The US has long-standing ties with the Kurds, which date back to the 1970s during the Kurdish rebellions against the Iraqi central government. Following the uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan in March 1991 and the creation of the over the Kurdistan region of Iraq, relations between the Kurds and the US have improved significantly. This relation with the regime change in Iraq in 2023 has further enhanced as the Kurdish fighters play a key role in helping the US open a new frontline in northern Iraq to topple the Saddam regime.����

Similarly, during the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014, the US decisively supported the Kurdish figures in Iraq and Syria. The Kurds, with help from the US, played a key role in defeating ISIS in both countries. Hence, this historical partnership has laid the groundwork for Washington to publicly discuss the possibility of using Iranian Kurdish fighters as ground forces in a conflict against the current Iranian regime. 

Trump has sent mixed messages in this regard. On March 5, he argued that he would forces if they decided to launch a military offensive against Iran, describing the idea as positive. When asked whether the US would provide air support for the operation, he declined to give a clear answer, saying he could not discuss that.��

However, on March 7, Trump having Kurdish fighters join the war against Iran. In this regard, he said, “I don’t want the Kurds going in. I don’t want to see the Kurds get hurt, get killed. I told them I don’t want them. The war is complicated enough.”��

There is no clear answer whether the US will finally topple the regime or, at this specific stage, end this war. Hence, the key question is: Why has the Kurdish factor in Iran suddenly become an important topic in the US and Israel’s war against Iran?

In reality, there are many explanations for this. One possibility is that Israel and the US could move toward overthrowing the Iranian regime in Tehran. However, this has not yet been officially and clearly announced by the US. Moreover, Kurdish fighters could be viewed as an effective instrument in this context. In particular, the US and Israel seek to make western Kurdistan a platform for inciting and encouraging a general uprising in the rest of Iran.

Another possibility is that the US might have wanted to use Kurdish forces as a tool to pressure the current Iranian authorities and push them to make greater concessions to Trump’s demands. As he recently said, the aim of the war is “” of the Iranian authorities.��

Fear of abandonment: Kurdish demands for guarantees in any alliances against Iran

The Iranian Kurdish opposition parties are willing to seize the opportunity and ally with the US and Israel against Iran to achieve their historic ambition, manifested in establishing a federal or autonomous region in western Kurdistan. However, they have serious concerns about moving forward with such a policy without concrete guarantees of protection. In particular, the US doesn’t have a clear strategy, and it explicitly argues that the endgame is not regime change in Iran, but the destruction of Iranian military capacities. 

Furthermore, while the US has supported the Kurds at different times, it has also abandoned them on several occasions, leaving them to face existential threats. For example, following the Kurdistan in September 2017, the Trump administration allowed Iraqi federal troops and Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias — with direct support of Iran — to attack the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Kirkuk and disputed areas. As a result, the Kurds lost roughly 40% of the territory that Peshmerga had held.��At that time, Trump said the US would not take a side.

In January 2026, even though the Kurds were key partners of the US in the war against ISIS in Syria, they were abandoned once again. The Trump administration allowed the former commander of Al Qaida al-Sharia, with his Damascus-led army, to attack the Kurdish forces and take the territory under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As a result, on January 20, , US Special Envoy for Syria, declared that the Kurdish-led SDF’s role as the primary anti-ISIS force had “.”

This background indicates that Kurdish concerns are genuine, as they fear the possibility that the US could once again abandon them. Therefore, before taking further steps, they seek guarantees and assurances from the US. The key demands of the Iranian Kurds are a guarantee that they will not be abandoned in the face of an Iranian threat, in both cases, whether the Iranian regime collapses or remains in place.

This is a very important point, in particular, if the regime survives, it may again crush the Kurds and could even against them as it has done after 1979. Hence, in this case, establishing a no-fly zone in Eastern Kurdistan is crucial to ensure that the Kurdish people are protected. Further, the Kurds seek to convert their military achievements into political gains. Therefore, the US should back the Kurds by guaranteeing support both if the current regime collapses and in advancing their demands for some sort of autonomy.����

Between Iranian threats and proxy attacks: Kurdistan faces rising security risks

In fact, any cooperation between the US and Iranian Kurdish groups against the regime in Iran would have serious implications for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). It is clear that the KRG has sought to reassure Tehran that it would not pose a threat. However, increasing conflict with the US is pushing the Iranian regime to pursue a more aggressive policy in the KRG. In particular, Iran and its proxy militias in Iraq have frequently threatened and targeted the Kurdistan region.

Since the 2020 of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran has essentially turned the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) into a battlefield, sending a message to the US, Israel and its allies. Following the of the young Kurdish-Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, and the outbreak of demonstrations across Iran in September 2023, the country has intensified its attacks against the KRI. As a result, the IRGC����the Kurdish-Iranian opposition groups.��

Iran blames the Iranian Kurds for instigating and sustaining the protests in Iran. Even the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, , has����an unprecedented ground military operation against Iraqi Kurdistan if Baghdad does not disarm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups on Iraqi soil. Following the 12 days of with Israel in June 2025, Iranian proxies in Iraq hit oil fields and infrastructure in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. These strikes targeted oil facilities, airports and some military locations.

With the start of the new military operation by the US and Israel against Iran beginning February 28, once again, the KRI turned into a battlefield, and Iran and its proxies are intensively targeting infrastructure in the Kurdistan region. These attacks intensified following reports that Trump spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leaders by phone, urging them to support the Iranian Kurdish opposition. 

In a statement, the KRG strongly reports suggesting the Kurdistan Region is taking part in a plan to arm and send Kurdish opposition parties into Iranian territory. Furthermore, the KRG emphasized that it would not be part of the current conflict, which could expand across the region.��It reiterated the Kurdistan Region’s stance of avoiding further conflict amid the current regional turmoil.

Hence, it can be argued that if the US pushes Iranian Kurdish opposition groups to participate in a war against Iran, the KRG could face serious and even existential risks, even if it rejects or refuses to support such a policy. 

The Iranian authorities are clearly sending a very serious warning and threatening the KRI in case Iranian Kurdish fighters are involved in the war. On March 6, Iran’s Defense Council released a statement that so far, Iran has only focused on US and Israeli bases in the region, as well as opposition political parties operating within the Kurdistan region.��

It added that:

“Should their continued presence and plotting be permitted, or should these groups or [Zionist] regime elements enter the borders of the Islamic Republic through the Region, all facilities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq … will be targeted on a massive scale.”

Further, the Spokesperson of the Khatam Al-Anbiya, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, issued a to the Kurdistan region, stating that any attempt by the Kurdistan region to deploy hostile forces in the Iranian border strip will be met with severe action by the Iranian armed forces.��

Hence, in the case of involving the Iranian opposition Kurds in this war, the most dangerous scenario for the KRG would be if the political system in Iran remains in place and does not collapse, and if the US and Israel halt their attacks. There’s no doubt the KRG would face a serious threat, and Iran would do everything to undermine the KRG’s position. 

One of the key instruments that Iran could use, besides directly attacking the Kurdistan region, is using its militia proxies in Iraq and even the Iraqi government led by the Shia parties against the KRG. In particular, since the eruptions of the current war, the Shia militias have intensified their attacks against the Kurdistan region. According to Rudaw News, since the beginning of the war, more than 638 drones and missiles have the Kurdistan Region.��

Therefore, in any scenario where the US pushes Iranian Kurdish fighters to participate in a war against Iran, it should provide clear assurances and guarantees not only to the Iranian Kurdish groups but also to the Kurdistan Region, which could face serious security consequences from such involvement.

[ edited this piece]

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The document was addressed personally to President Donald J. Trump of the United States, in keeping with what participants described as “standard diplomatic protocol for declarations of this nature,” though no officials could immediately confirm the precedent for that protocol when asked by reporters.

Among those present and signing were Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland. Mr. Tusk, who arrived last and signed with what witnesses described as “a certain theatrical flourish,” was referred to throughout the proceedings by an unofficial honorific that spread quickly among the delegations: Polonius. Mr. Tusk was said to be aware of the nickname and to have taken it in good humor, though he declined to comment on whether he found it apt.

Viktor Orbán of Hungary was notably absent. His office issued a brief statement saying he had not been invited, which was confirmed by four officials with direct knowledge of the guest list, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly confirm whom they had deliberately not invited.

“We wished to act with all appropriate urgency. This is why, having finalized the text in the final week of March, we waited until today to release it.”

The text of the declaration

The declaration, drafted over approximately four days by a working group of senior legal advisers, runs to slightly under two pages and opens with language that several historians of American constitutional documents described, when reached by telephone, as “familiar.” The full preamble reads as follows:

Excerpt — European Declaration of Independence, April 1, 2026

When in the course of European events it sometimes becomes necessary to think about who we are and how we live (without thinking about who we were in our colonial past) and to break the bonds that prevent us from being separate and equal powers trying to manage the global economy, a decent respect for our somewhat compromised dignity compels us to state the position on which we have hitherto remained silent.

To wit, we proclaim our equal and separate right to declare and wage our own wars in West Asia and elsewhere around the globe, as well as back the genocides of our choice, as befits any independent political entity. We regret any inconvenience this may cause to unfolding events, but we trust that your own precedent that took place 250 years ago will help you understand the urgency of this act.

Furthermore, we assert our sovereign prerogative to impose tariffs of our own devising, to conduct our own trade negotiations with parties of our choosing, and to organize our own security arrangements without prior consultation with or approval from Washington, Mar-a-Lago, or any other executive residence or golf property.

We hold these geopolitical truths to be negotiable, that all blocs are created with overlapping interests, that they are endowed by their treaties with certain inalienable prerogatives, that among these are the right to a unified agricultural subsidy regime, the unimpeded movement of professionals across member-state borders, and the pursuit of a competitive single market.

In testimony whereof, we have caused the seal of the European Union to be affixed to these presents, along with the signatures of such non-EU members as have been graciously permitted to append their names in a supplementary column to the right, formatted, it must be noted, in a slightly smaller font.

Reactions and context

The declaration was the culmination of a process, officials said, set in motion by the expanding scope of the United States-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which has reshaped strategic calculations across the continent. Several leaders, speaking to reporters after the signing, said the document had been in preparation since the final days of March — a timeline that, they were at pains to stress, reflected careful deliberation rather than impulsiveness.

“We did not wish to act in haste,” Ms. von der Leyen said at a brief press conference held in the castle’s Great Hall, beneath what is believed to be a reproduction of a sixteenth-century tapestry. “This is why, having finalized the text in the final week of March, we waited until today to release it.”

She did not elaborate on what had been gained by the intervening days. A spokeswoman later confirmed that the delay had allowed time for the document’s signatories page to be properly typeset.

Mr. Macron, who signed third and paused briefly to recap his pen before handing it to Mr. Starmer, said the choice of Elsinore had been intentional: “There is a question being asked here. It is not unlike another question famously associated with this place. We believe we have answered it.” He did not specify which answer Europe had chosen.

Mr. Merz said the declaration represented “the logical conclusion of a process that began some time ago and has been accelerating in ways that those responsible for accelerating it perhaps did not fully anticipate.” He added that Germany remained committed to dialogue, cooperation, and the rule of international law, and was simply choosing to pursue those commitments independently.

Mr. Starmer, for his part, noted that while the United Kingdom was not an EU member, the spirit of the declaration was one in which Britain could “wholeheartedly share, at least in this particular regard and subject to parliamentary review.” He signed in blue ink. All other signatories used black.

The White House had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication. A spokesperson for the National Security Council said she was “not aware of any such document” and asked that it be sent over by secure fax.

Historical echoes and practical questions

Scholars of transatlantic relations were divided on the declaration’s legal standing, its diplomatic implications and, more fundamentally, its coherence as a framework for international action. “It’s a gesture,” said one professor of European constitutional law, who asked not to be named because his tenure review is pending. “A significant gesture, but primarily a gesture. The question is whether gestures, when signed at sufficient altitude in a sufficiently old castle, acquire the character of policy.”

Several signatories acknowledged that implementation would require further discussion. A joint working group was announced to address questions including, but not limited to: which wars Europe intended to wage, in what sequence, under whose command and whether a common European war would require a qualified majority in the Council or could proceed under enhanced cooperation. A subcommittee on genocide backing criteria was said to be meeting in Geneva next Thursday, with an indicative agenda circulated but not yet agreed.

Officials confirmed that Mr. Orbán had not been invited specifically because, as one diplomat put it, “the spirit of the declaration is that we are declaring independence, not that we are providing an opportunity to register objections to the concept of independence at length and then block the communiqué.”

“It is not unlike another question famously associated with this place. We believe we have answered it.”

The document ends with a provision — Article VII, Paragraph 3, footnote (b) — specifying that the declaration “shall enter into force upon ratification by the relevant national parliaments, a process estimated to take between eighteen months and the heat death of the current geopolitical order, whichever comes first.”

After the signing, participants repaired to a reception in an adjoining hall, where they were served smørrebrød and a locally produced sparkling wine. Mr. Tusk — Polonius — was seen in conversation with a senior Commission official near a window overlooking the Øresund strait. Asked later what they had discussed, he said: “The view. It is very fine. You can see Sweden from here.”

He paused. “We did not invite Sweden either, but for different reasons.”

The document was to be transmitted to the White House by courier, officials said, with a digital copy sent by encrypted email and a decorative framed version dispatched separately via registered post. It was unclear whether anyone was expected to respond.

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The White House had warned that Iranian power plants and energy facilities could be hit if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened. But by Monday, Trump had paused those strikes after what he called “productive” contacts, even as Iran any talks were taking place. Reuters also that the pause appears to apply only to energy sites, not to wider military targets. That is not a coherent strategy. It is a tactical retreat from one especially dangerous form of escalation.

The limits of military pressure and the tactical retreat

The most telling detail is why Trump pulled back. Reuters also that Gulf Arab states had warned Washington that strikes on Iranian power infrastructure could trigger severe retaliation against energy assets across the Gulf. In other words, the threat to hit power plants did not promise control; it threatened a wider regional breakdown. That matters because it changes how we should understand the original ultimatum. It was not a credible plan for reopening Hormuz. It was a way of shifting pressure away from a military bottleneck and onto civilian systems. When a government cannot quickly solve the problem in the water, it starts looking for leverage on land. Too often, that means ordinary life becomes the battlefield.

That shift should worry anyone who still believes strategy and restraint belong in the same sentence. The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, oil is still , and countries like Japan are reserves because the disruption has not ended.

The five-day extension: buying time, not solutions

The five-day extension did not reopen the channel. It bought time in the markets and perhaps time for mediation, but it did not change the underlying fact that the US has not found a workable way to force the strait open without risking . A threat against civilian infrastructure may sound forceful on television, but it does not move mines, widen shipping lanes or create political consent where none exists.

The military problem here is more stubborn than Trump’s rhetoric suggests. Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical , with about 20 million barrels per day of crude and oil products moving through it in 2025, or roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade. There are only a limited number of ways around it. That geography is why even some of Washington’s allies have being dragged into a rush to “unblock” it on Trump’s terms.

Allies’ reservations, geographic reality and humanitarian stakes

According to , several allies were unenthusiastic about providing military support, and some conditioned any role on de-escalation rather than war expansion. The problem is not a lack of threats; it is that threats do not solve geography.

This is also where the legal danger becomes impossible to ignore. International humanitarian law attacking or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. That principle matters everywhere, but it carries special weight in the Gulf, where electricity and desalination are not luxuries. They are part of how millions of people get water and keep hospitals, homes and public life functioning.

The EU’s leaders recognized the danger last week when they for a moratorium on strikes against energy and water facilities in the Middle East. That call was not a diplomatic decoration. It was an acknowledgment that this war is edging toward attacks whose civilian consequences cannot be brushed aside as collateral.

Trump’s defenders will argue that the threat worked because it created diplomatic space. Maybe. But even that claim looks thin. Iran publicly denied the existence of direct talks, and Reuters that Tehran has hardened its negotiating position and is demanding far more than Washington appears willing to accept. If so, the five-day pause is less a breakthrough than a holding pattern. It may for a few hours and allow intermediaries to shuttle messages, but it does not settle the central issue. A bluff against power infrastructure is not the same as a maritime solution. It is an attempt to compensate for strategic frustration by raising the civilian stakes.

The drift toward civilian targets and the erosion of strategy

That is what makes this episode larger than one deadline. The real story is not simply that Trump changed 48 hours to five days. It is that the war’s logic has drifted. The pressure is no longer confined to ships, missiles and naval patrols. It is being pushed outward, toward grids, pumps, ports and desalination plants, as if civilian vulnerability can succeed where military coercion has stalled. That is a familiar pattern in modern wars.

When leaders cannot deliver the outcome they promised, they do not always scale back. Sometimes they widen the pain until something breaks. The danger now is that what breaks first will not be the blockade. It will be the line separating war from the deliberate degradation of civilian life.

If the Trump administration were serious about reopening Hormuz, it would be investing its political capital in de-escalation, coalition diplomacy and a realistic assessment of what force can and cannot do in a narrow, mined, heavily exposed waterway. Instead, it flirted with the idea of turning energy and possibly water systems into bargaining chips, then stepped back only after Gulf allies warned that the costs could spiral beyond control. That is not strength; it is an admission that the original approach has failed. And once a war begins leaning on the infrastructure civilians need to live, it is usually a sign not that victory is near, but that strategy is running out.

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While the current president of the US is not literally four years old, as my son was at that age, Donald Trump’s definition of what constitutes a genuine emergency differs from the conventional understanding of the term. Consequently, the US Supreme Court, in a , struck down Trump’s profligate and indiscriminate use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), passed in 1977, which authorizes the president to adjust tariffs unilaterally in the event of a national emergency.

Why the Supreme Court’s decision matters

Tariffs have become a major political issue during Trump’s second term, with of Americans disapproving of tariff increases since his return to office. Such striking levels of disapproval are unsurprising, as tariffs directly affect household finances and therefore tend to attract attention, even among those who are not typically engaged with developments in Washington, DC 

While the terminology surrounding them often obscures their meaning, a tariff is ultimately a tax on imports. In practice, taxes on goods and services are borne by the end consumers in the of higher prices and lower savings. During his first year back in office, the cumulative effect of Trump’s tariff increases on the average American family was .

However, the issue of tariffs extends beyond the inconvenience or financial strain on American families, who ultimately bear the tax burden. As Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress, once , “Anytime a large, emergency spending bill makes its way through Congress, the potential for mischief is great.” The potential for such mischief is therefore even greater when the legislature has been bypassed altogether. In this case, the consequences of the Supreme Court’s ruling will extend beyond the setting of future tariff rates. It will also create a fiscal challenge that may prove difficult to resolve.

As a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision that approximately $175 billion in tariffs collected under the auspices of IEEPA were improperly imposed, these tariffs are to the businesses that incurred them. Absorbing such substantial costs would place significant strain on the US Treasury, which would likely be forced to add the refunds to the federal deficit, already on track to reach 130% of GDP within the next decade. Indeed, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented from the majority, cited the difficulty of processing tariff refunds as one factor influencing his position.

Emergency powers hand the president unchecked authority 

When it comes to emergency powers, IEEPA is only the beginning. A patchwork of legislation empowers the president to act unilaterally in a wide variety of circumstances. Most notable among these is the . Although this legislation was originally passed to end long-standing national emergencies, it would ultimately empower the president.

At the time of its enactment, the US remained under several ongoing emergency declarations, some dating back to the Great Depression. The legislation ended these open-ended emergencies and codified more than 120 emergency powers that the president could invoke simply by declaring a new national emergency. Also relevant is the Trade Act of 1974, which Trump is now using to impose a global tariff as a first step toward replacing tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court’s decision, albeit once again with .

However, the scope of the president’s emergency powers is far broader than just trade. Since the end of the Second World War, Congress has passed granting the president emergency powers. These include allowing the executive to adjust defense procurement and influence the domestic economy to increase or decrease the production of goods. The president can also declare major disasters, thereby unlocking various funding for humanitarian assistance while suspending individual legal protections. In addition, the president can deploy military forces without prior Congressional approval.

Will Congress limit the president’s powers?

Absent further Supreme Court decisions, the only viable path to restoring the balance between the legislative and executive branches lies in the same process that disrupted it in the first place: legislation enacted by Congress to scale back the president’s emergency powers. 

As Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in his concurring :

Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.

In the current environment, with the Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, the prospect of good-faith deliberations with the Democrats to reach a compromise appears limited. However, if the Democrats were to regain control of one or both chambers in the upcoming midterm elections and potentially the White House in 2028, it remains uncertain whether they would have the political will to draw a valuable lesson from this administration: that granting the executive unchecked emergency powers is unwise, even when those powers may benefit one’s own party. After all, it is often convenient to declare something an emergency, whether to get back at an annoying big sister, as my four-year-old son Fenris did, or simply for political convenience.

[ edited this piece.]

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Florida judge Roy K. Altman has set a February 2027 trial date for US President Donald Trump’s against the British public service broadcaster, BBC for defamation. The claim centers on an episode of the BBC current affairs program Panorama, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” The episode edited together two passages of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, in a way that appeared to suggest he had directly urged his supporters to march on the US Capitol and “fight like hell.”

Trump has sued American outlets before and his record is mixed. In 2024, ABC News settled a after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately described the E. Jean Carroll verdict as a finding of “rape” rather than sexual abuse under New York civil law. The settlement reportedly included a multimillion-dollar payment toward Trump’s future presidential library and legal fees. In 2025, CBS News and its parent company, Paramount Global, also reached a financial settlement over a 60 Minutes segment Trump claimed was misleading.

But other suits have failed. In 2023, a federal judge in Florida a $475 million defamation claim against CNN over its use of the phrase, “the Big Lie.” A separate multibillion-dollar action against The New York Times met a similar . American courts have repeatedly emphasized the high constitutional threshold for public figures alleging defamation. Two settlements, two dismissals. A 2–2 , if we want to keep score.��

But this is different. The BBC is not a partisan cable network in the crowded US market. It is a century-old British institution, funded primarily by a license fee, chartered to inform and educate as well as entertain. It does not allow advertising. The BBC is woven into the cultural fabric of the United Kingdom and regarded internationally as the Rolls-Royce of broadcasting.

That is what makes this case extraordinary. It’s not simply Trump versus another newsroom. It is Trump versus a totem of British civic life. And the near-theatrical $10 billion figure signals that this is about much more than compensation. It’s about what or who has authority, power and legitimacy on a global stage.

Error of judgment

The BBC has already conceded that the program spliced together two segments of Trump’s speech, delivered nearly an hour apart, without making that clear to viewers. The effect was to compress his rhetoric into a single, more incendiary sequence. Critics argue that the edit omitted a crucial line in which Trump urged supporters to protest “peacefully.”

After an internal uproar and the leak of a critical document by Michael Prescott, a former advisor on editorial standards, the BBC apologized. Its chair, Samir Shah, described the edit as an “ of judgment.” Director General TimDavie accepted responsibility before stepping down amid the wider turbulence. Deborah Turness, chief executive of BBC News, also departed.

Crucially, though, the corporation stopped short of admitting . It offered no damages. And it strenuously denied malicious intent. So, when Trump’s lawyers escalated the matter into a multibillion-dollar suit filed in Florida, the BBC challenged the court’s jurisdiction, arguing that the program was neither produced nor broadcast in Florida and was not available there via its streamer BritBox as alleged. Judge Altman rejected attempts to delay discovery; the case will now proceed.

