| | | | Think Trump's Citizenship Pledge Is Just Bluster? | | | Critics say that President Trump's pledge to use an executive order to end birthright citizenship is a political ploy that will go nowhere. But as the travel ban and family separations showed, even if the Trump administration's immigration moves are a legal dead end, the potential disruption in the meantime would be huge, write Carrie Cordero and Quinta Jurecic for Lawfare. "One thing is certain: during the time it takes for a challenge to be filed and for a judge to hand down a ruling, children will be born in the United States. And the legal status of those babies born to undocumented parents will undoubtedly be in question if the president's order is in place. A new class of children—this time, infants—will immediately be thrust into administrative and legal uncertainty. Additional burdens will be placed on their parents, legal aid and social services. Government agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services will all be operating in an environment of legal ambiguity. That could include whether to initiate deportation proceedings against the parents, if undocumented, and newborn child," they write. "The odds are very good that, within days or weeks or months, the status of these children would be settled and that they would live their lives as Americans, with all attendant rights and privileges. But the fact that there is even a possibility that their status could be in question, for the first time since the 19th century, is damage enough." | | To Win the New Cold War, Use the Old Playbook | | The Trump administration was right to put Beijing on notice that its "mercantilist practices" will no longer be tolerated, Minxin Pei writes for the Nikkei Asian Review. But if the United States is going to win the long-term strategic contest with China, it should drop America First in favor of America's original Cold War playbook.
"It is tempting to imagine that Trump can replace the liberal international order with an America-centric system based on a web of bilateral agreements between the US and other nations. Unfortunately, the key objectives will clash," Pei writes.
"If the overriding geopolitical aim is isolating China, the US will have to offer attractive terms to its partners even at its own expense, just as it did in the Cold War. In a US-China cold war, Washington will need to sweeten its terms generously because the key allies it wants to recruit -- European countries -- face no direct Chinese military threat but have a lot to lose by hitching to America's wagon."
"[I]f Trumpism dictates that the US must get better terms than its partners under all circumstances, then fewer allies may sign on, making it harder to isolate China."
| | Trump's Tech Tax Jiu-jitsu | | | Britain is the latest country to announce potential plans to tax digital services. As an increasing number of countries look for ways to get a piece of tech firms' profits, they might want to thank President Trump for leading the way, suggests Rana Foroohar for The Financial Times.
"Advanced economies and developing countries alike have been wrangling for years about how to get technology companies, which can easily relocate the profits from intangible assets to tax havens, to pay more of their income into public coffers," Foroohar writes.
"While former US president Barack Obama had for years called for tax loopholes to be closed, he never succeeded in securing a deal for Silicon Valley to bring profits back home so the US government could capture some of the wealth. But the Republicans' tax plan, which passed Congress late last year, included a provision on 'global intangible low-taxed income' (the rather cleverly named GILTI), which was in essence a tax on technology companies that pay much lower than usual tax rates."
"It's an amazing piece of Trump jiu-jitsu that the president's policies have actually pushed the global tax debate exactly where some liberals were hoping it might go." | | Israel Drops the Secret Part of an Open Secret | | Israel has been cultivating closer ties with key Arab states for years, write Aya Batrawy and Josef Federman for the Associated Press. After this week, that open secret isn't even remotely a secret anymore.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "made an unannounced visit to Oman, where he met longtime ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said. It marked the first visit by an Israeli leader in more than 20 years to the tiny Gulf state," they write.
"The driving force in these visits seems to be a shared concern over Iran. Israel and many of the Gulf Arab states consider Iran a destabilizing force, meddling in conflicts and supporting rivals across the region. Oman, which borders Saudi Arabia and lies at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, has often played the role of regional mediator.
"It also provides an opportunity for these Arab countries to curry favor in Washington. President Donald Trump has promised to present a plan for the 'Deal of the Century' for Mideast peace, and Saudi Arabia's dependability as an influential conduit has been thrown into question amid the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate."
| | The Easiest Place in the World to Do Business Is… | | New Zealand is the easiest place in the world to do business, according to a new World Bank report that ranks countries and territories on the ease of starting and operating a local firm.
The annual Doing Business report grades countries in 10 categories, including ease of getting credit, paying taxes, registering property and dealing with construction permits. New Zealand was first in four of the 10 categories.
Rounding out the top five were Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong and South Korea. The United States was eight overall, scoring highly on ease of getting credit and resolving insolvency, but scoring relatively poorly on ease of getting electricity (54th overall) starting a business (53rd) and protecting minority investors (50th). | | | | | | |
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