likely result will be a government in Italy — a founding European Union nation and the major economy of the Mediterranean — that is significantly less invested in the project of a united Europe. All the while, geopolitical competitors from Russia to China are seeking to divide and weaken the bloc." | | Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to visit Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria beginning Tuesday. But John Stremlau writes for News24 that Africans shouldn't expect much from the trip. "[N]either Trump or Tillerson has announced an overarching Africa policy. No Assistant Secretary for Africa has been named, important embassies, including in South Africa, lack ambassadors," Stremlau writes.
Cuban voters head to the polls Sunday – sort of – and in doing so, will mark the end of an era. Voters will be ratifying "pre-chosen slates" for Cuba's parliament, Mimi Whitefield notes for the Miami Herald. The newly seated National Assembly will then "select Cuba's new president and for the first time since the early days of the Cuban Revolution the country won't be led by someone whose last name is Castro. Raúl Castro, 86, plans to retire…[but is] still expected to lead Cuba's powerful Communist Party." | | | | | | |
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