Could the broadcast genuinely have damaged Trump’s checkered reputation? That is the legal nub of the matter. Defamation law in the United States, especially for public figures, sets a prohibitively high bar. A claimant must show not only falsity but “:” knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. Trump’s legal team the edit was “intentionally and maliciously” misleading. Note: Intentionally. The BBC says it was a mistake, now acknowledged.

There are precedents for media organizations paying dearly for editorial lapses. But there are few, if any, precedents for a British public broadcaster facing a $10 billion claim in an American court over a documentary edit. And, in this instance, timing matters because the BBC doesn’t enter the fray in good financial health.

Under pressure

Even without Trump, the BBC is under pressure. The broadcaster is pursuing savings of up to (over $860 million) over three years. License fee revenues are falling as households move toward streaming platforms and social media. Around fewer British households paid their license fee in the last reported year. Departments are bracing for cuts. Outsourcing is inevitable.

Public service broadcasters were never designed to absorb shocks of this magnitude. Unlike commercial rivals, the BBC doesn’t rely on advertising or subscription revenue. It’s funded by a compulsory license fee whose legitimacy is periodically contested in Parliament and in public debate. It is right now.

In that context, a $10 billion liability — even a fraction of it — would not be an ordinary line item. It would be an existential catastrophe. (While the BBC isn’t in literal “debt” like a business with a balance-sheet liability that must be paid off, it is running deficits and facing revenue shortfalls and operating pressures that are forcing cost cuts and license fee increases.)

Which brings us to the first conjecture.

What if Trump wins?

Bookmakers, were they to set odds, would likely price a full $10 billion victory as 25/1, maybe 33/1 at most. The legal hurdles are formidable. Yet imagine, for argument’s sake, that Trump prevails and secures a judgment on that scale.

The immediate consequence would be seismic. The BBC’s annual budget is roughly £5 billion ($6.8 billion) sterling. A damages award of $10 billion (about £7.5 billion) would eclipse its annual income. Even a significantly reduced award could destabilize the corporation’s finances, potentially forcing emergency government intervention or radical restructuring.

The reputational damage would be devastating, too. For a broadcaster that trades on credibility, reliability and impartiality, a court finding of malicious defamation would undermine its moral authority at home and abroad. Critics who already question its impartiality, neutrality and objectivity — and there are plenty in the UK and elsewhere — would feel vindicated. Politicians skeptical of the license fee would gain leverage. Calls to privatize, allow advertising or dismantle the corporation completely would intensify.

For Trump, by contrast, victory would be nectar. He has long depicted mainstream media as hostile and dishonest. A courtroom triumph over, of all broadcasters, the BBC would validate his narrative to a global audience. It would bolster his standing among supporters who see him as a victim of elite institutions. It would inflate his already considerable self-belief.

And there is a longer-term implication: A Trump win would signal to media organizations worldwide that editorial misjudgments, even acknowledged and corrected, can carry calamitous financial risk. The effect could be sobering. Investigative journalism, already expensive and fraught, might grow more cautious. Legal departments would gain power. Editors would hesitate. The media would be domesticated.

That might please those who see the media as already too powerful and untouchable. It would trouble those who value the media’s autonomy and ability to criticize without fear.

What if the BBC wins?

The alternative is less obvious but still significant. Suppose the court finds no defamation — perhaps that the edit, while erred, did not meet the criterion of actual malice. The BBC would emerge legally vindicated. Bookies might price this as evens, perhaps 5/6 (meaning you stake $6 to win $5 if the case is thrown out).

A “victory” for the Beeb would not, however, bring a reward of $10 billion from Trump. Nor would it remove the BBC’s structural financial problems. License fee decline would continue. Savings targets would still loom. Pride and honor might be restored, but balance sheets would not be any healthier.

For Trump, defeat would sting. By February 2027, he will be 80 years old and approaching the end of a second term in office. Attention will be shifting to the next presidential contest, which is scheduled for November 7, 2028. The Republican Party will be thinking about succession and electability.

In July 2024, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to Trump, grazing his ear with a bullet — an event that underscored how deeply the now-president divides American society. A courtroom loss would not change his polarizing potential nor end his overall influence. His capacity to command loyalty and shape narratives as well as antagonize detractors and engender hatred would remain formidable. But failure would pierce the aura of inevitability that has often surrounded him. For a leader who reduces complex events, especially , to deals or no-deals, a public defeat against a foreign broadcaster would be an unequivocal disaster. Not just defeat, but humiliation.

Would it be transformative? No. The BBC would continue to struggle financially. Trump would continue to dominate attention for at least the remainder of his tenure. Yet the symbolism would matter. It would reaffirm the resilience of established media institutions against political assault. It would remind would-be litigants that courts are not just campaign platforms.

Beyond damages

Strip away the legal briefs and this case is about something larger: the collision between a populist politician who thrives on confrontation and a public broadcaster that embodies an older model of civic rectitude.

Trump has built a career on challenging institutions, including courts, universities, newsrooms and intelligence agencies. The BBC represents a particularly attractive target: foreign, publicly funded, proud of its editorial standards, perhaps even haughty about the global prestige it still enjoys after over a hundred years of broadcasting.

The corporation, for its part, is navigating a media environment transformed by YouTube, Netflix, TikTok and myriad streaming services. It’s pruning costs while trying to maintain global reach. It can ill afford complacency at the moment. The Panorama edit was, by its own admission, a lapse. In an era of forensic scrutiny, lapses can be expensive.

What happens in that Florida courtroom in 2027 will reverberate far beyond the litigants. A Trump victory could reshape the risk calculus for journalism worldwide. A BBC victory would help stabilize an institution under strain and reinforce the legal protections that enable robust reporting.

Either way, this is emphatically not routine litigation. It’s a clash of reputations: one personal and political, the other institutional and national. When the gavel falls, the consequences will extend well beyond damages.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of , now in its third edition.]

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The appears to be intentional to expose the private thoughts of European heads of government. It is obviously unusual to anyone with a modicum of common sense, which should prompt the question: Should we actually not be doing this? His bluntness is perhaps not unique in history, but its delivery — often abrupt and stripped of decorum — is what many consider a departure from presidential norms.

Beyond the character, the act is clearly linked to Trump’s ambition to acquire Greenland. A plan that emerged just several days after the controversial of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the US military under Operation Absolute Resolve at the capital, Caracas, on January 3, 2026. An operation that was neither approved by Congress nor mandated by the UN, which was followed by to run the country.

We can begin by drawing on the case of Venezuela. Throughout various administrations, presidents have conveyed justification for essentially any strategic moves. In Iraq, claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were officially the for the US and allies to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein. The administration subsequently framed the mission as an effort to liberate the Iraqi people and bring democracy. Another instance: In Libya, was used as the main rationale for NATO’s intervention, among other factors. The same goes with Venezuela: self-defense against narcoterrorist organizations was used to make the military operation . The president himself blatantly and unhesitatingly admitted that the plan to abduct Maduro and control Venezuela was driven by the country’s tremendous . For context, Venezuela is the country with the most well-known massive oil reserves worldwide.

Fast-forward: these days record the ongoing dynamics of Trump’s quest to acquire Greenland.

Trump’s quest for ownership

The US recognized Greenland’s autonomy as part of Denmark when the kingdom sold the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands) in 1916, a fact worth noting. The document Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland. Furthermore, according to Marc Weller of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the recognition was by the 1951 and 2004 Defense of Greenland Agreements with Denmark. These historical records debunk Trump’s claim that the territory is not part of Denmark.

Another logic playing out that Trump employs is that of national security. The president stated that Russia or China might take over the island. This claim depicts the large picture of Trump’s foreign policy, which can be defined, in a simplified manner, as two approaches. First, it is about securitization. The rationale is that adversaries of the US and its allies are planning to acquire Greenland; it is justifiable for the US to . Despite this, it essentially is established upon an imperialist narrative: that if it was not up to us to occupy, others will do. The potential intervention might be for security reasons for the administration, but diminish territorial sovereignty for others.

Secondly, the focus is on the practical application of Trump’s worldview. Greenland, as an autonomous region under Denmark, is literally part of the EU and NATO. As Trump opens opportunities to acquire the island “the hard way” — clearly defined as options to authorize military operations — it will not only violate the international order, but also the establishment of NATO itself. Ironically, the US has service members present on Greenland, including in the currently-active Pituffik Space Base, indeed. At the moment, service members are on the ground in the island territory. Under past agreements, especially since the Cold War, the US, in fact, has quite to operate military personnel in the island territory.

If Russia and China are considered adversaries, the administration’s policy becomes even more questionable: why is there a failure to cooperate with NATO allies? Furthermore, what is the justification for the (suspiciously motivated) interest in acquiring Greenland for “protection”?

Furthermore, the security treaty is well-known throughout history for its collective defence in Article 5. That is, an armed attack against one member “shall an attack against them all.” In the studies of , developed earlier by Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom, keywords like “shall” are obligatory. It implies rules that are essentially highly required. In the context of NATO, attacks against any of its members trigger the obligation for others to strike back. One could only imagine an alternate timeline where the North Atlantic Alliance is attacked by one of its own, even ironically, its historically . Diplomacy seems no longer respected as a means of communication to settle interests; it is rather employed solely to pose aggressive behavior and push personal interests, despite other parties being at stake.

US hegemony and the future of multilateralism

Trump’s plan for Greenland, therefore, is ambiguous and paradoxical. It might seem unlikely and mind-boggling to come out of the head of government, even to of his administration. His “style” has been typical throughout these years, and this bully-esque foreign policy must be stopped at once.

Trump’s threats are leading to more countries, including American allies, embracing multipolarity. It also shows his contempt for international institutions. This is further evident from Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from various international organizations, as “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful.” Multilateralism and the rules-based order, which has been the backbone and predominant narrative post-World War II, is unfortunately undermined by its own earliest creator. Figures in the administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, reflect an oddly imperialist voice that power in foreign relations.

In addition, scholars have pointed out that this kind of foreign policy poses a danger to the international community. Be it the previous intervention capturing Maduro or intention to annex Greenland — the “easy way” or “hard way” — by the US can provide precedents for other great powers: that such moves were in fact allowed and unsanctioned under international law: hence “we can do it too.” One could only project the potential scenarios occurring with the ongoing situation in Ukraine, with Russia, and the military prowess displayed by China toward Taiwan. It has been clear that democracies and a multilateral rules-based order may only function properly when leaders share common principles and respect them.

Therefore, what is there to expect? Opposition has come from members of Trump’s own party, who continue to put public pressure on him despite some being on his social media. Speaking of domestic pressures, for instance, Congress must uphold its function to oversee the executive from abusing power. Proposals from its members, like the one initiated to the military action in Venezuela, despite failing to pass to the Senate, are equally crucial to signal dissent against Greenland’s annexation.

The administration’s repeated of international law by executing an unlawful military action against Venezuela, let alone Greenland — its own ally and NATO member — should be addressed through these institutional measures. The approach is critical to not only affirm Congress’s war powers but to further ensure no further damage is done to the international community. It is a bipartisan issue more than ever.

The push for Greenland’s annexation also encourages a global reevaluation of the post-Cold War liberal international order and the ongoing reality of US dominance.

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Six years ago, the US government stimulated scenarios following the fall of Maduro, predicting societal and infrastructural collapse. Now, the world is a version of that scenario unfold in real time. Trump’s pledge of “no new wars” is being tested by the dramatic US military operation on January 3, 2026, in Caracas, resulting in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Administration officials have since teased the possibility of further military action if Venezuela fails to cooperate with US demands, including oil resources and political transition.

Proximity changes everything

Since the infamous kidnapping of Maduro, the US government has mobilized its communications efforts to counter domestic and international backlash. Trump’s initial strike on drug trafficking boats in the escalated into an oil and now direct military involvement. 

Mainstream outlets like and have drawn direct comparisons to the excuse used for former US President George W. Bush’s 2003 of Iraq. Whether or not Trump recognizes these comparisons, Venezuela’s proximity to the US fundamentally alters risks. Unlike distant Middle East conflicts Americans experienced during the War on Terror, war here could spill closer to home and increase the risks of conventional war on our continent. Such a conflict would directly threaten US national security and regional stability and spell out long-term hemispheric chaos. 

It would likely trigger mass displacement and intensify refugee flows towards the border, straining border infrastructure, law enforcement and local humanitarian systems. Yuma, Arizona, as a cautionary example: During the 2021–2022 migrant surge, border patrol agents, local hospitals and food banks were overwhelmed. A larger influx of migrants also leaves room for transnational crime, trafficking and cartel expansion. US war games guerrilla-style attacks on oil refineries and prolonged conflict, similar to the sectarian that followed Bashar al-Assad’s fall in Syria.

Within Venezuela, this could shatter remaining institutions and destabilize surrounding countries like Colombia and Brazil, which are geographically even closer to the US. It also opens a space for American adversaries to play the “hero” and establish a stronghold in the hemisphere. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already weapons as a sign of support, in the way he did with Assad in Syria, which secured permanent military bases. China, as Venezuela’s buyer of crude oil, has extended support to the Maduro-aligned leadership amid the blockade.

Regime change efforts offer stark warnings from recent history. In Syria, the that once surrounded the fall of Assad in late 2024 is with the explosion of and of vengeance killings of minorities — the Druze, Christians and Alawites — often downplayed by the transitional government under Ahmed al-Sharaa. Western leaders are choosing to avoid embarrassment from a “former” in the first place. 

In Iraq, the US involvement toppled Saddam Hussein but unleashed years of destruction in the political and city infrastructure after American withdrawal. US military intervention has rarely produced any democratic or positive outcomes for the local populations, and chances are high that it’ll be the same in Venezuela.

Pragmatic solutions

A more effective alternative to hemispheric stability is economically incentivized negotiation. Sanction relief, access to US markets, mediation and other calibrated pressures have delivered results in cases like the normalization agreements and the Iran nuclear framework. These approaches could align with Maduro’s recent public appeals for “peace, not war,” including his recent of John Lennon’s “Imagine” at a November 2025 rally.

President Trump should align US interests with regional stability rather than try to justify a new conflict with the oil , proving his adversaries right about the well-being of Americans being last on his administration’s list.

Moving forward

War at our borders is nothing like war in the Middle East. Americans would feel the direct striking consequences, such as refugee pressures and criminal spillover. Unilaterally to run another sovereign country a concrete plan for democratic transition or a clear exit strategy undermines civilian protections abroad and heightens danger at home. 

Strategic restraint has been absent from US foreign policy for too long. At this moment, serious diplomacy — not reckless escalation — is urgently needed.

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Trump’s visit to Japan

Khattar Singh opens by asking whether Takaichi maximized the opportunities presented by Trump’s visit. Kiba notes that Japanese media gave the summit strong reviews, crediting Takaichi for her energy, visibility and political poise. Simultaneously, she stresses that the agreements Trump and Takaichi highlighted on rare earths, tariffs and defense were not new. They had been “prepared even before Takaichi was elected,” she explains, drafted by bureaucrats under the preceding administration of former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Even so, Kiba argues that the diplomatic choreography mattered. Takaichi had just completed back-to-back visits to Malaysia for ASEAN and to South Korea for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation before hosting Trump in Tokyo. The sequence created an impression of momentum and international readiness despite her recent inauguration. However, it is too early to conclude what tangible outcomes Takaichi can deliver from this surge of activity.

Takaichi’s policies

Global media have quickly branded Takaichi as a right-wing, defense-forward leader. She has pledged to increase Japan’s defense budget, but Kiba questions whether such ambitions are fiscally realistic. Takaichi has simultaneously promised to preserve high-quality social welfare and explore tax reform. As Kiba wonders aloud, “What is the source of the budget for the defense budget?” Even former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s pledge to expand defense spending came without a concrete financing plan.

Japan’s signaling, Kiba explains, targets two distinct audiences. To the United States, especially under “Trump 2.0,” Tokyo wants to show that it is meeting alliance expectations and carrying its security burden. To its Asian neighbors, the message is different: Japan’s growing military posture is not destabilizing but is instead tied to its commitment to a “free, open and rule-based international order.”

China’s stance

The optics of Takaichi’s warm rapport with Trump quickly went viral across East Asia. Yet Kiba highlights that she moved directly from hosting Trump in Yokosuka, Japan, to holding a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. Despite Takaichi’s reputation in China as a conservative and ally of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kiba says she “toned down her very hard stance toward China,” and Beijing has already taken note.

Their summit was pragmatic. Takaichi voiced concerns over China’s rare-earth export controls, while both leaders agreed to strengthen communication between defense authorities and ensure effective crisis-management mechanisms. Japan’s approach is to deepen cooperation with the US while simultaneously using diplomacy to maintain predictability in relations with Beijing.

The Trump–Xi meeting

Japanese analysts watched the Trump–Xi meeting with particular concern. The moment Trump used the term “G2” — referring to the hypothetical Group of Two relationship between the US and China — Japanese media amplified it instantly. For Tokyo, the concept suggests two dominant blocs dividing the world into opposing spheres of influence. Japan, Kiba argues, rejects this binary framing. “We maintain autonomy in our own diplomacy,” she says. Japan does not want a world in which the US and China alone set the rules.

Japan and other Group of Seven partners support the liberal international order but are not aligned with Washington on every issue. A rigid US–China condominium would leave little room for middle powers to maneuver. Tokyo instead prefers a multipolar system with diverse, multinational actors — an environment more compatible with Japan’s strategic interests and its preference for consensus-driven diplomacy.

ASEAN is watching closely

While US allies such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines welcomed the outcomes of Trump’s tour, ASEAN’s reaction has been noticeably subdued. Kiba says Southeast Asian governments are in “wait and see” mode. They are neither enthusiastic nor alarmed; rather, they are calibrating their positions amid a fast-shifting strategic landscape.

ASEAN states remain skeptical of US commitments, still critical of Washington’s handling of the Israel–Hamas conflict and wary of what Kiba describes as the erosion of “so-called democratization” under Trump’s return to power. At the same time, they recognize the practical benefits of continued US engagement, especially in defense and supply-chain resilience.

Looking ahead, Kiba believes Japan will widen its multilateral initiatives across the region, including in emerging areas such as energy transition, climate cooperation, supply-chain governance and intellectual-property protection. More “minilaterals” and tailored coalitions built around specific issues will define the next phase of Asian diplomacy.

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As the Trump administration currently mulls over sending the National Guard to Chicago, former South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol plays hooky to his for the sixth time, and Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un calls for his nation to “” its nuclear weapons capacity, wouldn’t it be beneficial to step back and take a break from all the hullabaloo?��

Perhaps a visit to the beach is in order. After all, who doesn’t enjoy the feeling of digging your feet into the sand, hearing the tranquil crashing of waves and cracking open a few crisp Taedonggang Lagers to beat the brutal sun? All of this and more is available at the stunning resorts of the Wonsan Kalma Tourist Zone. 

Following the between Donald Trump and the newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, it may be the perfect location to host the next Trump–Kim Summit.

What is the Wonsan Kalma tourist zone?

Nestled along the coast of Kangwon Province in the northeast of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Wonsan Kalma Tourist Zone its first batch of foreign visitors to the beach resort city only a month before Lee Jae Myung and Trump’s first meeting in August. The visitors, all of them Russian citizens, the vacation as “immaculate … [yet] without people,” as the costs of a week’s stay at the luxury hotels far exceed the monthly income of the average North Korean.

While the nature of such bourgeois accommodations is antithetical to the communist ideology that guides the DPRK, the significant investment in this area, which caters to non-Koreans, coupled with Kim Jong-un’s recent , signals an intention to shed isolationism in favor of limited engagement with like-minded allies. As both nations’ grows stronger by the day, furthering civilian interaction (and mainly the exchange of ) aligns with Russia’s descent into a piratical status and North Korea’s ascent to greater global importance.

Indeed, while serving an influx of wealthy Europeans to enjoy the fruits of Korean labor, which they themselves cannot afford, would have Kim Il-sung rolling in his grave, it is certainly not unprecedented for communist nations to make exceptions to the “characteristics” of their guiding socialist principles for the sake of economic advancement.

Could Wonsan become a Special Economic Zone?

It is difficult not to see the parallels between this drive to attract foreign investment and generate cash flow and the early stages of Deng Xiaoping’s opening of the Shenzhen “” in 1980.

Looking past their innate similarities as bordering nations with similar cultural and governmental principles, the opening of both Shenzhen and Wonsan:

— Constrained foreign presence and investment to a of the country, closely monitoring the exposure of the Chinese/North Korean populace to outside influences/values.

— Signaled a willingness to on certain Marxist principles for the sake of economic benefit.

— Kept the price of living in the area unattainable for the average citizen, making sure that the only interactions foreigners could have with Chinese/North Koreans were with elite and trusted party members.

— Were aspirational rebrands of regimes once thought to be oppressive and uncompromising backwaters with a military rigidity, transforming them into a more civilian-friendly presence.

While such parallels may exist, how can the United States and South Korea capitalize on a new era of economic diplomacy in the DPRK if the new Wonsan Kalma Tourist Zone is not yet open to Chinese tourists? Further, Kim Jong-un has declared South Korea a of his regime and the Arch of Reunification, abandoning the guiding policy of his father and grandfather’s administrations.

Despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, future engagements with North Korea were the principal talking points of Lee Jae Myung and Trump’s first meeting in the White House. Both countries are ready, but how should they approach the now international Hermit Kingdom?

Blueprints for a future Trump–Kim–Lee meeting

The great debate between experts (both American and Korean) who specialize in the complex relationship between the DPRK and South Korea often suggests that the United States should either commit to engagement or containment when dealing with the Hermit Kingdom. Academic integrity may demand that both schools of thought be equally explained along with their pros and cons, but in the age of North Korean soldiers fighting on European soil at the behest of the Russian government, containing the DPRK’s international ambitions is an extinct concept.

Suppose the United States wants to play a role in stabilizing the Korean Peninsula. In that case, it must actively engage with North Korea without abandoning long-standing goals such as for the sake of appeasement. Instead, the Trump and Lee administrations should approach Kim with modern ideas of economic cooperation, such as:

— Visiting the Wonsan Kalma Tourist Zone as the area’s infrastructure and reputation are built up. Conducting such a meeting outside of Pyongyang would be a cornerstone of Kim Jong-un’s legacy, something he may want to cement now rather than later as his daughter, , is training to succeed him.

— Establishing a trade of limited, non-military advanced technology from the United States and South Korea to North Korea. Serving not only as a tool of diplomacy, but also in reducing Pyongyang’s on Beijing.

— Arranging for American and South Korean scientists to conduct scientific visits to nuclear sites, such as Yeongbyeon and vice versa. Facilitating interaction outside of politics would only strengthen familiarity and underline that the US is not an imperialist power looking down at the DPRK, but eye-to-eye and ready for change.

When the United States and South Korea treat the DPRK as a one-dimensional, evil adversary hell-bent on the nuclear demolition of the West, that’s all it will ever be. However, suppose the Trump and Lee administrations are willing to view North Korea’s government not as a dictatorship to be eradicated, but as a system capable of liberalization and reform. In that case, slow progress may gain traction.

