World News: Impeachment and Precedent

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

January 24, 2020

Impeachment and Precedent

On both sides of the impeachment debate, commentators say it's about precedent.

In the opposition camp, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board cautions that House Democrats have introduced a dangerous standard of "corrupt purposes." The House's impeachment report accuses Trump of pressuring Ukraine "for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit," and the Journal suggests that's a slippery slope: Foreign dealings and political standing do intersect, the paper argues—after all, President Obama asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to give him time and let elections pass—and the standard leaves too much room to impute motive.

At The New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof takes a different view. Republicans could argue Trump's conduct was improper but doesn't warrant removal from office, Kristof writes, but instead they've protested that "abuse of power" isn't an actionable offense and removal means overturning a democratic election. "Under that reasoning, despite the Constitution, a president could never be removed—and in that case, a president is untouchable," Kristof writes.

Will China Handle the Wuhan Virus Better Than SARS?

As a deadly coronavirus spreads from Wuhan—the South China Morning Post lists 647 known cases and 17 deaths, with one observer describing the central Chinese city as a "ghost town"—some are wondering about the Chinese government's response. Beijing faced criticism over secrecy after the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, writes Benjamin Wilhelm of the World Politics Review, and this time around its official reporting has been "suspicious": "For days last week, the government maintained that only 41 people had been infected with the virus, until announcing a much higher number, 218, last weekend," and authorities only acknowledged the virus's spread beyond Wuhan after Hong Kong media reported cases there, writes Wilhelm.

Secrecy might just be endemic to China's governing system, James Palmer writes at Foreign Policy: "Information within a very competitive and back-stabbing political environment becomes a commodity to be traded, rather than a good to be shared … while at every level people distort numbers in order to make themselves look better," he writes, while citing a "deeply held belief among officials that the public is a fickle beast and that exposing frightening information will cause panic buying, mob assaults, looting, and the spread of uncontrolled rumors."

China has pledged not to repeat mistakes, William Pesek writes in the Nikkei Asian Review, but SARS "killed nearly 800 people and caused at least $40 billion of losses around the globe," and Pesek predicts economic spillover if the virus continues to spread.

How Much Is Protectionism Costing America?

Economists have offered various kinds of assessments, but a new paper in The Quarterly Journal of Economics estimates that as a result of President Trump's tariffs (on all countries, not just China), the loss "to U.S. consumers and firms that buy imports was $51 billion, or 0.27% of GDP … After accounting for tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers, the aggregate real income loss was $7.2 billion, or 0.04% of GDP."

That made for a "small net effect" despite US consumers of foreign products losing out, domestic industries gaining, and some redistribution that lined up with politics: "U.S. import protection was biased toward products made in electorally competitive counties," the authors write, while retaliatory tariffs targeted counties that vote Republican. Importantly, their analysis does not consider a drop in investment due to uncertainty, an effect Brookings Senior Fellow Joshua Meltzer tells the Global Briefing is likely "significant."

This price tag joins several others: In the fall, academics with University College London and LSE calculated that a round of China tariffs would cost the average US family $460 per year, while the American Action Forum (a center-right group led by former CBO chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin) has suggested Trump's tariffs "could increase nationwide consumer costs by nearly $69.8 billion annually" and that the "phase one deal" saved $43.1 billion per year.

Is Iran Locked Into 'Maximum Resistance'?

Iran isn't going to back down from its standoff with the West anytime soon, writes Maysam Behravesh of the Middle East Institute, as its leaders are bound by both honor and fear to keep up "maximum resistance" in the face of President Trump's "maximum pressure." If it acquiesces, the clerical regime would "alienate its core support base," while the rest of the country "would demand to know why [Ayatollah Khamenei's] ultimate 'surrender' did not come before all that hefty cost, in blood and treasure, was inflicted on the nation." At the same time, Iran's leaders may fear that giving in would only signal to adversaries that "maximum pressure" worked.

"Moreover, and equally importantly, the Iranian leadership now feels buoyed by an effective 'test run' of an unprecedented methodology of suppression at home—involving, for the first time, a near-total internet shutdown and systematic use of live fire—on the one hand, and a strategically sobering missile offensive against bases housing American forces in Iraq on the other," Behravesh writes. "There is almost no evidence to suggest that they will not resort to a similar course of action if the occasion arises."

The World Order Isn't Built for Today's Problems

The current international order, built after World War II, is great at preventing large-scale conflict, Francis J. Gavin writes at War on the Rocks, but it might not be so apt at solving present-day challenges like global warming, disinformation, massive cross-border financial flows, or the regulation of tech giants. The pillars of that system—the World Bank and the IMF, the United Nations, and the powerful network of American alliances—aren't enough, Gavin suggests: "The postwar, state-based international order was built to handle great-power war and old-timey economic crises like currency depreciations. They are completely overwhelmed when dealing with the issues we are currently facing and, in fact, often respond to these new problems with old solutions (such as a focus on military combat capabilities or outdated tariff policies)."

Which leaves us with the mere question of what to do about it; Gavin doesn't offer prescriptions, but he advises that "[w]e must avoid the temptation to simply rely on past practices and institutions" in solving the problems of the day.