The Senate vs Trump on Saudi Arabia

View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by the GPS team.   December 13, 2018 Does Trump stand where any US President would on Saudi Arabia? Today the Senate passed "a resolution condemning Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi" and a second resolution "that would require the US to end its military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen." The vote "reflected the frustration senators from [both] parties have with the vast human suffering from the war and President Donald Trump's embrace of the crown prince despite widely-accepted evidence from US intelligence agencies that he ordered the killing of Khashoggi." (CNN) But is Trump's stance on Saudi Arabia fundamentally so different from his predecessors? "The tribalism infecting US domestic politics has unfortunately crept deep into the foreign-policy discourse as well," writes John Hannah in Foreign Policy. Judgments of the Trump administration's approach to Saudi Arabia, its role in the Yemen war, and MBS are a case in point. "Maintaining the US-Saudi relationship has been a consistent priority of administrations from both parties. There may be much to dislike about Trump's… crass transactionalism" and "backhanded dissing of his own intelligence community's assessment that [MBS] likely had foreknowledge of the killing" of Khashoggi. But "Trump's bottom line—choosing not to rupture either Washington's relationship with Riyadh or ability to continue working with [MBS], who will likely be leading Saudi Arabia for decades to come—should hardly come as a shock." "It's a near certainty that every one of Trump's modern predecessors would have landed in more or less the same place," Hannah writes. "Their language would have conveyed greater moral outrage. Some may have opted temporarily to suspend the sale of this or that weapons system. But the odds are very high that all of them would have been extremely leery of… destabilizing the relationship or the kingdom itself... It would be healthy if Trump's critics acknowledged that reality up front." Trump vs Huawei and the Rule of Law "The Trump administration, not Huawei or China, is today's greatest threat to the international rule of law, and therefore to global peace," writes Jeffrey Sachs in The Globe and Mail. The Trump administration's request that Canada arrest and extradite Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is "a dangerous move… in its intensifying conflict with China," Sachs writes. "Such a move is almost a US declaration of war on China's business community. Nearly unprecedented, it puts American business people travelling abroad at much greater risk of such actions by other countries." "America's motivations in this economic war are partly commercial – to protect and favour laggard US companies – and partly geopolitical. They certainly have nothing to do with upholding the international rule of law." "Sleepwalking towards a no-deal Brexit" "The UK and the EU are sleepwalking towards a no-deal Brexit," writes Martin Wolf for Financial Times. "Theresa May's survival as leader of the Conservative party does not alter that fact… The prime minister may still be in office, but she is not in power," as the forces of opposition in her party will stop the deal as currently negotiated. In that event, "[t]he UK would become an outlaw: a country that had discarded its legal commitments... Its reputation for reliability and reason would perish… Co-operation in vital areas, such as policing and counter-terrorism, would be impaired." How to avoid this disastrous outcome? "One possibility is for the EU to act as the grown-up. At a time when the EU's relations with Russia and, alas, the US, have reached new lows, it hardly makes sense to allow a deep rift with the UK, too. The EU also must want the money the UK has agreed to pay and the protection of EU citizens resident in the UK… Are the pleasures of blaming the British for the disaster sufficient consolation?" No Pity for Theresa May UK Prime Minister Theresa May seems "a tragic, hapless figure" emerging from the damage of this week's no-confidence vote as the Brexit deal has met with furor at home, writes Gary Younge for The Guardian. But May is "not a victim of events but a participant and protagonist in them. She may have voted remain, but as home secretary she contributed to the climate of anti-immigrant fervour that helped make the leave victory possible." May is "the architect of the hostile environment who sent 'Go Home' vans into diverse areas to intimidate undocumented migrants." That environment enabled the Leave campaign, during which "[a]n image was conjured of Britain striding out of the EU in top hat and tails… towards a glorious past," Younge writes. The victory of that campaign has resulted in "Britain's most public and painful reckoning with its size and influence in its post-colonial state." "Diminished, but not defeated, she is an object of pathos undeserving of our pity." Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? 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