Suppose the DPRK wants to open itself up to an international audience, albeit a limited one. In that case, its population will be exposed to a greater amount of foreign ideas and beliefs, which will slowly but certainly drive change.

After a decade or two, perhaps Lee Jae Myung’s joke about a Trump Tower being constructed in Pyongyang may seem less like fiction and more like a prediction.

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There has been backlash from Trump’s own Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters as he has resorted to his usual tactics of deflection. Despite this, Trump has not been able to avoid the whirlwind of events. The for transparency is why the Epstein files remain a ticking public and political time bomb with escalating pressures from all sides.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Jeffrey Epstein was a financier who was a convicted sex offender and an alleged sex trafficker accused of abusing dozens of teenage girls at some of his multi-million dollar estates around the US and private Caribbean islands.

Epstein was born and raised in New York City. Although he did not graduate from college, the prestigious Dalton School in New York offered him a position to teach math and physics. The father of one of his students had introduced Epstein to a at Bear Stearns, a respected Wall Street investment firm. Epstein quickly advanced through the ranks and earned a promotion to partner in under five years.

In the early 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein created his own firm, J Epstein and Company. His firm managed assets for uber-wealthy clients with assets reaching into the billions. Mr. Epstein quickly used his fortune to purchase mansions in New York and Florida, a ranch in New Mexico and two islands — Little St. James and Great St. James — in the US Virgin Islands. As his wealth grew, he began increasingly mingling with celebrities, artists and politicians.

In 2005, parents informed authorities in Florida that Epstein had molested their 14-year-old daughter at his Florida mansion. When the police searched the property, they discovered pictures of young girls throughout the house. Investigators later determined that Epstein had developed a scheme to exploit several vulnerable girls and women, some of whom were underage.

This scheme started in 1994 and until at least 2004. Mr. Epstein made a deal with Federal prosecutors in 2008 that avoided federal charges and could have led to a life sentence. Instead, he was sentenced to 18 months and was released early on probation after only 13 months.

Fast-forwarding to 2019, federal agents again Jeffrey Epstein on August 6 for running a large network of underage girls for sex that took place between 2002 and 2005. Mr. Epstein, if found guilty, would face up to a 45-year prison sentence. Guards placed Mr. Epstein on suicide watch and his behavior and activity every 15 minutes. However, on August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found by suicide while awaiting trial.

Maxwell’s trial and conviction

In July 2020, following Epstein’s death, his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, became a person of interest in Epstein’s sex schemes. She was arrested for her role in Epstein’s crimes. Prosecutors alleged that Maxwell had helped recruit minors whom Epstein later abused.

Maxwell, an Oxford-educated scholar, introduced Epstein to her wealthy and influential acquaintances, including former US President Bill Clinton and the Duke of York. In June 2022, after a one-month jury trial, Ghislaine Maxwell was to 20 years for her role in helping Jeffrey Epstein abuse minors.��

What the Epstein files contain

The Epstein files documents from two criminal investigations, including interview transcripts with victims and witnesses, as well as items seized during raids on his properties. To date, the House Oversight Committee has released , though a large portion of them have already been available to the public. Nonetheless, consolidating these documents into one official release has increased their impact, renewed public scrutiny and fueled speculation about what remains sealed.

The files reference numerous celebrities and politicians. Among those so far are Clinton and Trump, the late New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, actor Kevin Spacey, Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, renowned attorney Alan Dershowitz and former US Vice President Al Gore. Along with the numerous names listed, the pages of unsealed documents also named friends, associates and alleged victims.��

Investigators and legal experts continue to emphasize that a mention in these records does not imply guilt or direct involvement in Epstein’s crimes. Nevertheless, the association alone has proven damaging for many, as the shadow of Epstein’s crimes has cast doubt on anyone connected to him.

Unanswered questions

Several questions remain unanswered, notably how Jeffrey Epstein accumulated his wealth. From 1998 to 2013, American multinational financial services firm JPMorgan Chase often Epstein to withdraw large sums of money. His account frequently held hundreds of millions of dollars. Epstein also inexplicably received significant sums from some of America’s wealthiest individuals, typically in installments of tens of millions of dollars.

Additionally, Epstein was a client of Deutsche Bank from 2013 to 2018. Both JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank settled lawsuits with their victims, who that both banks knew about the underage sex trafficking network.

In a from Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, to the DOJ, Wyden criticized the Trump administration for not conducting a thorough investigation into the funding of Epstein’s network. Wyden urged the committee to investigate the role of sanctioned Russian banks involved in financing Epstein’s sex trafficking network.��

The Treasury Department’s Epstein file shows that he used multiple sanctioned Russian banks to wire hundreds of millions of dollars to his operations. This has raised urgent questions about how such transactions went undetected for so long. 

Wyden also requested that the committee conduct depositions with the bankers responsible for overseeing Mr. Epstein’s large transactions, especially when these bankers perform “know your customer” checks as part of their due diligence on large wire transfers — safeguards designed to flag suspicious activity and prevent this kind of abuse.

Mr. Epstein’s and black books have attracted significant public attention. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi released the initial redacted documents. The flight logs show how often Mr. Epstein traveled, along with his routes, destinations and individuals who traveled with him. The black book was Mr. Epstein’s contact list, part of the first documents to be released, which included names and phone numbers of individuals he knew, redacted.

There have been several recent disclosures involving Donald Trump in the Epstein files. Among them is a “birthday book” entry that included a drawing of a woman’s body outline with a sexually suggestive allegedly signed by Trump, which was unsealed this summer and has sparked renewed scrutiny. Trump has denied writing it and has filed a lawsuit over its release.

Still, the controversy underscores Senator Wyden’s broader point: without full transparency, the public cannot fully understand the extent of Epstein’s financial or political connections. Alongside these revelations are photos documenting Trump and Epstein’s decade-long friendship before their falling out in 2007, emphasizing how the circle of high-profile figures connected to Epstein continues to attract public and political scrutiny.

Legal and political fallout

Files related to Mr. Epstein have sparked investigations by congressional committees. These probes have led to legal and political repercussions, fueling debates over public transparency versus elite protection. A complex web of promises of transparency, partial disclosures and denials now surrounds the Epstein story — with President Trump firmly at the center of the controversy. 

published a timeline that raises questions for President Trump. Specifically, Kash Patel, during his confirmation hearing for Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director, promised to reveal connections to Epstein if confirmed. On February 21, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the Jeffrey Epstein “client list” was on her desk. Subsequently, on February 27, Bondi released the initial set of Epstein files. In May, Bondi informed Trump that the Epstein files named him several times. But on July 7, in a DOJ memo, Attorney General Bondi said there is no “client list” and that Mr. Epstein’s death was a suicide.��

The situation has raised questions about the “client list” and whether authorities are ensuring the protection of elite names on that list. The inconsistent statements and shifting timeline have intensified scrutiny over whether a definitive list exists, who appears on it and whether prosecutorial decisions and transparency have inadvertently protected — or intentionally shielded — influential figures implicated in the case.

The political fallout is where the files are most dangerous. In this rare situation, Trump could lose political support regardless of whether the Epstein files are ultimately released. On one hand, his base — normally steadfast and forgiving — has shown visible frustration with the way he has handled the controversy. 

Many of his supporters rallied behind his 2024 campaign promise of “full transparency,” and now view his refusal to deliver as a betrayal of that pledge. If the files are fully released and he is mentioned in them, as Pam Bondi told him he was back in May, then he is likely to lose more of his support for his alleged involvement in the sexual abuse of numerous women. 

However, keeping the files sealed presents serious risks. Since Congress reconvened after its summer recess, calls for transparency have grown and the perception of a cover-up has only intensified the explosive nature of the issue. For Trump, the risk is that secrecy encourages speculation and fuels conspiracy theories, keeping the story alive in the news cycle. 

The Epstein files have become a political ticking time bomb for both the administration and those lawmakers who appear unwilling to confront the scandal. Members of Congress who fail to demand the release may find themselves ousted in favor of challengers who promise openness and accountability.

While the House Republican leadership recently blocked an that would have required the full release of the files, several rank-and-file Republicans broke ranks to support it, signaling cracks within the party. The longer the White House delays disclosure, the greater the risk to both Trump’s support among voters and the unity of his congressional coalition.

In addition to these investigations, President Trump has encountered pressure and disagreements with his supporters over his failure to release the files. This was a promise he made during his 2024 campaign. The lack of transparency has fueled numerous regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s true fate.

Due to the lack of transparency, there is also an erosion of trust in institutions such as the Justice Department and the media. For many, this has been a call to arms; there has been a bipartisan push to unseal the documents. 

While some are pushing to unseal the files, there is also resistance to keep the documents sealed for the protection of the victims, given that Epstein harmed more than 1,000 women, each of which have suffered unique trauma. 

A from the Justice Department said, “[s]ensitive information relating to these victims is intertwined throughout the materials. This includes specific details such as victim names and likenesses, physical descriptions, places of birth, associates, and employment history.” While victim protection is a legitimate concern, a large number of victims have for the release of files, further fueling the crisis.

The case for transparency is straightforward. There has been bipartisan support to hold those involved in Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking network accountable for their crimes. Senator Ron Wyden wrote a to Attorney General Bondi, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and FBI Director Kash Patel, blasting the Trump administration for withholding documents that would limit the exposure to Donald Trump’s ties with Jeffrey Epstein. Senator Wyden also noted that, following his investigation, there appeared to be additional individuals who need to be held accountable for the crimes they helped facilitate.����

Growing pressures on Trump

This summer was a very eventful season with the Trump administration being under increased pressure to disclose the information from the Epstein files. Trump has resorted to his usual tactics of deflecting and has even gone so far as to former President Barack Obama of treason.��

While Trump has his supporters to “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” he has faced backlash from his MAGA base for the lack of transparency over a two-page memo from the DOJ. The claimed that after an extensive review, there was no evidence of a “client list.”

The additional deflection has led to increased scrutiny from both the public and the legal system. Democrats, too, are taking this opportunity to attack Trump. Senator Jon Ossoff kicked off his campaign asking, “Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files?” House Democrats sought to introduce a long-shot resolution demanding the release of all files related to the Epstein case.

However, before the scheduled vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson concluded business early and gavelled Congress into its month-long summer recess to avoid holding the vote. Some , such as Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence and MAGA-supporting Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have broken ranks.

Greene has said, “[c]rimes have been committed,” and “[i]f there’s no justice and no accountability, people are going to get sick of it. That’s where people largely are.” They are also diverging from Trump and pushing for the files to be released.

The DOJ, in its memo denying a client list exists, has cited victim protection precedents and stated that “much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing.” While the administration continues to cite victim protection precedents, many critics of the administration label the moves as politically motivated.

Jeffrey Epstein’s files have shifted from a distant scandal to a highly charged controversy over accountability — or the lack thereof — in modern American politics. House Democrats have released hundreds of pages of documents. The birthday card that included a note for Epstein’s 50th birthday, featuring an outline of a woman’s body and a sexually suggestive tone, is reportedly signed by Trump, who it and has even sued over it, bringing transparency into public debate.

Meanwhile, the Senate narrowly a Democratic effort to require the full release of all related files. The DOJ has begun releasing grand jury testimony, but with some reservations, citing ongoing victim protections.��

Amidst this political maneuvering, legal battles and institutional hurdles, one fact remains undeniable: the Epstein files are still a ticking time bomb — one that could reveal truths, test and potentially destroy loyalties. Consequences, including denials, diversions and refusals, are just beginning.

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Economic cold war?

Khattar Singh begins by asking whether Trump’s tariffs mark the start of an economic cold war. Moran doubts this, pointing out that the policy is riddled with uncertainty. Some tariffs face legal challenges, and Trump himself has a history of walking back duties when they risk fueling inflation. While Trump sometimes frames tariffs as inherently good, Moran insists he is pragmatic enough to avoid market chaos or consumer backlash.

Moran highlights three questions to watch: which countries will get exemptions, which will strike free trade agreements and how courts will ultimately rule. For now, no one, including Trump, can say exactly where tariff policy is headed. This unpredictability makes life difficult for businesses, as seen with the failed 500% tariffs on Chinese imports that raised costs but produced no concessions from Beijing.

Does Trump want a deal?

On tariffs as a negotiating tool, Moran stresses the volatility of Trump’s approach. Duties could fall if parties reach agreements or rise if talks collapse. But Trump’s frequent public reversals mean even his advisors lack clarity. Moran recalls that the extreme tariffs on China hurt the US economy and consumers more than they pressured Beijing, underscoring the limits of this strategy.

Is Trump uniting BRICS?

Khattar Singh presses Moran on whether tariffs could backfire by pushing BRICS nations closer together. Moran concedes there is some risk: Resentment could bring members “slightly closer.” However, he doubts a 10% tariff would overcome deep divisions. India and China remain at odds, while Iran and the United Arab Emirates also clash. He predicts that as BRICS grows in influence, its geopolitical fractures will become more apparent.

The BRICS plan to set up their own payment system outside the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication has become especially controversial. Initially framed as a sovereignty tool, it now allows Russia to dodge sanctions. Moran warns that without guardrails, the system could facilitate dangerous activity. Washington, he argues, will grow increasingly alarmed, and Trump may try to use tariffs to block its expansion.

Trump and India

Moran singles out India as a vital partner. He sees potential for a bilateral trade deal with New Delhi and hopes for a deeper US–India alliance, especially given shared concerns about China. Defense is central here. Moran criticizes India’s reliance on Russian systems, citing Iran’s failure to stop Israeli attacks with its S-300 missile systems. He argues this is a “wake-up call” for India and urges the country to purchase US-designed systems instead.

Khattar Singh counters that US MIM-104 Patriot systems have struggled in Ukraine and that India’s Russian-made S-400s performed effectively against Pakistan. Still, he notes India’s growing trust in the United States, pointing to its purchase of Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters.

A US–India trade deal

Turning to economics, Moran distinguishes between what a Trump–India deal might look like and what it should. Trump’s fixation on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company complicates negotiations, while issues such as manufacturing and IT services remain sensitive. Yet Moran insists that bilateral engagement with India is far more practical than attempting to juggle hundreds of simultaneous agreements.

He allows that multilateralism with BRICS could serve US interests in some cases, but stresses that internal divisions make bilateral deals the safer path. For India, alignment with Washington on trade and defense could strengthen both nations’ positions in the global order.

The future of AI

Khattar Singh and Moran agree that AI will define the next economic era. Moran points to the UAE’s aggressive push to become an AI hub and warns against leaving the field to China, whose advances he identifies as potentially disastrous. He argues the US should not try to handle AI challenges alone.

Khattar Singh notes India’s vibrant AI ecosystem, from widespread use of ChatGPT to national investment in research. Together with the US and the UAE, India could anchor an AI partnership. By contrast, the European Union’s regulatory environment discourages innovation. As Moran bluntly notes, “None of these AI companies are European. Zero.”

Are Americans paying for tariffs?

In closing, Khattar Singh asks whether tariffs ultimately hurt Americans. Moran’s answer is a resounding yes. Economists are right, he says, that tariffs raise domestic costs. The effect depends on scale — targeted tariffs like those on Chinese aluminum in 2018 were manageable, but sweeping 500% tariffs would devastate consumers and industry.

Trump himself is inconsistent, sometimes framing tariffs as leverage, other times as revenue. That inconsistency suggests tariffs will not disappear quickly. Moran ends by stressing that the US needs competitive partners. While not excluding Europe, he doubts the old transatlantic alliance can deliver innovation. For him, the future lies in closer ties with India — on defense, trade and especially AI.

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Josef Olmert, an Israeli academic and political commentator, dives into US President Donald Trump’s latest proposals for Gaza and the wider Middle East. Olmert lays out his sharp critiques and his alternative vision. The conversation ranges from the feasibility of mass resettlement of Gazans, to the imperative of destroying Hamas, to the overriding challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Olmert’s initial confusion

Olmert begins by admitting his confusion. For years, Trump positioned himself as an isolationist, pulling America out of international organizations and pushing to withdraw troops from conflict zones. Yet, in this instance, he called for US military involvement in the border region between Israel and Gaza, an area Olmert describes as “one of the most problematic, dangerous and volatile regions of the world.” To him, the contradiction is striking.

Olmert concedes that Trump possesses a certain originality and “out-of-the-box” vision for solving regional problems. Still, he sees fundamental flaws. Trump assumes a single event or plan can provide a sweeping solution to the Middle East’s problems. Olmert pushes back firmly: “It doesn’t work like that.” Countless grand plans, from peace conferences to international accords, have failed because the Middle East is too diverse, fractured and historically laden with conflict.

Olmert also highlights Trump’s reliance on economic logic. As a businessman, the president tends to see commercial fixes as the path to stability. Olmert acknowledges that raising living standards is desirable, but he stresses that economic growth cannot erase deep-rooted political and ideological struggles. In his words, “The entire foundation, therefore, of the approach is wrong.”

The Gaza population dilemma

Olmert then addresses Trump’s focus on Gaza’s demographic challenge. With over two million people packed into a small territory lacking sufficient infrastructure, the humanitarian strain is undeniable. Olmert agrees that the Gaza Strip “cannot cater for a population of over two million people.” Trump suggested emigration as a remedy, with other countries absorbing Gazans.

While Olmert admits some Gazans might want to leave voluntarily, he dismisses the idea. No country can realistically resettle such numbers, certainly not in a short timeframe. Even if partially successful, the region would destabilize in the transition. He draws on history, recalling how the Oslo Accords quickly unraveled under pressure from opponents. Any drawn-out evacuation, he insists, would invite chaos.

Hamas and security imperatives

Despite his skepticism, Olmert identifies actionable points in Trump’s rhetoric. Chief among them is the call to dismantle the Palestinian Sunni militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza. Olmert stresses his long-held conviction that “if you want to achieve peace along the border between Israel and Gaza, Hamas has to be totally destroyed.” He rejects the notion that peace is possible with actors who categorically oppose coexistence.

He also aligns with Trump on freeing Israeli hostages but asks the crucial question: how? Once again, the removal of two million Gazans is not the answer. Instead, the focus must remain squarely on neutralizing Hamas.

Regional players and fragile balances

Turning to neighboring states, Olmert briefly considers the potential roles of Egypt and Jordan. Egypt, he suggests, might absorb a limited number of people. Jordan, however, already has a fragile demographic balance, with up to 70% of its population being of Palestinian origin. Bringing more Gazans would, in his view, risk destabilizing the Hashemite Kingdom.

While critics of Jordan often highlight corruption or weak institutions, Olmert counters that the monarchy has endured for a century — dismantling it could open doors to even greater instability. “The devil you know sometimes is better than the devils you don’t know,” he says.

Olmert also raises cost concerns. Any plan would require massive financial incentives. Ultimately, he argues, the burden would fall on the US taxpayer.

Saudi Arabia enters the conversation as well. Trump publicly claimed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had expressed opposition to a Palestinian state. Olmert considers this disclosure a blunder. Statements that might be tolerated in private, he warns, become problematic when voiced openly, forcing Saudi leaders to deny them.

Iran as the true challenge

For Olmert, the real strategic focus should remain on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He criticizes Trump’s vague comments about sanctions and his willingness to meet the Iranian president. What disturbed him most was the absence of even the boilerplate statement of “all the options on the table.”

He argues that Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional influence are “the key.” Destroying Iran’s nuclear program, he asserts, would have a far greater stabilizing impact than resettling Gazans. Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, live under constant fear of Iran’s expansionist ambitions. Curtailing the nation, he says, would also shift Palestinian attitudes.

Even so, Olmert does not present this as a cure-all. He admits that removing Iran’s nuclear capacity will not solve everything, but it has a higher chance of promoting stability than Trump’s Gaza proposals. Delays in dealing with Tehran, he warns, would allow Iran to accelerate its nuclear program, creating an existential threat for Israel that “Israel should not accept.”

The Israeli domestic reaction

Olmert also examines reactions inside Israel. Right-wing politicians in the ruling Likud party and ultranationalist ministers, such as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated Trump’s words. Yet they overlooked one critical statement: Trump’s rejection of new settlements in Gaza. This could signal broader reservations about settlement policy, including in the West Bank.

Trump even promised an announcement regarding sovereignty in the West Bank, which Olmert interprets as an attempt to reconcile annexation of certain areas with a two-state framework. In his assessment, the Israeli right wing “doesn’t understand” that Trump operates within international constraints. Aligning too closely with his proposals, Olmert warns, risks global backlash and could isolate Israel.

Re-centering priorities

In closing, Olmert emphasizes what he sees as Israel’s true priority. While Trump shifts focus to Gaza, Olmert insists that “the main thing is still the Iranian problem.” For Israel, he says, the Gaza issue is secondary. Ensuring that the world’s attention remains on Iran — not on Trump’s impractical resettlement ideas — is the strategy Israel must pursue.

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They emphasize that this topic has global resonance, since the world still depends on the stability and leadership of the United States. The discussion, therefore, becomes both an internal American debate and an international concern.

Trump’s attack on federal agencies

Atul and Glenn begin by cataloging specific Trump-era actions they view as evidence of a systematic weakening of the federal apparatus. These include the removal of officials such as Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Billy Long. They argue that such moves, combined with a broader hollowing out of institutions like the Federal Reserve, the State Department, the CIA, US Agency for International Development and NASA, represent an intentional “gutting” of agencies crucial to governance and public welfare.

Atul and Glenn insist that these institutions exist not only for technical governance but also for maintaining the credibility of the American democratic model. If the credibility of these institutions collapses, it erodes public trust and damages the US’s global standing.

Norquist’s philosophy and Ronald Reagan’s agenda

Glenn situates Trump’s efforts within a longer ideological arc. He traces them back to US President Ronald Reagan’s “revolution,” which reduced faith in government and elevated conservative economic philosophy. Reagan’s agenda, amplified by figures such as Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist — who is famous for wanting to shrink government so small he could “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” — and bolstered by conservative think tanks, paved the way for what Glenn calls today’s “Trumpian revolution.”

Atul adds that the Reagan years were not just an American turning point, but part of a broader global shift toward neoliberalism, deregulation and privatization. The ideological groundwork laid in that era, they contend, continues to shape political agendas today.

Trump and Project 2025

Central to the conversation is Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation initiative Atul and Glenn describe as a radical blueprint. Its goals include cutting the federal workforce by half and dramatically expanding presidential powers. They stress that these proposals would not only disrupt government efficiency and accountability but also tilt the balance of power sharply toward the executive branch.

Atul and Glenn emphasize that the size of the workforce reflects the government’s ability to deliver services, regulate markets and provide stability in times of crisis. Reducing this by half would, in their view, leave the country dangerously exposed.

Federal layoffs under Trump 2.0

Atul and Glenn note that Trump’s current plans echo his first term, but with greater intensity. They state that proposals to eliminate 50% of the federal workforce are unprecedented in scope. They interpret these layoffs as more than cost-cutting; they are an ideological purge designed to weaken federal institutions and concentrate loyalty directly under presidential control. Such measures would ripple outward beyond Washington to ordinary citizens who depend on federal programs, grants and regulatory oversight for health, education and economic stability.

Presidential control: a threat to US democracy?

