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G-7 Summit: Trump Almost Behaves Himself |
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the guest leaders invited to the Group of Seven summit in mid-August in Biarritz, France. The leaders of India, Australia, Chile and Spain were asked to join by French President Emmanuel Macron along with a number of African countries. After two disastrous summits in Italy and Canada, France sought to revive the G-7’s image as a multilateral body capable of addressing major global problems. The problem in the past summits was US President Donald Trump’s opposition to free trade and climate change, support for Brexit and Russia, and general disdain for the G-7’s core belief in liberal democratic values. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/trump-abe-us-japan-trade-deal |
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Brexit: Johnson and Brussels Play Chicken |
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The new British prime minister, Boris Johnson, prorogued the UK Parliament for an unusual five weeks in the runup to the October 31st deadline for Britain to leave the European Union. Johnson seems to want to avoid a cross-party parliamentary vote to extend the deadline, reduce the scope for public debate on the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, as well as shore up his negotiating hand with the EU. Johnson and the EU are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken over Brexit. Johnson has demanded the EU renegotiate the Brexit deal it worked out with his predecessor. His primary demand: the EU must drop the backstop with Ireland, a position that Brussels has refused. The British leader has taken the hard line that he is prepared to accept a no-deal Brexit when the October 31st deadline for withdrawal comes. Johnson’s team seemingly believes the EU’s fears of major economic disruption if a no-deal Brexit takes place will force them to come to the table. So far, neither side has shown any inclination to blink. Without the backstop, the boundary between Ireland and Northern Ireland would become a hard border. Brussels believes this could reignite sectarian violence in Ireland and is equally determined not to give up on the backstop. Another option would be for both sides to extend the October deadline by renegotiating Article 50 which governs Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Johnson is opposed to the idea, one reason he has closed the parliament for so long. Johnson is trapped, as were his predecessors, by the mood of his own party which remains hostage to Brexit supporters who want to stick to the October 31st deadline, whatever the consequences. Polls show the Conservative Party polling 12 points ahead of Labour thanks in part to Johnson’s hard line, but also Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s unwillingness to consider a second Brexit referendum. A leaked report indicates the British government is preparing for the possibility of a no deal Brexit and the possibility this would result in widespread economic disruption and social unrest, including shortages of fuel, medicine and food. The possibility of martial law is among the options being contemplated.
https://www.cer.eu/insights/no-deal-brexit-not-inevitable |
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US Elections: Trump May Be Vulnerable |
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President Trump has announced he will stick with Vice-President Mike Pence as his running mate in the 2020 elections, quelling rumours he was considering Indian-American Nikki Haley for the position. Another Republican, ex-governor Joe Walsh, has announced he will contest the nomination against Trump but his bid, as he himself admits, is largely symbolic. There is small, but mounting, evidence Trump’s re-election bid may be more vulnerable than was expected. A Quinnipiac University poll showed that five of the Democratic candidates would defeat Trump in terms of popular vote. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders would do so by large margins, 16 and 14 percentage points. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris would do so by eight points and even Pete Buttigieg, who is faring poorly in the Democratic race, would do so by nine points. The university’s polling analyst, Mary Snow, said Trump was facing a “ceiling of support” of 40 percentage points “no matter the candidate.” A slew of local polls show the US president struggling in many of the swing states that proved decisive in his victory over Clinton including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Iowa. Even some traditional Republican states like North Carolina and Georgia are being seen as susceptible to a moderate Democrat. Others polls show the white working class that propelled him to victory are less concerned about racial grievances than before. Paula Ioanide, a professor of race relations at Ithaca College, says the belief white identity was under attack peaked in 2016 and is now receding. White liberals, concerned at racial polarisation, are also showing greater signs of mobilisation than their opposite numbers. Some polls show Trump’s disapproval ratings for domestic issues, foreign policy and, most importantly, the economy have all passed 60 per cent and even among those who give him a thumbs up on the economy are increasingly inclined to vote for a Democrat. A particularly damaging poll result in a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed 62 per cent of white women, a group who divided their vote between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, say they will now vote for a Democrat.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-democrats-poll-economy-2020-1456536 https://www.axios.com/trump-2020-election-map-swing-states-80f9aab1-e713-4c7d-a72a-24f3a87beb13.html https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-white-women-poll-electorate-2020-1455499 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/good-bad-ugly-trump-new-nbc-wsj-poll-n1043831 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/four-interesting-findings-from-the-recent-flurry-of-2020-polls/ |
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Greenland: Not for Sale |
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Perhaps unknowingly echoing an offer by Harry Truman in 1946, President Donald Trump surprised everyone by proposing the US buy the island state of Greenland. Denmark rejected the offer, leading Trump to cancel a state visit to the country. It is now known that the US president has long mused privately about the idea of buying the island. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/notion-united-states-acquiring-greenland-absurd
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Nuclear Proliferation: No Tears for INF Treaty |
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The US formally withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2nd when Russia declined to scrap a new cruise missile which Washington claimed violated the treaty. The INF treaty, negotiated near the end of the Cold War, banned nuclear weapons between the ranges of 500-5,500 kms. Critics in the US had also attacked the treaty was that, though it constrained US and Russian forces worldwide, it did not apply to China which had begun deploying ever larger numbers of missiles in the Western Pacific. Over 90 per cent of China’s ballistic and cruise missiles are in the intermediate range. President Donald Trump said he had proposed to China that it be part of a new, trilateral INF Treaty negotiations. Beijing has not shown any interest in the offer. The Pentagon chief announced the US would be deploying intermediate range missiles in Asia “sooner than later”. Technologically, the development and widespread use of long-range conventional cruise missiles across the world, like the Tomahawk and the Brahmos, has made intermediate range nuclear missiles increasingly irrelevant in the view of many experts. Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, among the INF Treaty’s strongest critics, argued it was a “bilateral treaty in a multipolar ballistic missile world”. Two recent developments showcased further shifts in missile deployment. One, a nuclear explosion in Russia that killed five scientists seems to be linked to Moscow’s attempts to design a nuclear-powered missile, a propulsion system that would give a missile an extraordinary long-range. Two, the most recent missiles tested by North Korea and fired above Japan seemed to have irregular trajectories making them largely impervious to conventional missile defences. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49213892 |
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World in Review
About the Author
Pramit Pal Chaudhury
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times, and Distinguished Fellow & Head, Strategic Affairs, Ananta Aspen Centre
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri writes on political, security, and economic issues. He previously wrote for the Statesman and the Telegraph in Calcutta. He served on the National Security Advisory Board of the Indian government from 2011-2015. Among other affiliations, he is a member of the Asia Society Global Council, the Aspen Institute Italia, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and the Mont Pelerin Society. Pramit is also a senior associate of Rhodium Group, New York City, advisor to the Bower Group Asia in India, a member of the Council on Emerging Markets, Washington, DC, and a delegate for the Confederation of Indian Industry-Aspen Strategy Group Indo-U.S. Strategic Dialogue and the Ananta Aspen Strategic Dialogues with Japan, China and Israel. Born in 1964, he has visited over fifty countries on five continents. Mr. Pal Chaudhuri is a history graduate from Cornell University.
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