Who's doing what to whom?
The recent assault by Turkey’s military on Kurds in northwestern Syria has presented a conundrum for the administration: Turkey is our (strained) NATO ally while the Kurds have been one of America’s most important friends in the region, with Kurdish forces fighting valiantly alongside Americans in Iraq against al Qaeda and in Syria against ISIS. The White House has expressed disapproval but did not outright condemn Turkey’s incursion into the Kurdish-controlled Syrian city of Afrin. “We hear and take seriously Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders Monday.
And a senior administration official emphasized on Tuesday that the U.S. military draws a distinction between the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in the northeastern Syria from those Kurds in the parts of the country north of Aleppo, who have fought against the ruling Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War. Those forces in and around Afrin have “never been advised by the United States, equipped by the United States, trained by the United States, and have never had any U.S. forces embedded with them,” the official said.
That’s the sort of careful line-drawing the administration has to do as it tries to emphasize its stated primary mission in Syria—defeating ISIS—while not antagonizing the Turks, who say they have concerns about Kurdish rebellions in their own country. But the White House is mincing fewer words when it comes to the malign influence of Russia, a staunch ally of Assad in Syria, in the situation in Afrin. Read more... |
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2018 Watch—Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, very nearly decided not to run for reelection to the Senate this year. The New York Times has the story here.
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President Trump will leave Washington Wednesday to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos to boast of his administration’s economic successes and represent his America First trade agenda in a forum often seen as a hotbed of globalism.
Trump plans to spend Thursday and Friday discussing policy and international security issues with world leaders, including Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. On Friday, the White House says he will deliver a speech arguing that “when the United States grows, so does the world.”
Trump will be joined on the trip by a large delegation of U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and several others others. Read more... |
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Trade Watch—Trump’s trip to Davos comes as his administration begins the penultimate round of trade talks with Mexico and Canada to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the president has said is insufficiently favorable to U.S. interests.
And on the intercontinental stage, the White House took its first trade actions against a fellow superpower Tuesday, slapping a 30 percent tariff on solar panel and washing machine imports in an action that was meant to be seen as a snub to China (but in reality is a greater slap at South Korea). CNN reports: Trump has long complained about lopsided trade with countries such as China and South Korea, saying it hurts American workers. But during his first year in the White House, he largely held off on threats to put up new barriers.
That changed this week with the announcement of tariffs, which the U.S. government said are aimed at protecting American companies from cheap foreign imports. Trump is also due to decide on measures against steel and aluminum imports in the coming months.
China on Tuesday expressed "strong dissatisfaction" over the move to impose tariffs of up to 30% on U.S. imports of solar panels, saying it "aggravates the global trade environment."
But experts say it's too early to determine whether the world's two largest economies are destined for a damaging escalation of trade measures against each other. The U.S. tariffs announced Monday are not, on their own, a huge provocation to China. |
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| Here’s a slightly different shine on trade from within the Trump White House— specifically, from Gary Cohn, on Tuesday: “America first is not America alone. When we grow the world grows; when the world grows, we grow. We’re part of a world economy, and the president believes that. He’s going to talk to world leaders about making sure we all respect each other, we all abide by the laws, we all have free, fair, open, and reciprocal trade. And if we live in a world where there are not artificial barriers, we will all grow and help each other grow. And the president truly believes that.” |
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| The new tariffs will punish American consumers, our editors argue in an online editorial Wednesday. “Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to issue duties when an imported product becomes ‘substantial cause of serious injury’ to the corresponding domestic industry. Just so, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer argued that ‘increased foreign imports of washers and solar cells and modules are a substantial cause of serious injury to domestic manufacturers,’ reads the editorial. “Another word for ‘substantial cause of serious injury’ is competition.” |
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