Glenn links Trump’s approach to the legal philosophy of Carl Schmitt, “[Adolf] Hitler’s legal theorist,” who defended the primacy of unchecked executive authority in Nazi Germany. Schmitt’s concept of the unitary executive resonates with Trump’s own political movement, Glenn argues, by undermining checks and balances and normalizing near-absolute presidential power. This strikes at the heart of democratic governance.

Atul points out that the American system was designed around the separation of powers. If that foundation is eroded, the US risks losing what has long been its distinctive democratic safeguard.

The Republican Party’s evolution

The conversation also turns to the broader Republican Party. Atul and Glenn argue that decades of conservative activism, think tank influence and shifting party priorities have steered the Grand Old Party toward radical centralization of power. They suggest that what once seemed like outlandish ideas are now mainstream within the Republican platform, particularly under Trump’s leadership. This shift is both political and cultural, representing a redefinition of what conservatism means in the US.

Fascism, strongmen and the future

Atul and Glenn conclude with a sober warning: Left unchecked, the United States risks sliding from liberal democracy into what they call a “conservative autocracy.” They point to echoes of strongman politics and fascist ideology, stressing the long-term danger of normalizing authoritarian principles. At the same time, they note Trump’s diverse support base — including many immigrants who align with cultural conservatism and share a disdain for bureaucracy — as evidence that these dynamics are both complex and deeply embedded in American society.

They highlight that this contradiction of immigrants supporting an anti-immigrant politician reveals how cultural and ideological affinities can often outweigh personal experience. The episode ends as a call to reflect on the fragility of democratic institutions and the vigilance required to protect them.

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What is a shadow senator?

Jain begins by clarifying his unusual role as one of DC’s two elected shadow senators. Unlike other states, Washington, DC, has no voting representation in Congress. To push for statehood and defend its autonomy, the city created two non-voting senators and one non-voting representative. Jain, elected in November 2024 and sworn in this January, explains that his position is part-advocate, part-lobbyist and part-symbolic lawmaker. His chief responsibility is to fight for DC to become the 51st state and secure full representation for its 700,000 residents.

Turmoil in Washington, DC?

Singh turns the conversation to Trump’s controversial policy decisions in the capital. Jain describes how Trump took control of the Metropolitan Police Department for 30 days, placing it under a presidentially appointed official. Trump also sent in hundreds of federal agents and more than 2,000 National Guard troops. The stated aim was to reduce crime, but Jain argues the real goal was to reshape policing “in his own image,” encouraging brutality and overriding DC laws on cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He points to raids that terrified the Latino community and recalls seeing federal troops idling around tourist sites like the National Mall rather than addressing real problems.

DC’s governance structure

Jain then explains how fragile DC’s self-government really is. While the city elects a mayor and council, the federal government controls the judiciary and prosecution of adult crimes. Judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and the US Attorney — also a presidential appointee — handles prosecutions. Right now, one in five local court seats sits vacant, slowing trials and fueling more crime. The US Attorney’s office, meanwhile, suffers from mass firings that gutted its capacity. Even when DC passes its own laws, Congress can block or repeal them within 30 to 60 days. To Jain, this makes self-rule an illusion, unlike London or other world capitals, where residents govern their own affairs.

Crime in DC

Trump has repeatedly claimed that crime in Washington is spiraling. Jain challenges this, citing objective data: Crime is down 25% year-on-year, violent crime is at a 30-year low and overall rates remain below pre-COVID-19 levels. He accuses Trump of spreading lies to justify costly deployments that burn “millions of [taxpayer] dollars a day” without solving problems.

Jain acknowledges DC still faces crime and homelessness, but argues solutions require smarter police deployment, housing reform and more funding for mental health. It does not need troop surges and headline-grabbing raids. He also notes that federal restrictions like the Height Act prevent the city from building enough affordable housing, driving rents higher and fueling homelessness.

Trump’s attacks on DC

Jain sees Trump’s interventions as part of a larger pattern. By stripping money from DC’s budget, firing federal workers and blocking judicial nominations, Trump is deliberately weakening the city. These moves deepen DC’s “mini-recession” and leave essential services, from schools to emergency response, undermanned. In Jain’s view, Trump’s goal is not to fix urban challenges but to create crises, then claim sweeping authority to impose his preferred policies.

Should Washington, DC, be a state?

For Jain, it is clear that Washington, DC, should be a state. He argues that nearly every problem facing the capital — crime policy, housing shortages, budget manipulation — stems from the fact that DC is not a state. Its residents pay taxes, serve in the military and number more than Wyoming or Vermont, yet they lack voting representation. Jain calls it a modern case of “taxation without representation,” pointing out that no other democratic nation in the world denies its capital city’s residents the vote. Statehood, he insists, is the only path to justice.

The National Guard in other cities?

Singh raises Trump’s threats to send the National Guard into Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois. Jain warns this is no idle talk — DC is simply the test case. Because it is not a state, it was an easy target. If successful, Trump could expand the model to cities like Chicago, Detroit, Michigan, or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, coercing them into repealing policies or cutting federal funds. Jain calls this a “dangerous precedent” and urges Senate Democrats to resist using every tool available, including the filibuster, to stop such power grabs.

Democrats need an upgrade

Finally, Singh raises a broader critique: Democrats have failed urban America. Jain concedes there is truth in this. Democrats, he says, often rely too much on the “old guard” and resist fresh ideas. Still, he pushes back against Republican attacks, noting that Grand Old Party-led cities often have higher crime rates, largely because of permissive gun laws. He argues that Democrats need to show a new vision while Republicans must stop blocking gun control measures and sabotaging agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

To Jain, Trump’s actions in DC reveal a deeper threat: an authoritarian drift that undermines American democracy itself. If left unchecked, he warns, it could spread from Washington to the rest of the nation.

[ edited this piece.]

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For Glenn, this is not a matter of routine political conflict. He describes it as “hugely significant,” even “appalling and terrifying,” because it represents a deliberate revolution in the structure of the American state — one with consequences that reach far beyond the United States.

The ideological roots

Glenn traces this movement back decades, noting that figures like political activist Grover Norquist laid the groundwork. Norquist, who graduated from the University of Texas in 1975, was once Glenn’s classmate. Peers dismissed him and viewed him as a gadfly — “a good-natured irritant and not someone to be taken particularly seriously.”

For over 50 years, Norquist convened Washington’s influential Wednesday Morning Group. Here, Republican strategists refined a vision of government so small he could, in his , “drag it into the bathroom and then drown it in the bathtub.”

At the time, Glenn dismissed this rhetoric as absurd. With hindsight, however, he acknowledges that Norquist’s ideological project was both coherent and relentless, making him “one of the significant figures in the last 50 years.” What once sounded like hyperbole has now become the intellectual backbone of a movement reshaping the federal government itself.

The Trump administration’s embrace

According to Glenn, Trump personally has little interest in ideology. Yet his administration — particularly the intellectuals around him — has embraced this agenda with fervor. “The thinking people in his administration do [care],” Glenn remarks.

Atul recalls conversations with younger staffers from Heritage Foundation backgrounds who approach governance with a “crusading zeal.” They are convinced that regulation suffocates competitiveness, that bureaucrats are “leeches who live off taxes” and that only a government stripped to its bare essentials can unleash true freedom. Their reverence for US President Ronald Reagan, who famously declared that government was the problem rather than the solution, borders on worship.

Glenn places this in the larger context of American conservative thought, pointing to institutions like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. These groups helped cement the idea that “small government is good, and government is the ill.” Glenn satirically likens this belief system to “adolescents who have suffered arrested development and remain obsessed by Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead.”

For many in this circle, this Russian-American writer and philosopher is the philosophical goddess: Government is by definition oppressive, the strong must be free to compete and take care of themselves, and those who cannot survive on their own should, in Glenn’s words, “fail and die.” Atul adds that Rand herself, despite her libertarian philosophy, ran her intellectual circle as an authoritarian cult. She even made her husband wear bells on his shoes so she and her younger lover would hear him coming. 

The goal that emerges from this tradition, Glenn explains, is stark: shrink the federal government by half. Its only legitimate purposes should be national defense and border security. Glenn asks if this philosophy “rings and bells?” The approach is to aim high and achieve at least part.

A radical transformation in practice

In its first seven months, Trump’s second administration has begun to put this vision into practice. The pace and scope, Glenn argues, amount to nothing less than a “broad attack” on the structure of government.

It has made sweeping personnel cuts. About 150,000 federal employees, roughly 6% of the workforce, have already been dismissed. Within the intelligence community, the CIA has discussed eliminating a quarter of its staff. Entire agencies have been gutted: The US Agency for International Development is effectively dead, the State Department has suffered steep reductions and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in decline.

Other vital institutions are in turmoil. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural and manmade disasters, is “being decimated.” The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control face similar gutting. NASA’s budget has been slashed by half, and federally funded research and development in universities is collapsing.

Glenn points out that starving research & development serves a double purpose: It reduces spending and simultaneously cripples the “woke liberal elite intellectuals” in universities, whom the administration views as enemies.

The administration’s 2026 budget proposal is even more radical, targeting an overall 22.6% reduction in the federal government. For Glenn, this marks an ideological project dressed in fiscal language — a deliberate reengineering of the American state.

Unitary executive theory

Behind these actions lies a constitutional philosophy: the unitary executive theory. Glenn calls attention to its origins in the work of Carl Schmitt, the Nazi legal theorist who argued that sovereignty must be concentrated entirely in the executive. In this model, “anything that challenges the authority and the agency of the chief executive must be eliminated or destroyed.” Glenn bluntly calls this structure “a dictatorship.”

This doctrine is central to Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term. Its prescription is explicit: “The entire executive branch must be brought under direct presidential control.” This represents a profound break from the American tradition of government by laws, in which agencies operate with independence grounded in congressional legislation. The unitary executive theory would eliminate that independence, subordinating all power to the White House.

Under such a system, the federal government is reduced to two aforementioned core functions: national defense and border security. Defense spending has already increased by 9%, while immigration enforcement has escalated. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have been detained and expelled already; this is only the beginning, as the administration has previously mentioned deporting 13 million people. That’s roughly 4%–5% of the national population.

Warnings from history

Glenn cannot overstate the stakes of this transformation. He warns that “80 million people were killed as a result of movements of this sort 80 years ago in a hideous war.” During the first administration of US President George W. Bush and the so-called Global War on Terror, he saw the unitary theory gaining traction. It was used to justify enhanced interrogation techniques. Vice President Dick Cheney’s office ran meetings — even on Chinese policy — where one assistant directly told CIA Officer Glenn, “But YOU are the enemy.”

Glenn sees Trump’s ideological revolution, grounded in a philosophy of executive supremacy and disdain for government institutions, as part of a lineage of authoritarian experiments with devastating consequences.

The danger is clear: The world’s most powerful democracy is sliding into a system that Merriam-Webster itself would define as fascism — a centralized autocratic regime headed by a dictatorial leader, with severe regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition.

[ edited this piece.]

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Raus opens by critiquing the former president’s Inflation Reduction Act, calling it a misnamed policy that lavished billions of dollars in subsidies on solar and wind industries — what he labels “corporate handouts.” He argues these subsidies distorted the energy market by pre-selecting winners rather than letting innovation and consumer demand determine the most effective energy sources.

Raus says solar and wind were favored not because of their reliability or affordability, but because of ideological preferences. Simultaneously, more promising sectors like geothermal and nuclear were sidelined. He sees this as a prejudiced approach that inflated US debt and ignored real technological limitations, such as the poor performance of solar batteries.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act levels the playing field

By contrast, Raus praises the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act for eliminating corporate tax credits for solar and wind. He believes this shift allows for a more level playing field, enabling all energy sources to compete based on merit rather than political support.

While state-level subsidies may persist, Raus emphasizes that the federal rollback signals a broader return to consumer-driven energy development — one focused on safety, reliability and affordability. He views the new policy as a correction to what he sees as the prior administration’s ideological overreach, putting economic concerns at the forefront amid ongoing inflation and post-pandemic recovery.

Reframing environmentalism: innovation vs. degrowth

Singh challenges Raus on environmental risks, mentioning that scientists fear Trump’s policy could “cook the planet.” Raus argues that both green and traditional energy projects are stifled by excessive environmental regulation under laws like the National Environmental Policy Act. He advocates for a “pro-growth, pro-innovation” mindset, suggesting that the reform and acceleration of development are key to resolving environmental challenges — not halting progress.

Raus opposes what he calls the “degrowth” movement, claiming it is incompatible with how market economies function. He maintains that removing subsidies doesn’t tilt the scales toward fossil fuels but rather ends government favoritism, allowing the most viable technologies to emerge organically.

Nuclear and geothermal are the next frontier

Raus sees promise in both nuclear and geothermal energy. Geothermal, he states, is finally nearing scalability. Nuclear is regaining public support after years of fear-driven opposition. With growing energy needs from emerging technologies like AI, he believes nuclear energy offers a viable, scalable solution. He notes openness to nuclear energy even among environmentalists and tech giants like Google and Meta, who are investing in that space.

However, Raus cautions that public opinion and geographic siting issues could still pose challenges. He urges broader participation and compromise to avoid turning energy policy into a cultural battle, expressing optimism about bipartisan acceptance of nuclear as a major player in the future energy mix.

The US vs. global energy strategies

Singh points out that the world is moving away from this idea, instead prioritizing green energy. Raus defends the United States’s more market-based approach. He contrasts it with the top-down, state-controlled strategies of the European Union and China — these produce inefficiencies like regulatory overreach, ghost cities and a lack of innovation.

The American system fosters dynamic competition, allowing diverse energy sources to fill specific roles — from residential solar to nuclear-powered AI infrastructure. Raus believes the US has stronger natural resources, international supply chains and modern infrastructure, giving it an edge in both energy and AI. He envisions the US leading by example with a balanced, decentralized approach that other nations may eventually adopt.

Singh and Raus agree that the future of US energy is not about picking one source but embracing a diverse mix. Traditional sources will remain important as newer technologies mature. Raus supports this pragmatic vision and sees it as a reflection of sound policy that prioritizes competition, innovation and consumer needs over government mandates.

[ edited this piece.]

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The mystery of the Epstein files

The phrase Epstein files itself is contested. Do they exist as a coherent dossier? Or are they simply a mass of raw material — documents, recordings and testimonies — collected over years? Trump has publicly insisted, “No, there are no Epstein files,” yet former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi asserted in February, “They’re sitting on my desk.” This contradiction immediately underlines the deep uncertainty surrounding the subject.

Despite the ambiguity, the general assumption is that these files refer to an enormous cache of evidence seized by authorities. Reports claim the Federal Bureau of Investigation collected thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of videos and other documents from sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s properties after his arrest and death in custody. Whether this has been systematically analyzed and compiled or still exists as unprocessed evidence remains unclear. What is certain, however, is that public pressure continues to mount for their disclosure.

The conversation also highlights Epstein collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell’s central role. American lawyer Alan Dershowitz once remarked that she “knows everything.” But even if she does, can she be compelled to speak honestly and comprehensively? Peter and Kaitlyn say this uncertainty makes the entire affair even more combustible.

Trump’s promises, broken and reversed

A major focus of the discussion is Trump’s shifting stance. While campaigning for the presidency in 2024, Trump promised repeatedly to release the Epstein files and expose the truth. But once in power, he reversed course, casting doubt on the files’ very existence.

Kaitlyn interprets this as a familiar Trump tactic. “He just lies to his followers,” she states bluntly. She recalls his infamous boast that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support, arguing that this cynical view of loyalty is now rebounding against him. Some of Trump’s base have grown disillusioned because of his inaction on Epstein. What once seemed like a weapon against Democrats has become a source of doubt.

Peter agrees that Trump lied, but nuances Kaitlyn’s position. While Trump assumed supporters would always fall in line, he is now facing unexpected defections. Figures like former strategist Steve Bannon, Turning Point USA nonprofit founder Charlie Kirk and former special government employee Elon Musk have distanced themselves. Peter broadens the perspective: “Everybody lies, but Trump is particularly egregious … He doesn’t try to cover his tracks.”

Another reason for Trump’s original push, Peter suggests, was his campaign against the so-called “deep state.” Epstein’s rumored intelligence ties made the case an ideal rhetorical weapon to dramatize the “swamp” Trump pledged to drain. But his personal ties to Epstein made that strategy self-defeating. His hope that those links would be ignored has proven false.

Epstein, intelligence and the deep state

The discussion turns toward Epstein’s puzzling rise and mysterious connections. How did a college dropout and former math teacher amass such influence and wealth? Alexander Acosta, who as US attorney oversaw Epstein’s controversial plea deal in 2008, allegedly told investigators that Epstein “belongs to intelligence.” This phrase, Peter notes, suggests higher powers ordered leniency.

Peter speculates that Epstein’s case represents a web of intelligence involvement designed to remain hidden. Reporter Clara Ward’s coverage, he recalls, cited testimony that Acosta explained his hands were tied; Epstein’s protection came from above his pay grade.

The conversation also considers Epstein’s ties through Ghislaine Maxwell to her father, Robert Maxwell, long rumored to have worked with Israel’s national intelligence agency, the Mossad. If Epstein was indeed an intelligence asset, it may have involved cooperation among the Mossad, the CIA and Britain’s MI6.

Peter stresses he isn’t asserting proof, but highlighting plausible storylines. For him, this intelligence angle is a vital part of the Epstein affair and potentially the most dangerous contradiction for Trump. He compares it to ongoing revelations about CIA involvement in past American traumas — the assassinations of US President John F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. — arguing that the Epstein affair fits into a broader history of deep state secrecy.

MAGA cracks begin to show

The Epstein files debate, Peter and Kaitlyn agree, has fractured Trump’s MAGA coalition. Some supporters demand disclosure while others reflexively defend Trump’s retreat.

Kaitlyn remarks that many are realizing Trump is the figure the political left always warned he was. Yet his sexual scandals are not decisive for his base, who long ago proved willing to excuse them. Instead, she sees psychological contortions — cognitive dissonance and narrative rewrites — allowing defenders to rationalize his U-turn. Still, she remains uncertain how far loyalty can stretch this time.

Peter argues a “major change in the landscape” is underway. If Trump loses enough support, Republicans will face an identity crisis. He mentions rumors of Vice President JD Vance and other rising figures preparing to step into the vacuum, perhaps even trying to humiliate Trump in the process.

Elon Musk, Rasputin or pretender?

The conversation then turns to Musk, who once reportedly donated over $100 million to Trump’s cause but now openly breaks with him. On his platform X, Musk demands a release of the Epstein files.

Peter is unsurprised by the fallout, given Trump’s and Musk’s egos. He believes Musk is positioning himself as a political manipulator, though he doubts he can succeed. Kaitlyn, however, views Musk as a dangerous opportunist. “He’s like the modern-day Rasputin,” she says, arguing that he is attempting to seize Trump’s disillusioned followers and build his own cult of personality.

Can Musk credibly enter politics? Peter doubts Americans see him as ideologically serious. Kaitlyn, however, thinks his celebrity power and alignment with Trump-like populism could propel him into politics, given how unconventional candidates have succeeded before. She recalls controversy over whether Musk performed a Nazi salute on television, treating it as a hint at extremist sympathies.

Still, Peter insists Musk cannot replace Trump. He likens Musk’s prospects to those of US President Ronald Reagan, once dismissed as a cartoonish actor, but quickly adds that American politics is now so unpredictable that almost anything is possible. Kaitlyn concedes Musk would probably need to pursue the Republican nomination rather than a third-party bid, and even then, it would be a long-term play.

They also address the constitutional obstacle: Musk’s South African birth bars him from the presidency unless the US Constitution is amended. Kaitlyn acknowledges that Americans have cherry-picked constitutional clauses to suit elites before, but she doubts Trump himself would champion reform, given his anti-immigration stance.

Democrats smell blood

Turning to the Democratic Party, Peter and Kaitlyn outline a strategy of opportunism. Democrats, Peter says, have always obsessed over portraying Trump as an “outsized villain,” from the Access Hollywood tape in 2016 — a 2005 recording of Trump telling television host Billy Bush about his history of sexual harassment — to his current Epstein entanglements. Now they sense an opening to use the scandal against him.

A crucial part of that strategy, Peter suggests, is their willingness to sacrifice US President Bill Clinton. During US President Joe Biden’s administration, exposing Clinton’s Epstein ties was too costly. But now, with Bill Clinton aged and former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sidelined, Democrats may accept collateral damage if it means fatally wounding Trump. Kaitlyn agrees, describing a spiderweb effect that could entangle numerous elites, not just Clinton. In her view, Democrats are willing to “shoot themselves in the foot” if that is the price of defeating Trump.

What if the files are released?

Finally, the speakers consider what the release of the files might mean. Kaitlyn foresees a massive scandal, possibly involving politicians, tech billionaires, media moguls and especially Hollywood. The impact, she believes, would ripple far beyond government, damaging entertainment and culture itself.

Peter, meanwhile, stresses the deeper revelation: The exposure of a transpartisan elite “big club” where ideology is irrelevant and power, pleasure and secrecy rule. If this truth emerges, he warns, Americans’ understanding of their country could change permanently.

Above all, Peter insists the intelligence dimension is decisive. If these agencies fail to maintain secrecy, revelations could stretch beyond sexual scandal to matters of war and covert regime change. He predicts fierce resistance, with implicated actors colluding to bury the truth. Yet he also notes pressure from figures like Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who demands transparency on Epstein. The deep state’s secrets may eventually come under unprecedented scrutiny.

What lies ahead

The Epstein files, whether myth or reality, have already shaken American politics. For Kaitlyn, they reveal Trump’s pattern of manipulation and betrayal. For Peter, they expose intelligence-world shadows and elite complicity. Both agree that the issue is splitting the MAGA movement, tempting Musk into politics and giving Democrats a new weapon.

But the greatest unknown remains: Will the files ever be released? If they are, will they confirm suspicions of individual depravity or something even more profound: a system of elite power that transcends parties and nations?

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: What Are the Epstein Files and Why Is Trump Trying To Stop the Release Now? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

When analyzing any form of public discourse, we need to realize that when something is revealed, something else, possibly more significant, may be concealed. The idea of coding has acquired special importance in the digital age. Only recently, just before the revelation of artificial intelligence, youngsters were told to learn to code if they wanted to get a job.

Language is a code of communication. Coding can be direct and simple. We call that kind of coding “informative.” Apparently, it’s also possible to code disinformation and misinformation. In the world of public discourse and legacy journalism, politicians, pundits and reporters sometimes twist the valuable information they provide to hide what they, their party leaders or their editors don’t want us to see.

The summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that took place in Anchorage, Alaska, earlier this month inspired two seasoned journalists to use the expression “code for” (in one case a verb, in the other a noun) to reveal exactly how that process of concealing unwanted meaning works. The first example comes from author Mansur Mirovalev’s for the news publication Al Jazeera, bearing the title: “‘Feeding a narcissist:’ Ukraine reflects on Trump-Putin summit.” The author begins by citing what is an undeniable fact:

“Putin said the ‘root causes’ of the war should be addressed before any ceasefire or real steps towards a peace settlement are made.”

It’s a straightforward fact that shouldn’t be difficult for Al Jazeera’s readers to understand. We might even call it common sense. The Russians have repeatedly insisted on returning to the “root causes” or historical context of the conflict. Understanding the motivation of the parties involved is critical to conflict resolution. The website helpfully reminds us with this title of its article on the topic: “The First Step in Properly Understanding Conflict: Identifying the Sources.”

