| | | | The Big Deal About Trump's Big Deal | | Out goes NAFTA, in comes USMCA, after the US and Canada reached an agreement Sunday that "would allow US farmers greater access to Canada's dairy market and address concerns about potential US auto tariffs," CNN reports. The big lesson of the more than 12 months of negotiations? Krishnadev Calamur writes for The Atlantic that while US allies might not like dealing with President Trump, they like the alternatives even less.
"The new agreement shows not only how Trump is willing to risk alliances to get the kinds of agreements he believes benefits American workers, but also how, despite protests, US partners have little choice but to go along with much of what the world's largest economy wants. It also shows how, ultimately, Trump is starting to refashion the Western global order," Calamur writes.
"Simply put, many countries are happier to accept Pax Americana than they are accepting a Chinese or Russian version of a global order. This approach does have a flip side, however: While America's closest allies recognize they can't survive without it, they're not necessarily happy."
| | Combine the transactional approach to the NAFTA talks with the "America First" vision President Trump laid out in his speech to the United Nations last week, and it's clear we're moving ever closer to the end of an era, Fareed suggested in his Take from Sunday's show.
The President "laid out an approach of pursuing narrow self-interest over broader global ones and privileging unilateral action over multilateral cooperation. But Trump might not recognize that as he withdraws America from these global arenas, the rest of the world is moving on without Washington. Wittingly or not, Donald Trump seems to be hastening the arrival of a post-American world."
Watch the full Take here.
| | Team Trump's Iran Bark Worse than Its Bite? | | | The Trump administration may be ramping up its rhetoric toward Iran. But it's not clear its bite can match its bark, Nancy A. Youssef and Gordon Lubold report for The Wall Street Journal.
"[T]he US military has scaled back its presence in the Persian Gulf region, say officials and military experts, removing ships, planes and missiles that would be needed in a major confrontation," they write.
"There has been no US aircraft carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf since the Theodore Roosevelt left for the Pacific in March, the longest period of time in two decades that a carrier hasn't traveled those waters, according to officials familiar with carrier deployments.
"US aircraft carriers until recently have maintained a continuous presence in the Persian Gulf region, carrying thousands of personnel and dozens of planes, missiles and other firepower. But the US has not filled the absence with the same level of air power, officials acknowledged." | | | Macedonians voted overwhelmingly to change their country's name in a referendum Sunday that was set to pave the way for European Union and NATO membership. There was just one problem: Not enough of them turned out, and that means another win for Russian meddling, suggests Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. "As elsewhere in Europe, Russia's influence campaign in Macedonia exploited and complemented rightwing nationalist-populist narratives based on notions of identity, race and the perceived threat of an overbearing EU. And it remains unclear whether Moscow's actions tipped the balance," Tisdall writes. "The paradox is that, whatever their country is called, a large majority of Macedonians support EU and NATO membership, according to a recent survey. That prospect has receded, at least for now. In the continuing Europe-wide contest for power and influence, Russia just scored again." | | May Day Meets Groundhog Day | | | British Prime Minister Theresa May will take the stage at her Conservative Party's annual conference this week. The Britain she addresses will be in much the same position it was when she took office two years ago, write Ellen Barry and Stephen Castle for The New York Times: specifically, without a clear Brexit plan. "British leaders remain mired in infighting, still presenting competing visions as the Brexit countdown enters its final stage. Supporters of a so-called soft-Brexit would keep Britain closely tied to European economic rules and standards so as to minimize disruption to trade. The hard-Brexit camp backs the opposite approach: quitting Europe's customs union and single market and freeing Britain to draw up its own trade rules," they write. | | Your Next Flight Might Bring an Unwelcome Visitor | | The next pandemic is just a plane ride away from America. Unfortunately, the Ebola scare in 2014 hasn't focused minds like it should have, Lisa Monaco and Vin Gupta write for Foreign Policy.
"Pandemic disease is arguably one of the greatest threats to global stability and security. But investments to contend with such outbreaks have declined to their lowest levels since the height of the Ebola response in 2014, with US federal dollars cut by over 50 percent from those peak levels," they write.
"This lack of focus and relative decline in funding is dangerous, given the steady stream of global reports suggesting that transmission of potentially deadly zoonotic diseases, where pathogens move from animals to humans, is rising at an alarming rate. Some attribute this to climate change, with warmer climates everywhere extending the life cycles of mosquito-borne diseases and allowing them to reach higher altitudes and more temperate latitudes."
| | | The announcements for this year's Nobel Prizes began Monday and will culminate in the announcement Friday of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner. But Mark Lewis writes for the AP that the cloud of gender disparity hangs over the awards. "Since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, 892 individuals have received one, but just 48 of them have been women," Lewis notes. Brazilians head to the polls Sunday for a presidential election. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro and leftist candidate Fernando Haddad are expected to make the run-off, Bloomberg reports. "Whoever wins will preside over a bitterly divided nation and will need to build bridges and consensus to approve any meaningful legislation. Chief on the list of reforms needed is an overhaul of the pension system that consumes an ever-greater portion of government resources." | | | | | | |
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