But journalists, their editors or employers may feel impelled to do the opposite. Depending on their intent, they may want to present historical reality as an unnecessary distraction. Here is Mirovalev’s gloss on Russia’s demand:

“‘Root causes’ is Putin’s code for rejecting Ukraine’s existence outside Moscow’s political shadow and denying its very sovereignty.”

Now, this is manifestly misleading, if not patently dishonest. His claim that Putin is “rejecting Ukraine’s existence” is unfounded and undocumented; in other words, it is invented. It’s the journalist who’s using the ploy of “code for” to reject out of hand the idea that examining root causes has any validity.

Our second example is an by East and Central Europe Bureau Chief Andrew Higgins of The New York Times with the title: “Putin Sees Ukraine Through a Lens of Grievance Over Lost Glory.” Another example of assuming without evidence what’s on Putin’s mind.

“President Vladimir V. Putin made clear after his meeting in Alaska with President Trump that his deepest concern is not an end to three and a half years of bloodshed. Rather, it is with what he called the “situation around Ukraine,” code for his standard litany of grievances over Russia’s lost glory.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Code for:

A journalistic trope designed to make readers forget what they know about the literal meaning of words and believe a meaning contrary to both the dictionary and common sense. 

Contextual note

Far be it from a Devil’s Dictionary to insist that people should trust dictionaries to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. At best, dictionaries list the usual denotative sense of words as they have occurred in both the literary and spoken tradition. Because dictionaries avoid speculating on the theoretically infinite number of contexts in which a word can be used, they cannot account for intentional distortion or rhetorical effects, such as sarcasm, that can quite simply invert the meaning of a word.

In the two cases cited above, we are witnessing a journalistic practice common in an era like our own that encourages and even requires exaggerated propaganda. The trick these two jouranlists have used is to mix with the facts they present a fabricated “insight” claimed to be the result of the journalists’ inside knowledge or superior intellectual authority. They then call this an act of “decoding” or interpreting for the sake of the ignorant.

Why should I criticize that practice? In some sense, that is precisely what a Devil’s Dictionary attempts to do. The difference is that when we assume the identity of the devil, we are announcing an act of studied cleverness, or even perversity. We expect no one will take it seriously or believe that it’s the “true” definition.��

But there is another important difference. A Devil’s Dictionary definition is a direct invitation to explore context, investigate ambiguity, dig more deeply into an issue than simply accepting either what the initial quote contained or what the devil’s new definition implies.

Historical note

Ambrose Bierce, the brilliant novelist and journalist who authored the Devil’s Dictionary, redefined words to satirize the popular political, institutional, social and economic culture of his time. Here is his reflection on the nuclear family in the United States of his era.

“MARRIAGE: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.”

Although this sounds contrary to common sense because of its contestable arithmetic, its absurdity reveals a perception that many married people might acknowledge: that the state of marriage deprives both the husband and wife of the glorious freedom they enjoyed before marriage. Were he writing in today’s age of woke, we can imagine that his editor might oblige him to revise the definition in the following cumbersome way:

“MARRIAGE: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress (or two masters and two mistresses), and two slaves, making in all, two.”

After which, his truly woke editor might even tell him to change “two masters and two mistresses” to “two masters and two masteresses” on the grounds that the term mistress is in itself .

Here’s another of Bierce’s definitions, this time related to his profession of journalism:

“EDITOR: A person who combines the duties of a censor, a copy-reader, a news-gatherer, and a reporter. To the virtues of all these he adds the vices of none.”

I suspect that both journalists mentioned above — Mirovalev and Higgens — might be tempted to agree with Bierce’s definition of their boss. Bierce’s irony suggests that an editor, by combining these diverse and contradictory roles, is, to invert the proverb, the master of all trades and a jack of none, ready to compromise in the name of respecting “superior” constraints. Bierce’s contention that the editor lacks the corresponding vices has the wonderful ironic effect of defining the editor as a soulless, puritanical authority whose business as a censor ensures that the naked truth (God forbid!) will never appear, but rather a carefully sanitized version of it.

Had Mirovalev and Higgens taken seriously their role as journalists, they would at some point have alluded to the importance of understanding “root causes” might have in the context of negotiating the kind of peace treaty Trump and Putin agreed to promote. Rather than claiming to decode it (and change its meaning), they could have done what our Devil’s Dictionary has systematically done throughout its history since 2017. We examine the use not only in its contemporary context, but also further back in history.

The propaganda machine churning away at the core of our legacy media since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has labored at inventing ways to avoid or exclude historical context. The use of the expression “code for” is just one trivial example. Clearly, the best documented ploy has been the endlessly repetitive insistence on labeling the action Putin termed a “Special Military Operation” an “unprovoked full-scale invasion.” That is the official that then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s State Department provided, inviting every editor in the legacy media to repeat the adjective “unprovoked” whenever referring to the war in Ukraine. Abolishing history requires a concerted, well-managed effort.

��As many, including economist Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Horton (author of How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine) and many others have signaled, Blinken’s State Department categorically refused to discuss Putin’s formal request to analyze the root causes at a time when the war could have been avoided, in December 2021. Several months later, the Western allies of Ukraine instructed Ukraine to refuse an already negotiated and initial peace deal based on an examination of the root causes.

That would have left Ukraine intact, with the question of Crimea to be decided in an undefined future. But then, as now, our authorities and news services are seeking to uproot the very idea of root causes.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Anchorage summit: a triumph for Putin

Glenn opens with a stark assessment of Trump’s relationship with Russia. He calls it “bizarre” and suggests that Trump is, at the very least, manipulated by Russian intelligence. He argues that Trump often echoes Russian foreign policy talking points verbatim, making him one of the easiest political figures for Moscow to influence. For Glenn, the Anchorage summit is nothing less than a symbolic and practical victory for Putin. By meeting with the world’s leading sanctioning power, Putin breaks out of the containment imposed since the Ukraine invasion.

Glenn dismisses Trump’s pre-summit tough rhetoric as little more than tactical posturing, perhaps designed to create leverage or even burnish his credentials for a Nobel Prize. From Glenn’s perspective, the meeting yields nothing for Washington while granting Russia international legitimacy. He concludes that Trump achieves his personal goal — being the center of attention and restoring Putin’s prominence — while Europe is sidelined and Ukraine left in a vulnerable position.

Gary echoes this view, calling Trump’s treatment of Putin “bizarre, uncanny and solicitous,” almost as if Trump is a subordinate. He highlights Putin’s deliberate tactic of keeping the US president waiting — a classic power play in diplomacy designed to show dominance. For Gary, Trump’s behavior upon greeting Putin is shocking for a US president and signals weakness rather than resolve.

Gary goes further by analyzing Putin’s body language, which he interprets as a display of dominance shaped by the Russian leader’s background in judo. Putin’s habit of speaking at length, he argues, is a strategic move to frame his vision as the superior approach. Trump seems to accept this by abandoning demands for a ceasefire.

Instead, Trump moves toward Putin’s preferred path of a swift “peace plan.” Gary warns that genuine peace agreements are complex and time-consuming, and Trump’s negotiating team lacks the experience to manage such intricacies. In his view, Trump essentially concedes on the ceasefire while Putin flatters Trump with dubious claims, such as saying Trump won the 2020 election and that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine under his presidency. Gary dismisses these as manipulative falsehoods.

A Russian journalist describes the event as a “total victory for Russia and for Putin.” Both Gary and Glenn find this judgment accurate. Glenn reiterates that Trump has no coherent strategy, only the desire to appear successful in the moment. Trump’s foreign policy, he argues, is not guided by principles or philosophy but by self-interest and personal image.

Atul sums up the consensus: The United States gains nothing, Putin emerges as a clear winner and Trump, in his own mind, wins by being the center of attention.

The Washington summit: damage control or crisis?

The Washington follow-up summit was meant to address the fallout from Anchorage, but brought mixed results. Gary notes that Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prompts the latter to seek a meeting in Washington. This is significant, given Zelenskyy’s bruising experience in February when US Vice President JD Vance publicly told him to capitulate, straining US–Ukraine relations.

Gary believes the presence of European leaders at the Washington summit helped prevent a repeat of that debacle. Trump’s talk of territorial concessions, however, unsettled Zelenskyy and European allies, raising fears of a US pivot toward Russian terms. While some US officials floated the possibility of peacekeeping missions, Gary warns such assurances could vanish quickly if not endorsed directly by Trump.

Atul asks whether the Washington summit amounts to damage control. Gary agrees, though he doubts that is the official intention. Glenn, in typically blunt terms, describes the event as moving from “the jaws of a definitive catastrophe” — namely the collapse of Ukraine, NATO’s unraveling and Russia’s absorption of Central Europe — to a severe crisis. He likens this to shifting from certain death to “fourth-stage cancer.” His advice to Europe is clear: Stay close to the US but prepare to defend yourselves independently. Europe, he argues, has shown more capability and resilience than expected, but reliance on Trump’s America is risky.

Style, strategy and strain: reactions to Zelenskyy and Europe

At this point, Atul introduces three journalistic observations:

Zelenskyy’s appearance: Some European journalists criticize his all-black attire and angled chair as brash. Glenn dismisses such concerns, praising Zelenskyy for presenting himself as a wartime leader rather than a supplicant.

European leaders’ weakness: Most, apart from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, face domestic political fragility due to economic hardship and low approval ratings. Glenn attributes these vulnerabilities to broader social strains such as modernization and immigration, but insists their support for Ukraine is rational and necessary. Gary acknowledges the fragility but emphasizes that the public understands the importance of standing behind Ukraine and NATO.

Zelenskyy as a “dead man walking:” Some commentators suggest his thin-skinned behavior, corruption scandals and dwindling US support undermine his leadership. Glenn admits he is starting to see troubling signs, citing showing Ukrainians’ desire for peace. Gary, however, strongly rejects such polls as misleading. He stresses that large majorities of Ukrainians oppose territorial concessions, comparing pro-peace responses to vague platitudes like “motherhood and apple pie.”

The two experts diverge on polling but agree that European unity on defending Ukraine remains strong. Leaders may overstate praise for Trump to keep him engaged, but Gary worries about the lack of substantive detail in Washington. Both warn that Trump’s negotiating team lacks the expertise for serious diplomacy.

Patterns of aggression and fragile diplomacy

Glenn broadens the lens, pointing to Russia’s record of unchecked aggressions — in Montenegro, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Moldova, Estonia, Crimea and Ukraine. He argues that the West has consistently ignored these actions, responding only with vague calls for peace. For him, Trump represents a continuation of this failure, offering little interest in complex policy and even less capacity for nuanced statecraft.

Gary, only “microscopically” more optimistic after Washington than Anchorage, hopes Zelenskyy and European leaders can persuade Trump of Ukraine’s security importance. He underscores the brutality of Putin’s policy, particularly the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, who are placed in Russian families — a tactic with long-term consequences.

Looking ahead: pressure, politics and possibilities

The final portion of the discussion looks ahead. Atul raises two questions: the influence of domestic pressures in Europe, particularly among Muslim populations who see Western support for Ukraine as biased compared to Gaza, and the Republican narrative in Washington portraying Europe as weak and dependent.

Gary believes Trump remains fixated on staging a trilateral summit with Putin and Zelenskyy, though he doubts Putin’s willingness to participate. Without major US financial commitments — perhaps $50–80 billion — Russia has little incentive to engage. NATO’s future, he warns, is tied directly to the Ukraine question. Keeping Trump involved, possibly with the prospect of a Nobel Prize, might help, but Gary doubts Trump will take substantive steps.

Glenn, however, sees a potential path forward. He notes that the US could provide arms to NATO countries, which could then transfer them to Ukraine, allowing Trump to maintain his pro-Putin image without entirely abandoning Kyiv. This arrangement, he argues, might be the most plausible near-term strategy. Ultimately, he lays out two possible outcomes: Either Ukraine collapses or it is sustained by European and American support until Putin is forced to halt or accept defeat.

The future hangs in the balance

The discussion paints a sobering picture of Trump’s foreign policy approach. For Glenn, Trump is a leader driven solely by self-image, easily manipulated yet impossible to control. For Gary, Trump’s diplomatic style is reckless and devoid of substance, leaving NATO allies anxious and Ukraine imperiled. Both agree that Putin emerges strengthened from Anchorage and that Washington offers only a slight reprieve from disaster.

In their eyes, the uncertainty of Trump’s summits reflects a deeper crisis in transatlantic relations, where Europe must prepare to defend itself while still relying on an unpredictable US. The stakes, they conclude, are nothing less than Ukraine’s survival and NATO’s future.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Live: Trump Hands Putin a Win in Alaska as Zelenskyy and EU Leaders Huddle in the White House appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Breaking from negotiations, Trump’s tariff salvo was an attempt to address simmering tensions in the Indo-US relationship by leaning on Pakistan through an oil deal and tariff concessions. Was this sudden shift a product of Trump’s ambitious economic agenda, or a mask for strategic signaling and transactional politics in this trade affair?

The latter seems likely, given America’s history of using deliberately exhaustive trade talks as a strategic tool to exert pressure on other nations, extract concessions or advance broader strategic objectives.

The deal

India was negotiating a Bilateral Trade Agreement () with the US, which began in February. By April, an had been drawn, reflecting US priorities of reducing India’s trade barriers and addressing its $45.7 billion goods trade deficit. From February to July, negotiations grew tense as India refused to liberalize or open up its agricultural and dairy sectors to US markets. India also pressed for , including lower US duties on steel (50%) and aluminum (25%), and preferential access for labor-intensive exports such as textiles, gems, jewelry and IT services. In return, India signaled willingness to provide the US greater market access.

However, apart from these two sticking points, India also US demands for reduced tariffs on auto components and acceptance of US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, prioritizing its domestic industry and the campaign. Similarly, regarding non-tariff barriers, the US India’s Quality Control Orders (QCOs) and import regulations, which it viewed as barriers to market access for US goods. However, India defended them on the grounds of consumer and domestic industry safety.����

Trump’s negotiation style

The negotiations thus offered potential gains for both sides, but the costs and contentions were high. It made them intense and rigorous, conditions ill-suited to Trump’s negotiating style. The US’s negotiating approach under Trump, specific to trade and tariff issues, has been unconventional and rushed. 

A recent deal with Vietnam was concluded hastily under pressure. The US exploited Vietnam’s trade surplus and export dependence, using tariff threats and prolonged talks to secure concessions. Despite months of negotiation and goodwill gestures, such as liquified natural gas (LNG) deals, Vietnam ended up facing a and transshipment penalties — far less favorable than its proposed 0% reciprocal tariff.��

Similar tactics were seen with countries like Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and many more. These examples illustrate Washington’s tactics of achieving win-win trade deals, even with allies and partners, demonstrating how transactional diplomacy now colors their trade relations. 

However, a closer look suggests that economic or trade calculations do not solely drive these deals. The US is using these trade deals as geopolitical tools — deliberately exhaustive negotiations to push countries toward aligning with its strategic objectives.

Economic attrition diplomacy

Economic attrition diplomacy involves leveraging prolonged trade negotiations to pressure a counterpart into aligning with geopolitical goals, often by creating economic uncertainty or exploiting asymmetric dependencies.

Vietnam’s case illustrates this. The US Hanoi to cut reliance on Chinese industrial goods and curb transshipments, directly serving its anti-China agenda. The negotiations were lengthy, with multiple rounds reflecting prolonged and exhaustive talks to force Vietnam to concur with the deal, leaving it little room to maneuver.

The cases of Indonesia and Japan are also noteworthy. The US pressured Indonesia to align its anti-China goals, primarily due to Indonesia’s attempt to diversify trade with members, and a investment deal with China made in November 2024.��

In the case of Japan, Trump their bilateral relations by escalating dramatically: threatening 25% tariffs, then actually imposing them on Japanese goods, including automobiles, effective August 1. This was an unprecedented move against a US ally. Japan, burdened by its trade surplus and alliance status, yielded partial concessions under tariff threats and geopolitical pressure.��

South Korea, too, faced a tariff of 25% in July, and ended up with a 15% “reciprocal” tariff, effective August 1. The US sought geopolitical advantages from Korea, pressuring it to increase dependency on US purchases, specifically F-35 fighter jets. Although no deal was finalized, South Korea greater market access for US goods, as well as defense commitments to avoid higher tariffs.��

These tactics reveal that US trade negotiations often serve a larger purpose: pushing countries to align with its under the guise of economic bargaining. These echo Washington’s action from five years ago, when it used diplomacy against China. The US attempted to curb China’s technological rise by targeting firms like Huawei, pressured China on issues like intellectual property theft and signaled strength to its own allies.��

During trade negotiations, the US repeatedly escalated tariffs and introduced complex demands, including structural changes to China’s economy, prolonging the uncertainty and pressuring China. Subsequently, China yielded partial concessions, providing the US with some limited success.

Aggressive attrition driven by frustration

Unlike other countries that faced standard coercion from the US with only tariff threats, India was hit with multiple salvos — tariffs, penalties and an embrace of Pakistan. The reasons were clear: the Russia factor, trade with Iran and India’s non-compromising posture during trade negotiations.

This aggressive attrition behavior is motivated by geopolitical frustration, something the US is familiar with acting on. In the 1930s and 1940s, US economic attrition against Japan, driven by frustration, culminated in the of 1941, contributing to the escalation of World War II. Negotiations were prolonged. The US demanded Japan withdraw from China and Indo-China, while Japan sought recognition of its territorial gains, creating a deadlock with no progress.��

A similar situation is unfolding between the US and India today, where the former harbours geopolitical suspicion over India’s relationships with Iran and Russia, alongside deadlocked trade demands. These factors have likely fueled frustration and driven the US to send a strong strategic message by escalating risks and attrition, perhaps setting an example on the global stage.

Unconventional transactionalism: India must reassess its strategy

India must read the negotiating table more carefully and patiently, adopting measured and mixed negotiating styles instead of a confrontational approach, which at times frustrates the US. 

As India looks toward the prospect of a mini-deal by September-October, it should aim for strategic prolongation — progress with limited concessions — rather than dragging talks with no real progress. This will create more room for negotiations and reduce US frustration to some extent. 

India must also leverage its geopolitical value and diversify its trade relationships with Europe and other countries. This will strengthen India’s bargaining position, soften US demands and deter extreme measures. 

A similar approach saved South Korea from higher tariffs despite having no deal with the US, as South Korea adopted strategic prolongation, used measured negotiation tactics offering room via concessions and resisted hasty or pressured deals. 

India must remember that Trump is a master at playing unconventional transactional cards, where deals are more important than relations. India should demonstrate that an agreement is in progress and that there is something on the table, rather than leaving it empty.

[ first published a version of this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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51�Թ�’s Video Producer & Social Media Manager, Rohan Khattar Singh, talks with Abdullah O Hayek, an independent Middle East analyst and peace fellow at Young Voices. Hayek assesses Iran’s potential deployment of sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz. He covers the immediate consequences for global shipping and energy markets. He also examines the nation’s capital, Tehran’s, strategic aims, the credibility of the regime’s threat, and the economic, diplomatic and military costs Iran faces.

Disrupting a critical energy chokepoint

Hayek stresses that mining the Strait of Hormuz would instantly threaten one of the world’s most vital energy arteries. The waterway is extremely narrow — less than two miles wide in certain areas — and carries 18 to 20 million barrels of oil and over a billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) each day. This amounts to about 20% of global seaborne petroleum and roughly a quarter of all LNG traded internationally.

Even without detonations, the detection of mines triggers a freeze in tanker traffic as maritime insurers withdraw coverage. Hayek estimates that a small mining campaign halts flows within a week and that clearing a safe corridor takes a month or longer. This causes an immediate and severe energy crisis.

Oil prices spike from $70 to $150 per barrel, hitting Asia’s major importers — China, India, Japan and South Korea — with rationing, higher fuel costs and industrial slowdowns. Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can offset only about half the lost supply. Beyond energy, freight rates surge, supply chains from electronics to agriculture suffer and vulnerable economies face recessionary pressure.

Asymmetrical maritime deterrence

Hayek frames Iran’s approach as part of a broader asymmetrical deterrence strategy that already includes proxies, drones and missiles. Sea mines extend this into maritime warfare. US intelligence recently observed Iranian vessels loaded with mines after US strikes in June, though none were deployed. Hayek sees this as deliberate signaling — a show of capability intended to raise the global costs of escalation.

Historical precedent reinforces the threat: During the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, mining the Gulf sharply drove up oil prices. Domestically, Iran’s parliament passes a near-unanimous, symbolic resolution to close the Strait, underscoring internal unity behind this maritime narrative. Regionally, such a move warns Gulf states and US bases of Tehran’s ability to disrupt their energy lifelines at will. Globally, it aims to strengthen Iran’s position in nuclear or sanctions talks.

A credible and diverse arsenal

Iran’s mines need to be taken seriously. Hayek cites estimates of 5,000 to 6,000 mines in the country’s arsenal, including bottom, contact, acoustic, pressure-sensor, drifting, limpet and rocket-assisted types. This variety, he argues, makes the Gulf “a living hell” for shipping. Even partial mining can be nearly as effective as a full closure, as the threat alone deters operations.

Iran’s naval capabilities, including midget submarines, fast attack boats, drone swarms and missiles, complicate clearance operations and heighten risks for countermine forces. Hayek’s conclusion is unequivocal: Iran has the means, geography and intent to create serious disruption.

The costs of escalation

Hayek also outlines why Iran may hesitate:

• Economic costs: Mining the Strait effectively cuts off its own oil exports — 1.5 to two million barrels per day — much of which goes to China. For an already-sanctioned economy, losing this revenue is “economic suicide.” Short-term price spikes do not compensate for lost volume.
• Diplomatic costs: Major customers like China, India, Japan and South Korea condemn the move. Even Russia may caution against it as short-sighted. Gulf states could accelerate alternative pipelines and LNG routes, permanently eroding Iran’s leverage.
• Military costs: A closure attempt justifies a broad US-led military response, potentially resembling the 1991 coalition against Iraq. Such action could inflict civilian casualties, damaging Iran’s domestic legitimacy and fueling regime-change sentiment.

Washington’s calculus

Turning to US politics, Hayek notes US President Donald Trump’s longstanding opposition to new wars and emphasis on ending existing conflicts. Within the Make America Great Again movement, there is strong resistance to direct intervention, even in the face of Iranian provocations. Hayek argues that deploying US troops to Iran would be “Iraq 2.0” — a decade-long conflict with global and domestic consequences.

Instead, Hayek recommends that Washington equip regional allies to manage the crisis, resorting to military measures only if diplomacy fails. Iran, he warns, is “the most difficult hardened adversary” the United States has faced. It has a tricky blend of population size, missile capability, drones and asymmetrical naval tactics that complicates any conventional campaign.

Regional power and the question of regime change

Hayek states his personal support for regime change in Tehran but insists it should come from within, led by Iranians themselves. Iran continues to wield regional influence through asymmetrical tools while remaining an international pariah, isolated economically and diplomatically. Total collapse appears unlikely in the near term, though economic crisis, severe inflation, mass protests, elite divisions and major military losses could open a path to change.

Hayek cautions that foreign intervention only strengthens the regime’s image and rallies nationalist support, as seen during the June conflict. The most plausible path to change, he argues, is sustained domestic protest and strategic patience from global powers.

To conclude, Khattar Singh notes that Iran still sees itself in an ongoing struggle with regional and global powers. The Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the broader Middle East remain volatile despite pauses in open fighting. Hayek’s analysis underscores that while mining the Strait could give Iran short-term leverage, the long-term costs — economic, diplomatic and military — risk being devastating for both Tehran and the global economy.

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For decades, US policy debates have been split between Democrats favoring diplomacy and sanctions, and Republicans or hawkish Democrats backing direct military measures. Although US President Donald Trump campaigns against “never-ending wars,” Zunes argues his administration shows readiness to back action against Iran, either directly or via Israel, calling recent US-supported airstrikes on Iranian territory a “dangerous escalation” that risks destabilizing the wider region and provoking further retaliatory cycles.

He stresses that such strikes violate the United Nations Charter, which permits force only in self-defense or with Security Council approval. Customary international law allows for preemptive military action, but it is narrowly defined. Zunes maintains that Iran is “years away” from a bomb.

He also criticizes Trump’s disregard for US constitutional requirements, noting that offensive operations require Congressional approval under the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. On Trump’s push for a new Iran deal, Zunes says abandoning the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) undermines credibility. This agreement from the era of US President Barack Obama makes it “physically impossible for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.” In Zunes’s view, Trump’s claim that he can negotiate better terms is “naive or disingenuous,” reflecting a strategy to weaken Iran rather than resolve the nuclear dispute.

Iran’s foreign ties and nuclear ambitions

Zunes describes Iran’s growing links with Russia and China, including arms sales to Russia and oil exports to China, as an “alliance of convenience” rather than an ideological partnership. He doubts these relationships will significantly alter the regional balance, noting that both powers see Iran as a problematic partner with its own agenda and internal contradictions.

On the nuclear question, Zunes says there is “no indication” Iran has decided to build a warhead, though it began enriching uranium beyond JCPOA limits after the US withdrawal. He recalls Iran’s earlier weapons research in the late 1990s and early 2000s, largely driven by fears of Iraq, but says there is no evidence of such work since.

Zunes warns that bombings could convince Iranian leaders they need a deterrent, citing Iraq’s invasion after disarmament versus North Korea’s survival with nuclear arms. He calls Iran’s civilian nuclear program “unnecessarily provocative” given its energy resources and ability to import nuclear materials for peaceful purposes. While Western responses are aggressive, he says Iran could take steps to ease tensions and signal a genuine interest in reducing hostilities.

National pride, regional role and Gulf state positions

Even Iranians who oppose the regime, Zunes says, resent being singled out when other regional states possess nuclear weapons. He believes recent conflicts strengthen hardliners and weaken opposition movements that struggle to organize under restrictive conditions.

In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions but remain wary of military escalation, recognizing that war could destabilize the region and threaten vital shipping routes. These monarchies, Zunes argues, take a more pragmatic approach than Washington, accepting Iran’s influence and acknowledging the need for negotiation.

Israel–Iran tensions and strategic calculations

Zunes notes Israel’s recent strikes across the Middle East and the damage caused by Iranian missile attacks — a rare experience for Israeli cities. While some Israeli leaders may prefer caution, he identifies hardliners who benefit from prolonging the Iran crisis, as it shifts international focus from Gaza and alleged Israeli war crimes. These hawks often frame the confrontation as existential in order to consolidate domestic political support and deter compromise.

Zunes predicts an ongoing pattern of low-level confrontation rather than a large-scale war.

The Palestinian question and the shifting debate

The Israel–Iran conflict diverts attention from Gaza, where Zunes has long supported a two-state solution. He argues that settlement expansion and US backing make such a solution increasingly impossible, shifting the conversation toward an apartheid framework. Citing major human rights organizations, he says Israel’s system meets the legal definition of apartheid and warns that unconditional US support may face growing political resistance, particularly among younger Americans and within some progressive movements.

Zunes maintains that arguments should be rooted in universal human rights and international law rather than ideology. Continued settlement expansion, he warns, harms Palestinians, fuels extremism and undermines the global legal order.

This erosion of the rules-based order produces ripple effects far beyond the Israel–Palestine context, weakening the credibility of international institutions in conflicts from Ukraine to the Western Sahara. In the US, he sees a widening divide between the political establishment and grassroots activists, with the latter increasingly vocal in demanding conditional aid and sanctions.

European allies, while slower to shift their stances, face internal pressure from civil society and political opposition parties to align policy with human rights law rather than strategic expedience. These dynamics, Zunes suggests, could reshape the diplomatic landscape over the next decade.

While he fears it may be too late for a two-state solution, he insists that international law must guide all discussions.

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At the summit, Europe pledged to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense and 1.5% on areas like cybersecurity and infrastructure, totaling 5%. Greminger sees political resolve to invest more, but doubts all NATO members can or will reach the target. He believes it is largely a concession to please Washington.

Meeting the 5% target could undermine social stability

Singh presses on where Europe will get its funds, given its aging populations, high debt and fragile welfare systems. Greminger predicts significant “crowding out” of spending on health, education, diplomacy and other needs. Such trade-offs could fuel populism on both ends of the political spectrum. He agrees that the political backlash could be substantial if social safety nets erode in pursuit of military targets.

Europe faces a security threat mix that stretches resources thin

Greminger outlines Europe’s security environment as a mix of conventional military risks, primarily from Russia, and hybrid threats like cyberattacks and disinformation. Transnational dangers such as terrorism, violent extremism and trafficking persist, while climate change emerges as a new factor. Politicians face the challenge of stretching limited resources across defense, national resilience and social cohesion.

Globalization’s uneven rewards are weakening social cohesion

Addressing Singh’s intelligence concerns about marginalized youth — both disenfranchised Muslim communities and alienated working-class whites — Greminger says these trends have been building for over a decade. He links them to dissatisfaction with globalization, where perceptions of unequal benefit outweigh objective gains. Left unresolved, this discontent could undermine social cohesion across Europe, including in Switzerland.

Strategic autonomy is rising but Europe’s defense industry lags

Though the current trends are not a formal doctrine, Greminger sees growing determination to reduce dependence on Washington’s “moods” and unpredictability. Europeans have made efforts to unify major players, like the EU three — France, Germany and Italy — and strengthen independent capabilities. He suggests Trump may ironically be remembered as a promoter of European strategic autonomy.

Europe’s defense sector is not yet able to meet its demand, meaning militaries will continue buying US arms in the short to medium term. If the Ukraine war drags on, Europe may reindustrialize its defense base; if the conflict ends on acceptable terms, spending could decline as other priorities reassert themselves.

Trade tensions could erode the transatlantic alliance

Reconciling the US–Europe security partnership with growing trade disputes remains a challenge. Greminger warns that consistently hostile US trade policies will have political repercussions for NATO. Europeans may accept some unfriendly policies to preserve the alliance, but there are limits. Washington should act with care to avoid alienating its partners.

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The Epstein scandal resurfaces

Atul and Glenn open the conversation by acknowledging that while Trump has faced many scandals — indictments, convictions and connections to suspected Russian agents — the Epstein case is gaining unusual traction. Glenn calls the affair both “farce” and “sick,” noting that the pedophilia aspect hits a nerve but is also steeped in conspiracy theories.

Epstein was a wealthy financier who used his fortune and connections to sexually exploit adolescent girls, aided by his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Glenn emphasizes that both were involved in grooming young women under the guise of employment, including as masseuses or assistants, to serve Epstein and his associates.

Atul interjects with a comment on social status and naming conventions, briefly linking the prominence of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s families to elite networks. He and Glenn note Epstein’s properties in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, and his infamous private island in the Virgin Islands, which served as the backdrop for much of the alleged abuse.

Legal troubles and a suspicious death

Epstein was arrested in 2005, convicted and sentenced to just 13 months in prison — a lenient outcome criticized as protecting powerful figures. A non-prosecution agreement shielded others who may have been implicated, including Trump, former US President Bill Clinton and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

The case faded until 2018, when the Miami Herald newspaper interviewed survivors and revived public interest, resulting in Epstein’s rearrest. But before his new trial could begin, he was found dead in his prison cell under circumstances that Glenn and many others find deeply suspicious. Crucial surveillance footage vanished, and the prison guard assigned to watch him inexplicably left his post. Glenn sarcastically compares the event to a “Godfather movie or a Mossad operation.”

Trump, the client list and political blowback

Trump’s name appears repeatedly in the context of Epstein’s social circle. Though no illegal conduct has been publicly linked to Trump, Glenn and Atul explain how the mere association has political consequences — especially since Trump once vowed to release Epstein’s client list to expose elites like the Clintons. Once in office, however, he reportedly backed off after being told his own name appears in the testimony, though not as a client. This U-turn has enraged the conspiracy-minded Make America Great Again (MAGA) base that had hoped Trump would “drain the swamp” and hold elites accountable.

Another political flashpoint is the viral meme, “Epstein didn’t kill himself,” which has become a symbol of deep distrust in American institutions. Glenn expresses his disbelief at the convenient disappearance of the prison video and suggests the scenario reeks of a cover-up. Trump’s base feels betrayed — the justice it was promised never materialized. Glenn quips that Trump has gone from crusading against conspiracies to dismissing them as a distraction.

Impact on the political landscape

Despite the scandal, Glenn notes Trump’s poll numbers remain resilient. While most Americans disapprove of him, many MAGA supporters see the renewed attention to Epstein as just another Democratic attack. Traditional Republicans are divided — some approve, others disapprove and many claim not to know enough. Atul speculates the issue could hurt Republicans in the upcoming midterms, though he acknowledges that such damage might be modest.

Conspiracies, psychology and social media

Atul and Glenn go on to examine how conspiracy theories shape political behavior. Atul compares the dynamic to Soviet-era communists who reversed their beliefs overnight after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, illustrating how tribal loyalty can override facts. Glenn adds that people often cling to the worldview of their “tribal leaders,” regardless of contradictory evidence.

While these psychological patterns aren’t new, social media has radically accelerated their spread.

Glenn shares a personal story about friends who fled the Soviet bloc and were lifelong anti-Russians — until they became fervent Trump supporters. These friends now see any criticism of Trump’s ties to Russia as betrayal, which Glenn finds both tragic and illustrative of the broader social phenomenon. In his view, the Epstein case may create political cracks for Trump, but not an existential collapse. Atul agrees that this scandal may leave a mark, just not a decisive one.

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Atul identifies that both trade deals were finalized while US President Donald Trump was in Scotland, golfing and promoting his properties. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited him in what Atul describes as “homage to Emperor Trump,” resulting in a preliminary EU–US agreement.

US–EU trade agreement: strategic concessions and investments

Under the deal, the US imposed 15% tariffs on European exports — especially automobiles — while exempting aircraft, shipbuilding equipment, chemicals and raw materials. In exchange, the EU agreed to increase imports of American fuel and AI chips and committed to investing $600 billion in the US.

US–Japan trade agreement: lower tariffs, preferential treatment

The US–Japan deal mirrors the EU agreement in many ways but includes unique provisions. Tariffs on Japanese cars and other goods were also set at 15%, while Japan pledged $550 billion in US investments. Notably, Japan secured a guarantee that it will always receive the lowest tariff rates on chips and pharmaceuticals relative to other US trade partners. Unlike the EU deal, there was no joint statement issued with Japan.

Atul’s six takeaways

Atul outlines six key insights into the significance of these agreements:

1. Avoiding trade wars: He believes these deals have prevented a full-blown trade war, avoiding a repeat of 1930s-style protectionism.
2. US global dominance: He calls the US “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” asserting its central role in shaping global trade.
3. Assertion of US power: The US is clearly “throwing its weight around” in international negotiations.
4. EU and Japan’s appeasement: Both partners appear to have yielded to US pressure.
5. Death of the rules-based order: Atul argues that the World Trade Organization is now irrelevant, and the era of multilateralism in trade is effectively over.
6. Rise of VUCA: He warns that these deals are short-lived and unstable, ushering in a future of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in global commerce.

Glenn’s expansive analysis

Glenn largely agrees with Atul but adds depth and concern to the discussion.

1. Impact on Canada: Glenn highlights that Japanese cars will now face lower US tariffs than Canadian ones — despite Canada being a major ally and top trading partner. He warns that these bilateral deals distort trade flows, capital allocation and economic efficiency.
2. Shift from norms to power: He reflects on global critiques of US hegemony, noting that while past accusations of imperialism were often overstated, today’s reality makes them ring true. The world is moving from a flawed normative system to a raw power-based model.
3. Consequences for global order: According to Glenn, almost no country can afford to challenge the US, and while the deals may appear beneficial to Americans, they will erode global and even domestic economic efficiency. He calls this shift “historic and terrible,” driven by figures like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump and his Republican backers.
4. Rising economic instability: Glenn echoes Atul’s concerns about rising VUCA, forecasting inflation, higher interest rates, and supply chain disruptions.

Warning against economic complacency

Glenn critiques what he sees as misplaced economic optimism. He explains that macroeconomic effects take time: Short-term interest rate changes usually show results after six months, while long-term impacts take up to two years. Since the Trump administration’s trade measures are still in their early stages, Glenn warns that the economy hasn’t yet absorbed their consequences.

He points to the historical dangers of high tariffs, recalling the Great Depression and its root causes in trade and capital flow disruption. He finishes with a stark analogy: “The consequences are real… gravity exists, and if the motor stops, the plane will come down.” The implication is clear: Economic reality will catch up, and the outcome won’t be pleasant.

Closing note

Atul concludes this section by highlighting 51�Թ�’s broader economic coverage, with insights from economists like Alex Gloy from Germany, Masaaki Yoshimori from Japan and Manu Sharma from India.

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Legislative drama in Washington

US President Donald Trump secured a major legislative victory with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The bill cleared the House of Representatives before heading to the Senate, where it passed by the slimmest margin possible — 51 to 50 — after Vice President JD Vance cast the deciding vote on July 1. Atul quips that while the 24-hour Senate session showed “stamina,” he could not offer equal praise for senators’s intellect. The bill then returned to the House, passing 218 to 214 largely along party lines on July 3.

Trump signed it into law on July 5, aligning its enactment with the July 4 Independence Day holiday. Atul describes the timing as “all jolly good cause for celebration,” sarcastically adding that “Trump gets to be emperor.”

Despite celebratory rhetoric from the administration, economists projected that the act would inflate the US deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.

Elon Musk responds: outrage and a new political vision

Former Special Government Employee Elon Musk, already estranged from Trump, publicly condemned the OBBBA. He expressed outrage over its fiscal implications and questioned the point of having a debt ceiling if lawmakers repeatedly raise it.

Musk proposed the creation of a new political party to disrupt the dominance of both Republicans and Democrats. He pledged to finance primary challenges against any Republican who voted for the OBBBA, signaling the deepening divide between himself and Trump.

Paramount’s settlement and the CBS shake-up

American mass media and entertainment conglomerate Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library as part of a legal settlement over a lawsuit involving CBS News. Atul dryly comments on the payout: “How wonderful.”

Simultaneously, CBS canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Known for his sharp critiques of Trump, comedian Stephen Colbert had become, in Atul’s words, “inconvenient” to keep employed.

Trump had previously approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with American entertainment company Skydance Media, raising eyebrows. Atul questions whether the $16 million payment was “an act of goodwill for the great leader” or simply “protection money to capo dei capi [Italian: ‘boss of the bosses;’ mafia leader],” suggesting deeper transactional politics at play.

Wall Street booms amid budget woes

Despite deficit concerns and political turbulence, the US stock market soared. The S&P 500 hit a record high, appearing unfazed by trade tensions.

American technology company Nvidia became the world’s first $4 trillion company — its value has surpassed India’s $3.5 trillion GDP. American computer and apparel corporations Oracle and Nike, respectively, also saw major gains. Atul sums up the financial landscape by stating the market was “performing swimmingly well.”

Economic turbulence and policy shifts abroad

In Great Britain, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to support Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves on controversial welfare reforms. Reeves broke down crying in Parliament, and the political drama caused British bonds to plummet.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister François Bayrou declared France “addicted to public spending” and announced a spending freeze. Additionally, he unveiled sweeping cuts, including benefit reductions, a new solidarity tax on the wealthy and even proposals to eliminate public holidays like Easter Monday and Victory in Europe Day. Atul predicts major public protests against this move.

In South America, Jeannette Jara won the Chilean left’s presidential primary, becoming the first communist candidate since the 1973 CIA-backed coup against former President Salvador Allende. Atul sardonically comments, “For all the efforts of the CIA in 1973, you’re still left with the challenge of communism.” Glenn humorously responds, “It was part of the plan.”

Other headlines from around the world

Atul concludes this segment of FO° Exclusive by quickly running through other noteworthy events. Gang violence in Haiti claimed over 3,000 lives in a worsening humanitarian crisis. Australia banned teenagers from accessing the video-sharing platform, YouTube, marking a sharp move in digital regulation. Just as Atul and Glenn prepared to broadcast this episode, Trump announced 25% tariffs and additional import taxes on Indian goods. The administration linked the move to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil.

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A focal point of this erosion is Harvard University, long a symbol of American soft power. Atul states that a legal battle now prevents the university, with its $53 billion endowment and large population of elite foreign students, from admitting any more international students. He sees this as part of a broader crackdown, including a sweeping immigration campaign that Donald Trump has pushed. Under this campaign, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carries out what is described as the largest mass deportation program in US history. It regularly ignores due process and answers protests with military deployments — a rare escalation in US domestic affairs.

Revolutionary shifts in governance and power

Glenn contextualizes these developments as more than political turbulence. They are, in his view, signs of a systemic revolution. He argues the US faces its most profound crisis since 1861, but unlike the American Civil War, today’s upheaval directly targets foundational institutions. At the heart of this shift are two radical ideological projects: Project 2025, which seeks to shrink the federal government to just border control and defense, and the theory of the unitary executive, which would grant the president unchecked authority, modeled after authoritarian regimes like China’s.

Glenn calls the theory “literally revolutionary in intent” and traces its intellectual roots to Carl Schmitt, a legal philosopher who served Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime during World War II. These ideas, he warns, are not theoretical — they’re being translated into policy. The federal deployment of Marines and National Guard troops to California, despite no declared emergency, marks a dangerous centralization of military authority. These actions represent to Glenn a conscious attack on the current American order, aiming to reshape governance, dismantle the post-New Deal consensus and exclude multicultural voices from cultural and political power.

Cultural crisis, social fragmentation and the decline of discourse

Atul and Glenn identify cultural and economic undercurrents fueling this crisis. Atul acknowledges that elite institutions like Harvard are not above criticism — he condemns their chilling effect on speech and the regulatory capture that shields large corporations. But he insists that these problems stem from deeper societal fault lines: a gutted working class, a crisis of affordability in education and housing and a collapsing media ecosystem. The ratio of journalists to public relations professionals has gone from 1:2 in 1998 to 1:10 today, turning political debate into constant spin and leaving voters uninformed.

Glenn underscores the racial and cultural dimensions of this upheaval. He describes a white male elite unwilling to accept the demographic and cultural evolution of America, lashing out to preserve dominance. Harvard, in this context, becomes a symbolic enemy — a stand-in for everything multicultural, intellectual and global. The result, he warns, is a paradigm shift in what is considered normal or acceptable in American society. Glenn reflects on French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville’s warning: When every voice carries equal weight but lacks authority or knowledge, democracy devolves into chaos and the tyranny of the majority takes hold.

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Guided by the laid out in Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, it has scaled back public , reduced labor protections and reaffirmed the aspiration for US hegemony. In line with this agenda, it has issued executive orders to dismantle environmental regulations, expand fossil fuel leasing and reclassify federal workers under —�� a move that undermines civil service protections and bureaucratic neutrality. Several of these measures are already facing from unions and civil rights organizations.

Trump framed his as a fight for “economic sovereignty,” but it largely retools neoliberalism. His administration favors capital over labor, reinforces monopolies through deregulation and tax cuts and promotes trade policies that benefit large firms. These deepen and heighten global tensions.

Trade policy

Donald Trump framed his trade agenda as a bold rejection of globalization. In practice, however, it reinforced many of the very global production networks it sought to disrupt. The centerpiece of this approach — a war with China initiated during his first and intensified in his second — fails to revive American manufacturing. Rather than reshoring jobs, multinational corporations are merely redirecting production partially to other low-wage countries, while a significant fraction remains in China.��

Given the contemporary balance of forces in the world, Trump has been compelled to tariffs as well as export controls on technology to China. This manifestation of strategic weakness (Trump Always Chickens Out or ) has diminished US heft for third-world countries.

To build public support, the administration argues that would shield American workers. However, the real outcomes tell a different story: higher prices, pressure on small manufacturers that are dependent on imports and further consolidation of power among large corporations. Even as Trump talks tough on offshoring, US firms continue to move operations overseas and rely on foreign skilled labor, all while enjoying generous domestic subsidies and tax breaks.

Beneath these outward moves lay deeper, long-standing problems. Years of domestic underinvestment (since foreign investment was more profitable) have left the country’s industrial base hollowed out. Without the infrastructure or labor policies to support a manufacturing revival, protectionist policies, no matter how aggressive, can’t effectively overcome these structural weaknesses.

Trade policy under Trump also signals a broader shift in US foreign strategy. In an effort to drive a between China and Russia, his administration is taking a softer line toward while escalating pressure on Beijing. This recalibration shapes not only trade but also US policy on Ukraine and global technology regulation.��

Recent moves to ostensibly reverse this softening towards Russia lack credibility since the US government lacks the capacity to practice dual containment meaningfully. This lack of capacity to ensure decisive outcomes is also manifested in other foreign policy theatres, including Iran and Israel-Palestine.

Corporate tax cuts and the US dollar

Alongside his trade agenda, Trump deepened the 2017 corporate tax , promising they would unleash economic growth. The reality played out differently. Rather than in production or job creation, corporations funneled the windfall into stock buybacks, executive pay and profit expansion. Workers saw few of the promised benefits.

While Trump voices concerns about the ballooning federal deficit and the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency, his administration’s fiscal actions are inconsistent. On one hand, tariffs and import restrictions invite retaliation that threatens to key trade .��

Moreover, efforts to rein in the deficit the issuance of government debt, a pillar of global dollar demand. Calls to contain the budget deficit reflect expectations on the part of international finance that the US dollar’s role as an international reserve currency is facing significant challenges.��

Despite Trump’s warnings, the BRICS bloc in mid-2025 a cross-border digital payment system denominated in local currencies, bypassing SWIFT and marking a symbolic blow to dollar hegemony.

Attacks on labor and public services

To offset the cost of corporate tax cuts and narrow the deficit, the Trump administration slashed public spending. The newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) deep cuts to federal employment and services, reductions that disproportionately women, communities of color and rural workers. It is important to note that DOGE has come under Congressional for its opaque contracting practices and large-scale outsourcing of federal services, especially in education and housing.

Labor policy took a sharply anti-union turn. The administration “right-to-work” laws, weakened collective bargaining and supported union-busting efforts. As income shifted from wages to profits, consumer demand faltered, undermining employment and economic stability.

Trump speaks of American industry. Yet his labor agenda directly undercut this goal. With wages and minimal worker protections, the domestic necessary to drive manufacturing growth never materialized.

Export controls and technology policy

Facing weak domestic job creation, Trump to export controls and investment restrictions under the banner of national security. His administration is expanding the of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and extending bans on exports of semiconductors and AI to China.

These actions were designed to slow China’s rise in high-tech , and are having mixed results. While US tech firms receive government support in the form of subsidies and contracts, they are also losing access to lucrative Chinese markets. Meanwhile, continues to make technological strides, and the tech sectors of the two countries are increasingly decoupling.��

Ironically, the previously mentioned dilution of export controls on technology is now being presented as a means of decelerating the pace of innovation in China, especially in areas of high technology. This dilution can be seen as a way to avoid missing out on profit opportunities in the Chinese market, which could be permanently lost if the technological gap between the two countries is fully bridged. 

Rather than catalyzing broad industrial renewal, Trump’s tech strategy directs public funds into already dominant firms like Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, further entrenching their market power.

DeepSeek and the US–China tech competition

While Wall Street initially continued investing in , mounting pressure from secondary sanctions and growing scrutiny of US-China tech flows have slowed capital inflows significantly. DeepSeek, now integrated into a broader Alibaba-Baidu AI ecosystem, continues to shape language artificial intelligence standards globally. Its strong performance and lower costs shook US tech markets, triggering a dip in American tech values. In response, the US government Chinese AI products from public-sector devices, a move soon echoed by several allies.

These bans offered temporary relief to US firms. However, behind the scenes, Wall Street investors continue to channel capital into Chinese tech companies, despite growing geopolitical tensions, in pursuit of returns. The contradiction is striking: while Washington sought to contain China, its financial sector bets on its success. The result is a glaring lack of strategic alignment.

Trump’s second-term economic agenda did not break with neoliberal orthodoxy; instead, it is deepening it. His blend of protectionism, deregulation, and financial consolidation bolsters corporate power but leaves fundamental weaknesses in the US economy untouched. Infrastructure gaps widen. Real wages stagnate. Labor rights erode.

While Trump promised to restore American strength, the policies he pursues may have accelerated the very decline they aim to prevent.

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“H.R.” stands for “House of Representatives”, with “1” being the bill number. The number “1” is reserved for a top legislative priority of the majority party in the House. Each new Congress gets a new H.R.1 — so “H.R.1” is not a permanent bill title; it changes every session.

The branding was classic Trump: grandiose, vague and built for cable news. But unlike many of his other rhetorical flourishes, this one came with substance — roughly 800 pages of it. In sheer scope, cost and political ambition, the bill is arguably the defining legislative achievement of Trump’s second term. It is also a window into the soul of contemporary : populist rhetoric married to plutocratic policy, an iron fist for immigration and a velvet glove for capital gains.

Play it again, Sam

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a rhetorical phrase frequently used by Donald Trump to describe his administration’s planned legislation, particularly regarding immigration and border security. Trump often spoke about a “” during his 2016 campaign, referring to a physical barrier on the US–Mexico border. The phrase “Big Beautiful Bill” originated from the same rhetorical style, typically employed in speeches or interviews to promote pending legislation, portray the bill as comprehensive, effective and patriotic and position Democrats as obstructionists for not supporting it. “Big Beautiful Bill “is a branding device to sell policy to the public in simplified, catchy terms.

So, what’s in the Big Beautiful Bill?��

While the bill touches everything from taxes to border security to Medicaid, its central thesis is clear: reward work (as narrowly defined by Republicans), punish dependency (as broadly defined by Republicans) and cement Trumpism as a long-term governing framework.

Tax cuts dressed as working-class relief

At the heart of the BBB is a permanent extension of the 2017 Trump . But to rebrand those widely criticized, high-end giveaways as pro-worker, the bill adds a populist gloss. Tips and overtime pay are now tax-exempt for anyone earning under $150,000. Trump it a “tax cut for waitresses and truckers,” though the real dollars still flow to the top. The was modestly increased to $2,200 per child and indexed to inflation. Auto loan interest is now deductible, a peculiar throwback to the 1980s. Perhaps the most on-brand feature is a $1,000 deposit in “Trump Accounts” for every baby born between 2025 and 2028, a gimmick aimed at boosting both birthrates and brand loyalty.

Critics these giveaways do little to help the poor and disproportionately benefit those already earning enough to pay income taxes. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the tax portions of the bill will, over the next 10 years, reduce federal government spending by $1.25 trillion while reducing revenues by $3.67 trillion, adding a whopping $2.4 trillion to the deficit.

Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), labeled the CBO’s score of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as “”, arguing it wrongly assumed Congress wouldn’t extend 2017 tax cuts. This argumentation adds insult to injury, as sunset clauses in the 2017 tax cuts were introduced to limit the amount of damage to federal finances. It is indisputable that tax cuts increase deficits — anyone insisting the opposite is gaslighting.

Carve Up the Safety Net

To offset some of that cost — on paper, at least — the bill makes deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps). Medicaid faces $1.2 trillion in reductions over a decade, accompanied by new work requirements and enrollment caps that could result in Americans being removed from the rolls. SNAP gets a $186 billion haircut, with stricter work mandates and a requirement for states to cover a portion of benefits.

These provisions were sold as “promoting dignity and work,” but for many families, they translate to lost coverage and empty pantries. The bill doubles down on the idea that if you’re poor, it’s probably your fault, and if you’re rich, it’s probably because you worked harder.

Border security on steroids

sets aside between $150 and $170 billion for immigration enforcement, wall construction and surveillance technology. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gets a massive funding boost. A new $100 annual fee is slapped on asylum seekers. The number of border patrol agents is expected to increase by over 25%, and construction will resume on segments of the border wall that had previously been halted.

This is the materialization of Trump’s long-running campaign promise. But beyond the headline-grabbing wall, the bill institutionalizes a more militarized, punitive approach to immigration — an approach designed not just to stop unlawful border crossings but to make asylum itself a more burdensome, bureaucratic ordeal.

Defense budget: Bigger and more beautiful

Not to be outdone, the Pentagon gets another $150 billion infusion. Some of this goes to traditional hardware: destroyers, drones and missile defense systems. However, a surprising portion is earmarked for and undersea surveillance areas where China and Russia have intensified their activity.

This segment of the bill garnered relatively little attention but represents a quiet militarization of climate-impacted geographies. Trump may not believe in global warming, but he’s betting on a hotter Arctic.

Never mind Trump, only a few months ago, Financial Times he would “check the military” for waste, with the aim of uncovering “billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse” in the ~$800 billion-plus Pentagon budget. At a press briefing in February, Trump to cut military spending “in half”.

Killing clean energy with bureaucracy

In perhaps the most ideologically revealing section, the BBB guts clean energy tax credits. Solar, wind and electric vehicle incentives are phased out. The argument? These subsidies distort markets and burden taxpayers. However, energy economists that the rollback could stall or reverse progress toward decarbonization and put tens of thousands of jobs at risk.

In , where renewables have quietly boomed, the backlash has already begun. Energy CEOs who once supported Trump now warn the bill could cost the state billions and undercut energy independence. Meanwhile, coal and natural gas receive new tax preferences — a sop to legacy producers.

While China presses ahead with investments in clean energy technology, the US remains ideologically trapped in its love for fossil fuels.

The deficit grows, but that’s not the point

Despite cuts to Medicaid and food aid, the BBB is a fiscal time bomb. Trump shrugged this off as “a good investment in America,” the same way he might describe a failed casino.

Republican leadership is . Fiscal conservatives hate the cost. Populists love the optics. Democrats, for their part, have found an attack line: this is a “ in reverse” bill, taking from the poor to give to the rich.

But here’s the real twist: Trump doesn’t care. The BBB was never about fiscal responsibility. It was about visibility. It consolidates Trump-era themes into a single, on-brand document: anti-immigration, anti-welfare, pro-business and performatively pro-worker. It’s not so much a policy as a political identity made into law.

Public opinion: Lukewarm at best

Polls show the public is skeptical. A CNN survey conducted days after passage 61% of Americans opposed the bill, with only 29% in favor. Among independents, support was under 20%. Even some Trump voters expressed concern over the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. However, in a fragmented media landscape, disapproval doesn’t always translate into a political cost.

The White House that Americans “will come around” once they see bigger paychecks and feel the patriotic pull of new border infrastructure. Whether that happens before the 2026 midterms remains to be seen.

The takeaway: Trumpism, codified

The One Big Beautiful Bill is not just a law — it’s a worldview. It assumes the poor need discipline, the rich need incentives and the nation needs walls more than social workers. It is trickle-down populism wrapped in a red, white and blue bow. And though its long-term economic impacts are murky, its political message is crystal clear.

Trump has often been accused of lacking policy depth. The BBB proves he doesn’t need it. All he needs is a slogan, a spectacle and a signed piece of legislation large enough to read as destiny. And in that sense, the One Big Beautiful Bill may be the most Trumpian thing ever written into law.

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“We gotta get that solved. Gaza is—it’s a tragedy and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to get it solved. A lot of hate, long-term hate, but we think we’re going to have it solved pretty soon—hopefully with a real solution, a solution that’s going to be holding up.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Get it solved:

Make other people do things that correspond to the solution you want to see, irrespective of their or anyone else’s interests. The opposite of solve.

Contextual note

Trump’s language with reference to time must never be taken literally. What does he mean when he promises to “have it solved pretty soon?”

The peace candidate of 2024 promised to resolve the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” once he had the keys to the White House in his hands. Not only has that not happened, there has been no progress on the various verbal initiatives he has taken. Most experts now believe that the war will either continue for years or end when Ukraine’s army and government collapse.

Trump can be quick and decisive, however. Didn’t he successfully apply his “in, boom, out” Trump biographer Michael Wolff claims he had announced days before “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program by dropping multiple bunker-buster bombs?

Most serious observers believe that the current pause in hostilities after the “12-day war” is due to a on the part of Netanyahu’s government that had begun to panic at the extensive damage the Iranians were capable of inflicting on Israel’s military installations over the course of that brief conflict. Those same observers expect that the peace will be broken, most probably by Israel at a more convenient time. So long as the idea can be maintained that the US intervention has eliminated any prospect for Iran of advancing with its nuclear program, the “peace” is likely to hold. But even US intelligence appears to believe that the program has only been delayed, not destroyed. Few, however, countenance the idea that either Israel or the US has abandoned its ultimate goal of achieving regime change in Iran.

As for Gaza, Trump’s promise to “get it solved” rang particularly hollow as most experts see no basis for agreement between Israel and Hamas. Journalist Jeremy Scahill at Drop Site what most acknowledge to be obvious: “Since Donald Trump announced on July 1 that a Gaza ceasefire deal was likely, if not imminent, Israel has sought to sabotage negotiations through well-worn methods in an effort to block a deal that would end the war.” �� �� ��

Some attribute to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the great French diplomat who not only advised Napoleon Bonaparte but was instrumental in conserving France’s pivotal role after the Corsican’s defeat and banishment, the remark, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (“The more things change, the more it’s the same thing”). To some extent, diplomacy — when it is applied seriously — serves to defend the long durée by seeking to avoid radical disruption, which rather than bringing about any kind of change tends to produce chaos. The disruptive approach of US foreign policy, especially over the past quarter of a century, offers a perfect illustration of such consequences, especially in the Middle East. Libya and Syria stand as exemplary of the trend.

Trump cannot escape from a mode of thinking conditioned by the reflex now built solidly into US culture: “time is money.” Americans feel the proverbial expression as a permanent pressure on them to act quickly and avoid spending too much time on working things out. They apply it to business as well as politics.

When applied to the realm of diplomacy, we might want to call it the doctrine of “soonism.” If you manage things on the basis of “sooner rather than later” you don’t allow yourself the time to fully understand the issues you’re trying to deal with. Unfortunately, Trump isn’t alone, nor is he the worst example. US President George W. Bush’s insistence on punishing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for possessing nonexistent weapons of mass destruction with “Shock and Awe” was a far worse example of soonism than anything Trump has done. “We will fight them over there,” Bush, “so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”

US President Joe Biden’s precipitation in seeking to immediately Russia from the SWIFT network based on the belief that he would reduce the ruble to “rubble,” while at the same time refusing to engage in diplomacy and, at the same time, instructing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to ensure that ongoing diplomacy be disrupted, provides another example of disastrous soonism. His team seriously believed that by acting quickly, Russia would not have the time to react. We now know that his calculation was erroneous. As a result, more than a million people have died, with no end in sight.

Soonism is the enemy of diplomacy, a form of traditional human communication based on the principle of taking the time to understand the stakes and hammer out possible solutions to unresolvable conflicts. The current debate around ending the war in Ukraine, which Trump promised to do in 24 hours, turns around two contrasting positions. On the Ukrainian and transatlantic side, it’s a “30-day ceasefire.” Thirty days is a value that corresponds to soonism. On the Russian side, it’s the examination of the “root causes.” Those roots descend deep into the landscape and have grown over time. They don’t belong to any short-term timeframe.

Is any other explanation needed for the easily observable fact that diplomacy has become an extinct art form?

Historical note

History advances through moments that may be short or prolonged. Many students of history, anthropology and sociology have noted the contrast between two extreme orientations of national or regional cultures. At one extreme is the idea that history can be understood as a series of dramatic events, often framed as showdowns between opposing parties or interests. In such cultures, people acquire a view of history as a series of “significant dates” at which different percussive events have redefined the course of history. At the opposite extreme, we find cultures that privilege the idea of the. They see even dramatic events and radical shifts of influence within power structures as blips on the radar. In their view, history plods on with the weight of a civilization’s mass, evolving slowly over time, while maintaining a stable worldview.

Trump, habituated to US business culture focused on short-term decision making, has a habit of seeing future events as happening “soon,” as all his recent comments on Gaza reveal. In typical Trumpian style, apparently referring to events that played out in 2005, he his judgment of Israel’s decision at the time to pull its settlers out of Gaza. “The Gaza strip. I call it the Gaza strip. One of the worst real estate deals ever made. They gave up the oceanfront property. It was supposed to bring peace, and it didn’t bring peace. It brought the opposite. But we’re doing pretty well on Gaza. I think we could have something fairly soon to talk about.”

We might see this “soon to talk about” as a step back from a few days earlier when he said, “we think we’re going to have it solved pretty soon.” Talk is cheap. But the notion of solving generally supposes some kind of lasting duration, even if not necessarily the historiographer’s longue durée. Last week it was about solving, this week about talk. That seems to be a pattern with Trump. He bandies about theoretical solutions, such as , the of Greenland and the of Canada, or building a on the Gaza coast. This makes for animated conversation, but anything resembling a solution somehow fades from our collective memory as a project or even a possibility.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

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But the problem isn’t that the US dollar plays this role. The problem is that it is both the global reserve currency — the currency most widely used in global trade and held by foreign central banks — and the national currency of the United States. That creates dangerous repercussions for both the US and foreign nations’ accumulation of US dollars.

The dollar trap

US President Donald Trump and his followers aren’t wrong in saying the US pays a price for issuing the global reserve currency. For foreign countries to obtain US dollars, which they need for international trade and to repay dollar-denominated debts, they must run current account surpluses (exporting more than they import). That requires the United States to run perpetual current account deficits (importing more than it exports).

Of course, being the issuers of the world’s reserve currency allows the US to import anything it desires and simply pay with financial claims (US dollars), without the fear of devaluing the dollar, at least in the short term.

This benefits US consumers, who enjoy cheaper imported goods. But it comes at a cost to exporting countries, where workers produce authentic goods in exchange for financial claims that may never be redeemed for US goods. The result is a global wealth transfer from foreign laborers to American consumers. Meanwhile, foreign countries accumulate dollars and acquire US assets — including bonds, stocks, companies and land. 

A key measure of this trend is the Net International Investment Position , which tracks the difference between a country’s external financial assets (what Americans own abroad) and its external financial liabilities (what foreigners own in the US). The US’s NIIP has significantly from less than negative $1.7 trillion in 2008 to more than negative $24 trillion at the end of March 2025. In the fourth quarter of 2024, NIIP declined by more than $2 trillion, partly due to the strong dollar that increased the value of US assets held by foreigners. Annualized, the figure would be equal to more than a quarter of GDP, a staggering amount.

As foreign holdings of US debt grow, so do interest and dividend payments flowing out of the US economy — a steady drain of income to overseas investors.

Sectoral view of economics

One way to understand global economics is through the view, a way of understanding financial flows using accounting identities. It breaks the world down into three sectors: private (households and businesses), government (taxation and public spending) and foreign (trade balance with foreign countries). 

Every dollar spent or saved by one sector must be matched by an opposite balance in one or both of the others: (Private Sector Balance) + (Government Sector Balance) + (Foreign Sector Balance) = 0

For example, when Americans import a car, dollars leave the country and show up as a surplus in the foreign sector and a deficit in the private sector. When someone pays taxes, their savings decrease, while the government’s revenues increase.

In recent years, the US government’s deficit (shown in purple in this ) mirrors the private sector’s surplus (orange). Meanwhile, the foreign sector’s surplus (green) comes at the expense of US households and firms. Even though corporate are at record levels — around 12% of GDP — many households are struggling to save. Publicly traded corporations pay about $2 trillion annually in dividends to shareholders, but that money is concentrated among the wealthiest Americans — and increasingly, foreign investors.

A brief history of US external balances

The US began running persistent current account deficits in the early 1980s, during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. The deficits widened in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reaching over 5% of GDP during the . Although the 2008 financial crisis temporarily reduced the deficit, it did not disappear. 

As of , the deficit remains large, driven by a chronic imbalance in goods trade (heavy imports of consumer products and industrial inputs). The shortfall is partially offset by a surplus in services trade, exports like software from Apple, licensing of American movie rights and global usage of US-based financial services.

These imbalances are not merely economic accidents; they are structural features of a global financial system built around the dollar. 

The limits of dollar demand

Foreigners are accumulating US assets — not out of charity, but necessity. They need dollars to settle international trade, service dollar-denominated debts and build FX reserves. But this accumulation has limits.

First, foreigners cannot redeem their dollar claims for US goods and services, in total, unless the US runs a trade surplus, which it doesn’t. Second, it means non-US labor is producing real goods in exchange for paper claims that they may never redeem in kind.

While the US can theoretically print as many dollars as needed, this doesn’t mean the rest of the world will always want to hold them. You can force-feed financial claims to producers or authentic goods only for so long. The dollar system rests on confidence. At some point, this confidence could break. 

The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency also depends on its stability. So far, no central banker has been fired for holding too many dollars. However, nobody wants to hold a wasting asset. 

The hoarding of US dollars by foreign central banks prevents the exchange rate from adjusting to a price where trade imbalances would decline. Insofar as the dollar is a victim of its own success, to be a reserve asset, it cannot be weak. Its continued strength, at least until the beginning of 2025, hollowed out the US industrial base, exporting jobs and inflation to other nations.

The Eurodollar mirage

An alternative access route to US dollars — and it’s an imperfect one — is the . This is a global financial system of offshore US dollars created by non-US banks. Despite the name, Eurodollars are not related to the euro. They are dollar deposits held in foreign banks, often in London or the Caribbean.

You can think of the Eurodollar market as a casino. Players use chips as currency. They settle bets with chips that represent and may look like dollars, but aren’t backed by the Federal Reserve Bank. The monetary system within the casino works fine until either someone with large winnings wants to cash out or a player is unable to repay their debt.

Offshore dollar markets function until they don’t. Eurodollars are not automatically convertible into onshore dollars without a corresponding credit line from a US institution. When liquidity dries up, those credit lines become hard or impossible to obtain. The Federal Reserve may step in — as it did with in 2008 and 2020 — but it is under no obligation to save the system. Swap lines are dollar loans to foreign central banks, which, in turn, lend these dollars to borrowers in distress (at their own risk). 

The current administration will likely make a point of excluding “non-friendly” countries from access to those swap lines. 

Ecuador, which abandoned its own currency and in the year 2000, found out the hard way. The government defaulted on dollar-denominated debt twice (in 2008 and 2020) because it lacked the ability to issue its own currency during a crisis.

The case for a neutral reserve currency

The obvious solution is a supra-national reserve asset. Ironically, such a thing has already existed for decades: the (SDR), created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969. It is not a currency used by consumers but rather an accounting unit used between governments. It only exists in digital form, based on a basket of currencies (dominated by the US dollar and the Euro). 

Initially, the SDR was linked to gold, as one unit was set to represent slightly less than one gram (0.888671) of gold. After Former US President Richard Nixon “temporarily” the dollar’s convertibility into gold in 1971, the gold link was removed in 1973.

An SDR-based monetary system would still face challenges. In our (where trust rather than commodities backs currency), money can only be created by issuing an equal amount of debt. This would require a global lender of last resort to intervene in case national central banks ran out of debt-bearing capacity to create additional SDR liabilities. It would be a highly centralized system with few potentially unelected officials deciding over the allocation of credit. 

The world would know only one interest rate. There would be no national sovereignty over monetary policy.

Commodity currencies? Be careful what you wish for

What about backing a global reserve currency with commodities? Gold? Oil? Bitcoin?

A commodity-backed system brings discipline — but also rigidity. They restrict how much money governments can create, since the supply is tied to commodity prices. When prices fall, the money supply shrinks. The money supply becomes pro-cyclical, causing deflation and recessions. And it favors commodity-rich nations like Russia and Saudi Arabia, while hurting import-dependent economies like Japan.

Bitcoin appears to be unsuitable as a medium of exchange, as its limited issuance may lead to hoarding. Expected price appreciation would mean that other goods expressed in Bitcoin would fall in value; they would deflate. Prolonged periods of deflation can harm the banking system, leading to depression and widespread unemployment.

The dangers of small currency fragility

What if there won’t be a new global reserve currency? What if the international monetary system disintegrates into countries trying to use their domestic currencies to settle international trade? Imagine the friction of having to price your product in 20+ different currencies and adjusting prices almost daily. Hedging costs would explode, and inefficiencies soar.

Furthermore, the currencies of smaller nations often serve as playthings for speculators. Their currencies are vulnerable to speculative attacks (when investors suddenly pull out money). Hot money inflows — short-term capital chasing high interest rates — can vanish in a crisis. Exchange rates collapse. Imported inflation spikes. Living standards fall. 

Take Turkey — not exactly a minion of a nation (16^th largest by GDP). In 2016, the Turkish lira at 2.5 per dollar. Today: over 40. Nominal wages soared from 2,210 lira (~$1,000) in 2014 to 26,600 (~$665) in 2024. The average Turk is poorer in US dollar terms. 

A collapsing currency can make energy imports unaffordable. Resulting power cuts may lead to social unrest.

America’s missed opportunity

The US never seriously pursued transitioning to a neutral reserve system, a massive policy failure. The ability to run deficits without immediate punishment (i.e., currency depreciation) proved too tempting.

The endgame is in sight. The US is now addicted to deficits, with neither party being able to rein in spending. Rather than engineering a soft landing, the current administration seems eager to speed toward the cliff by alienating international creditors. No one sinks a leaking ship faster by grabbing an axe. But here we are. 

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How intelligence recruitment works

Carle explains that this type of influence operation involves spotting, assessing, developing and ultimately recruiting targets, often through subtle psychological manipulation. He describes how even small gestures, such as offering a favor, can establish bonds of loyalty or create a sense of indebtedness.

Trump, in Carle’s view, is especially susceptible due to his vanity and his consistent loyalty to those who flatter him. While Trump does not align with Russia on every issue — notably diverging on Iran — Carle notes he has parroted Russian state messaging and advanced Kremlin-aligned policies across many domains.

Domestic ideology and institutional erosion

Whitaker and Carle shift the conversation from foreign entanglements to the domestic sphere, where they see grave danger in the political movement surrounding Trump. Carle argues that Trump’s actions are part of a broader ideological push by elements of the Republican Party’s right wing to gut the federal government. This includes promoting the “unitary executive theory,” shrinking federal functions to defense and border control, and dismantling institutions built since the New Deal. These ideas, according to Carle, come not from Trump himself but from his inner circle and movement intellectuals.

The crisis of American democracy

Carle concludes with a stark warning: The United States is undergoing its deepest institutional crisis since the Civil War. Unlike the societal unrest of the 1960s, he believes the current moment poses a threat to the core structures of American governance. He cites attacks on the First Amendment and on the free media, reduction of social services programs, efforts to centralize military command and widespread distrust in democratic institutions. Although critics may dismiss these concerns as exaggerated, Carle insists they are very real — and dangerous.

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Someone in your neighborhood puts up a sign: This Homeowner Is Armed and Dangerous. The next night, the thugs break into the houses on either side, not even bothering to test whether the homeowner in the middle has a gun or knows how to use it. They just leave that house alone.

Question for you: do you buy a gun?

Maybe you don’t believe in guns. So, do you consider putting up a similar sign even though the most dangerous item in your house is a nail clipper? The evidence seems clear. Even just the threat of retaliation is enough to dissuade the would-be attackers. Your life and the lives of your family are on the line.

This is the dilemma facing many countries around the world, except that the gun in this analogy is a nuclear weapon. Countries without nuclear weapons — Libya and Yugoslavia — experienced attacks that eventually led to regime change. Countries that possess even just a few warheads — North Korea and China — have managed to deter states with malign intent.

Iran, a country that has put up a warning sign in its window without fully committing to acquiring the ultimate deterrent, was recently bombed by both Israel and the United States. A tenuous ceasefire now holds in this conflict. The Trump administration imagines that it has destroyed Iran’s nuclear program. It also believes that it can now put more pressure on Iran to give away its nuclear weapons program at the negotiating table.

But the obvious takeaway for Iran after the recent attacks is that it’s certainly dangerous to semi-covertly pursue nuclear weapons, but it’s perhaps even more dangerous not to have them. If nuclear powers don’t suffer devastating bombing campaigns, insecure nations conclude that they best acquire a nuke as quickly as possible.

It’s not just Iran. Other countries are drawing similar conclusions about how to survive in an international environment where collective security — the global equivalent of the police — is falling apart as quickly as a fence in a hurricane.

Iran’s complex

Guns can be used for different things — to hunt, to hit clay targets, to massacre children at a school.

Likewise, nuclear complexes can serve very different purposes. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear facilities are for the production of energy, medical isotopes and so on. But a country doesn’t need to enrich its uranium to 60%, as Iran reportedly has done, to achieve these peaceful goals. Nuclear power requires an enrichment level of . Weapons-grade uranium, meanwhile, is 90%.

The Obama administration, with a number of international partners, negotiated a with Iran that capped the level of enrichment at 20% and began diluting Iran’s uranium stockpiles to 3.5%. The Trump administration the United States out of the agreement. The enrichment level of Iran’s uranium not surprisingly began to creep upwards.

Iran has maintained two underground enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow. These were two of the targets of US bunker-busters. The 14 bombs the United States dropped on these targets might be expected to have returned Iran to the pre-nuclear stone age. And that’s certainly what the Trump administration has claimed.

But US President Donald Trump is quick to claim victory even in the throes of obvious defeat (remember COVID, Afghanistan and the 2020 election?). According to an in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the recent US attack set Iran back “maybe a few months, tops.” The Trump administration dismissed this assessment as a leak from “an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.”

But the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, the DIA report: “The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that.” Even Iranian officials, speaking privately about the attack, were surprised that the damage was not as great as they’d anticipated.

Even if the capacity to enrich uranium had been destroyed, the US and Israeli attacks couldn’t root out the knowledge of these processes from the minds of the Iranian scientists, or the desire to acquire nuclear weapons from the Iranian population as a whole. According to a poll from June of last year, nearly of Iranian respondents favored the country going nuclear — this after nearly two decades of public opinion opposing the weaponization of the program.

Memo to both the United States and Israel: it’s not just Iran’s political leadership that wants nukes. In other words, regime change is not going to resolve this nuclear question. Iran’s complex.

Future negotiations?

Considering Trump’s cancellation of the Iranian nuclear accord back in 2017, diplomacy wouldn’t seem to be top on the administration’s agenda. But it wasn’t diplomacy per se that Trump rejected, only diplomacy associated with the Obama administration.

As late as the Friday before the US attack, even as Israel was continuing its own bombing runs, the Trump administration was conducting secret talks with Iran. According to :

Among the terms being discussed, which have not been previously reported, is an estimated $20-30 billion investment in a new Iranian non-enrichment nuclear program that would be used for civilian energy purposes, Trump administration officials and sources familiar with the proposal told CNN. One official insisted that money would not come directly from the US, which prefers its Arab partners foot the bill. Investment in Iran’s nuclear energy facilities has been discussed in previous rounds of nuclear talks in recent months.

That sounds a lot like the that the Clinton administration pursued with Pyongyang, with South Korea largely footing the bill for the construction of reactors that could power North Korea’s civilian sector. Those reactors were never built, and North Korea went on to assemble its own mini-arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Iran has said that it would consider returning to the negotiating table at some point after it receives guarantees that there will be no future attacks. Without much trust among the various sides, it would be hard to imagine Iran forever renouncing a nuclear option or Israel forever forswearing attacks on Iran, even if they both make rhetorical commitments for the purpose of restarting talks.

Trump the opportunist

There is much loose speculation that Donald Trump is an isolationist, an anti-militarist, a believer in spheres of influence. The US attack on Iran should dispense with such nonsense.

Donald Trump is a political opportunist. He takes positions — anti-abortion or pro-crypto — based, not on principles, but on how much they will boost his political (and economic) fortunes.

On foreign policy, Trump has raised opportunism to the level of a geopolitical doctrine. He has talked of steering clear of military conflicts in the Middle East, but then the opportunity presented itself to strike against Iranian targets effectively risk-free (because Israel had already secured the airspace). He has against corruption in Ukraine and declared President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator,” but then the opportunity presented itself to sign a minerals agreement with the government in Kyiv.

Trump has no problems negotiating with religious fundamentalists. He gets along just fine with Sunni absolutists in the Middle East, and he would probably be hard-pressed to explain the religious differences between the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the Shia of Iran. If an opportunity presents itself to negotiate a deal with Iran, Trump may well take it — mostly because he can then call himself the person who really vanquished that country’s nuclear “threat” (take that, Obama!).

Meanwhile, Trump continues to make it more likely that countries around the world will invest in their own nuclear weapons programs.

At home, despite some about the lack of any need for new nuclear weapons, Trump is adding nearly to the budget for nuclear weapons. And his plan for a “golden dome” will only encourage other nuclear powers to spend more to evade such heightened defenses Such dangerous one-upmanship was, after all, the rationale for the dearly departed Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

Trump’s reluctance to provide assurances to allies that the United States will come to their defense in case of attack has poked huge holes in the nuclear umbrella that hitherto covered much of Europe and Asia. Now, European politicians are about building out their own nuclear capabilities — with the French arsenal at its center — and conservatives in South Korea have also begun about establishing a nuclear deterrent.

And the rest of the world? The Iranian parliament has begun the country’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Only one other country has exited the treaty — North Korea — and only a handful of countries are not parties to it (Israel, India, Pakistan, South Sudan) If Iran goes, there may well be a rush to the exits, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have made noises about the nuclear option.

Nothing speaks louder than Trump’s actions. He exchanged “love letters” with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (nukes), is a big fan of Vladimir Putin (nukes) and has indicated that he has more respect for China (nukes) than Taiwan (no nukes). On the other side of the nuclear fence, he has bombed Iran, threatened Venezuela and Cuba and discussed the possibility of taking over Greenland and Canada.

I’m no advocate of nuclear armaments. But if I were Canadian, I might start thinking that a reputation for niceness just doesn’t cut it in TrumpWorld. A couple of nuclear-tipped ICBMs, however, would send a message that this White House more readily understands.

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Josef Olmert: Hello. Hi to my watchers, to my readers, to my followers. This is the fourth and last in my short series on US–Israel relations. And the idea is really to lead us to the current situation with US President Donald J. Trump, his second administration, with a brief review of his first and the in-between period of the US presidency of Joseph Biden — Joe Biden Jr. — as president. And then we’ll come to the current situation, with the exception that I have to make already now: that we are in a situation that is unfolding. And there might be people who say, “Oh, it’s too early even to talk about US–Israel relations under Donald Trump.” So what I’m going to do is, therefore, to talk about what I consider to be situations that already are fully now results, and maybe inevitable results, of what we already discussed, and how they are happening right now — not talked about, but happening.

Therefore, if we make any predictions for the future, they will be based on what I would consider to be a more solid ground. That’s about the methodics of all that. And I need to say, because I do get reactions, comments, responses from people who watch, read, and they are asking questions that lead me to say what I’m saying to you now.

The American Jewish community and Israel’s image problem

Josef Olmert: So today, very briefly, just to remind you: In our previous episode, we discussed more in-depth processes, mostly in the American Jewish community, that led to changes in attitudes towards Israel. And we touched upon, therefore, what was happening in Israel at the same time that might have led to these changes in American attitude towards Israel, but also the rise of new movements in the US that were either more or less supportive of Israel. Of course, the evangelical Christians on the one end being more supportive; the left-wing, the progressive movement on the other side, in the Democratic Party mainly, that has been much more negative, still is, and becoming more and more negative.

And that brings us, really, to the situation that we are going to delve into in great detail today in our episode.

Trump’s first term: populism, promises and policy shifts

Josef Olmert: And I would say to you that when President Trump was running for president in 2015, 2016, he was not taken seriously, not just by Jews, but also by ordinary America, of course, the commentators. And I cautioned people at the time — it’s not like an “I told you so, period” — but I cautioned people, because I talked to people about the significance of the politics of identities and populist politics altogether, in the unfolding political climate in the US, as well as in other Western democracies.

And by the way, I gave the comparison with Israel. I analyzed the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu, at that time was already in his sixth year as prime minister in his second term, after the one that he was in from 1996 to 1999 — this one was from 2009; we talk about 2015, 2016 — that Netanyahu also succeeded in Israel with the politics of populism and identities. And this is a successful political card.

And Trump made promises about Israel, and everybody said, “No, I mean, don’t take them seriously.” And he fulfilled, to a large extent, a great deal of his promises. For example, the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, which was, by the way, the policy of every American president before him, with the exception that they didn’t fulfill their decision because of whatever reason that they gave. That was basically based on the idea, “Yes, we say to the Israelis and to the Jews and to the pro-Israel community, we want to move the embassy — but we can’t do it now.”

Trump did it. Trump also withdrew out of the Iran nuclear deal, as was expected by the Netanyahu government in Israel.

Let me say something here: Netanyahu was not wrong in his opposition to the nuclear deal as was devised by President Obama’s administration. Where were the problems that he had, and they have to do with what’s happening now, so therefore I’m saying them now:

He didn’t know the limits of, or the ways in which to express, his opposition to the Obama administration policy, and therefore he made a terrible mistake of showing in Congress and giving his speech — that was in March of 2015. In January of 2015, that is to say, two months before, the speech was announced by then-Speaker John Boehner. (By the way, I have a picture with John Boehner in my study, because I met him before — I met many other people.) And I then cautioned from getting biting gifts — I cautioned Netanyahu not to do the speech. That was a big mistake.

It comes back to what we discussed before in the previous episode about bipartisanship, or lack thereof, under Netanyahu. It was a big mistake.

The other mistake, which might have even been bigger, was that while he said no to the deal as was devised by Obama — with the support of other powers, as part of Obama’s internationalist policy — he did not offer any alternative. He basically created the impression from day one that all he wanted was to see an American military operation against Iran — or else to justify an Israeli one. But even then, he was not preparing one.

In 2011, the Israeli military establishment was waiting for a word from Netanyahu that he was giving the green light for an attack on Iran. He asked for three days to make a decision. He then said no. And there still are reports to that effect that even today, he basically did not approve all kinds of plans that were supposed to finance projects that were designed to improve technological abilities that were to be connected with an attack on Iran and so on and so forth.

So Netanyahu basically said to Trump, “Cancel the agreement, period,” without offering an alternative.

Why is this important? Because it’s the same mistake he has done since the beginning of the war in Gaza, on the 7th of October 2023, to this very moment. While he said, “no, no, no, no, no,” to everything offered by other people, to other countries, including the best friends of Israel, he does not provide any alternative.

Then Trump, for example, said something which is again interesting: that when the US, with Israeli support, decided to eliminate the arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, Netanyahu said yes. And then he said no, he would not be part of it. Which, by the way, caused ongoing damage in the relationship between him and Trump, because Trump — and that we know already — doesn’t like what seems to be weak people, leaders, losers. For Trump, the fact that Netanyahu did not show up in the end, as opposed to what Trump did, was an indication of lack of stamina, resolve, real determination.

But there were also examples of how Israel was so helpful to the American administration. For example, in the war against ISIS, I don’t know how many of my watchers and listeners and readers remember that Trump, in public, said something that compromised the invaluable, great support that Israel gave to American intelligence to locate ISIS targets in Syria. Israelis were furious. But Trump said, “He’s a great friend.”

MAGA and the limits of right-wing support

Josef Olmert: Trump gave a lot of support also in the UN, the national organizations. But Trump also was the leader of MAGA, and that’s the point that I want to emphasize here. And we saw it after the incident in Charlottesville — if I even call it an incident, I believe what happened there in 2017, referring to “good people on both sides.” I immediately wrote an in which I said, “There are no ‘both sides’ where there are swastikas.”

When Trump referred to “good people on both sides,” he also referred to those that were marching with people that waved the swastikas. That led me into discussion with myself about MAGA.

First of all, it was “America First,” which was a bad memory to me. For those who remember history — I mean, I don’t remember it from that time, but I know it — there was Charles Lindbergh with his America First Committee. That was basically a pro-Nazi domestic American organization that didn’t want America to join the Second World War. You can argue, “Okay, he just used the words; he didn’t mean very much.”

The MAGA movement is a nativist movement. The MAGA movement is isolationist. When you look at the roots of the MAGA movement, when you look at the terminology used, the symbols used, the organizations that were at the forefront of the movement, you have to come to the conclusion that this movement cannot be the pro-Israel movement that existed in the past under the great US President Ronald Reagan — when the world was divided according to the Cold War, and Israel was on that side, the good side. Or under US President George W. Bush, let alone previous presidents from before. Because their opinion about how the world is divided is totally different.

And nativist movements in America or in Europe, by definition, have more than a nucleus of antisemitism, because any movement which is also based on xenophobic feelings is bound to be antisemitic. And no antisemitic movement can be good to Jews, can be good to Israel. It’s as simple as that.

And it was very convenient to many Israelis to accept the better sides of Trump’s policies, but to ignore the roots of it that were based on assumptions and ideologies and terminologies which, as I said, by definition are not good to Jews and Israel.

And how many more times can I say it? How, with more decibels, stronger volume, to say it in order to make the point? Because it is a point that is still debated, even among Jews: What makes you really anti-Israel?

The MAGA movement was on the right side. The alternative to the MAGA movement as a mass mobilization political movement is the “woke” movement, which is, again, anti-Israel. The two most important political movements — and I say movements, not parties — in terms of mobilizing public opinion in the US from right and left, as developed in the last ten to 15 years, are not pro-Israel. And it’s just a question of time when these movements affect the political parties that they try to influence from the outside or by infiltrating from the inside. They already did it in the Democratic Party, and they are doing it now — and have done it — in the Republican Party.

And it will bring me to the current situation momentarily.

Biden’s presidency and the fracturing of democratic support

Josef Olmert: Joseph Biden Jr. — interesting fellow. I, by the way, met him personally: I had dinner with him in Tel Aviv in December of 2002, ahead of the invasion of Iraq. He came to visit the Middle East with a colleague from the Republican Party, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska who later became the moderate Republican defense secretary under US President Barack Obama; a much more moderate Republican than the Republican Party already at that time.

And Biden gave a brilliant prediction and analysis of what would happen in Iraq after the war. Because everybody knew there was going to be a war, the Bush administration would do it at that time. Much later on, I wrote an article in The Huffington Post, where I blogged for seven, eight years, praising Biden for the fact that he read and understood the situation in Iraq very properly. I also talked about the ethnic and sectarian divisions in all this.

The problem really is — and this is not something that we need to develop in this particular episode, because it’s much beyond the topic that we are discussing — Biden, who came to be president, was not the Biden of earlier years. And we understand it, Now we know more truth about it.

The Biden administration, from the beginning of its term, in all kinds of subtle ways that became much more obvious during the early stages of the war in Gaza — and much later on, as the war dragged on — developed the sense that we have problems with Israel. Exactly on the main core point of what the Israeli lobby and pro-Israeli lobbies all the time emphasized: that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, a beacon of freedom, of human rights, of civility and all that comes with it.

The attack on Israel with regard to that was already at the time of Jimmy Carter. But who remembers Jimmy Carter? He was way back.

Now, Biden, whether wittingly or not — I would say intentionally — slowly, gradually, systematically, consistently built up the case in all kinds of ways, undermining this Israeli argument or claim to fame, if you will.

The forefront of it was what’s called “The Squad” in the Democratic Party. And it was much beyond it. It infiltrated and crept into the trade union movement, the labor movement that in the past was one of the beacons of support for Israel; minority communities — African Americans, but also Asian Americans, which is very interesting; Latinos — tolerating the infiltration of Qatar and other states into universities in America, Saudi Arabia and others — relying on people that were clearly not in the pro-Israel camp anymore, but were at various levels of being anti-Israel.

And the fact is that while still a majority of the Democratic caucus in the House voted with Israel, there was a growing number of the progressives that were already taking their distance. So you could see the cracks in the bipartisan coalition for Israel.

The Netanyahu speech was, in that case, a gift he gave to these people. A stupid gift. Terrible mistake, as I said.

Trump’s second term: strategic ambiguity

Josef Olmert: The Trump administration these days — let’s move on now. First of all, in the last campaign that brought Trump again to the presidency — he didn’t even talk about Israel. He talked about Israel or the Middle East, made very, very superficial, almost insignificant comments or references. The promises were not there, you know.

Everybody took for granted that Trump is pro-Israel and will continue to be. The person that completely misread all this was Benjamin Netanyahu, again, in Jerusalem, believing that somehow Trump is going to be the same Trump of the first administration. He ignored the fact that in second administrations, presidents do tend to change.

I would remind people here that even Ronald Reagan — a great friend and supporter of Israel — he is the president that gave the first kosher certificate to the PLO before he left his second term. He was the one who authorized the beginning of official contact between the US and the PLO in 1989, as an example. But I can give you other examples.

Then came the inauguration, and I noticed something very interesting: While the inauguration was taking place, immediately afterward, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff — I don’t get into too many details about him and his connections with Qatar, all this I leave to investigative journalism — but I don’t need to get into investigative journalism to analyze what he said on Inauguration Day, about what would be the four main pillars of American policy in the Middle East, the name “Israel” was not mentioned. The name “Iran” was not mentioned. The name “Hamas” was not mentioned.

Remember, it is in January of 2025, and the war was already raging from October of 2023. That was the first red light.

But forget about this. Maybe it was a ceremonial occasion. You don’t get into details, you just give main, big points and so on and so forth.

Gulf-centric policy and Israel’s marginalization

Then, of course, let’s see what has happened since then.

Some of his appointments have definitely been very pro-Israel. For example, Elise Stefanik, a congresswoman from New York, to be ambassador in the UN — and she made the point already, before: She’s going to fight hard about anti-Israelism in the UN as the first, if not the most important, but one of the main missions. This appointment, by the way, was canceled for all the obscure reasons. Why did he cancel her appointment, arguing that, “we need her in Congress,” when he did not cancel other appointments of people that had to resign from Congress and lead to early elections? I mean elections like in Florida. Well, I’m just leaving you with the question.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee — great, great supporter of Israel, there’s no question about it. But was he appointed as a policymaker? Or as the person that is supposed to say the good stuff to the Israelis, as opposed to the leaks coming consistently from the White House that are the bad stuff? Good cop, bad cop? Yeah — I leave my audience with this question.

All kinds of other appointments — I was skeptical about Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, for all kinds of reasons. I was skeptical about National Security Advisor Mike Waltz for all kinds of reasons. I did welcome the appointment, of course, of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, for all kinds of reasons.

But — you know — instead of getting into every little detail, like this appointment, that appointment, let’s try to talk about three or four particular issues that are typical of what has happened, and still is happening, and would lead me, therefore, to a conclusion at the end of this discussion.

Take, for example, the question of fighting terrorism. Proud American President Donald Trump surrendered. Yes, he surrendered to the Houthis in Yemen. He gave up to terrorists because he allows them, maybe even encourages them indirectly, to keep attacking Israel, but not attacking America. Sure, it’s a pro-American move: “We don’t attack America.” But is it a pillar of your foreign policy to abandon a friend and ally like that?

Cautionizing, legitimizing attacks on Israel by saying, “You can do that. What can I do?”

Donald Trump started the negotiations with Iran with changing views about what the demands from Iran are. And we still don’t know the final outcome of all that. But if the final outcome would be that Iran is still allowed to maintain a nuclear program — even for civilian purposes — it means that he doesn’t do anything different than what the Obama administration did.

Donald Trump put pressure on Israel to stop the war in Lebanon, exactly at the time when Hezbollah was ready to get the final blow from Israel. Yes, in the Lebanese situation, after 11 months of relative inaction by Israel, finally, Netanyahu, under pressure, decided to take the initiative. And it paid off so well to Israel, because this was the area in which you can talk specifically about the total defeat, almost, of the terrorists. Why “almost?” Because something else was needed to finalize the job. And then the American administration put a stop to it.

Donald Trump promised hell to Hamas in Gaza if they don’t release all the hostages within a short period of time. Nothing of this happened, of course. Edan Alexander was released — it is great news, fantastic news — but he is one hostage and an American citizen, which is also raising questions about the division between Americans and Israelis. You fight terrorism, you fight terrorism — it is one problem.

And I can go on with some more examples like this.

Where does it come from? Where was the Israeli reaction? And therefore, how do we put it all in perspective? Where it comes from is Trump’s version of isolationism. And many people will say it’s great, it’s a good American interest. So if that’s an American interest, not to get into war almost at all cost, I will be the last one to criticize it. But I need to mention it in the context of the Middle East. Because what does it mean? It means that we tolerate the terrorists, that we coexist with them. And for the sake of clarity, I will refer not just to people like the Houthis or Hezbollah or Hamas, but Iran.

Donald Trump doesn’t really care, apparently, about the fact that these systems will continue to exist. If he believes that by coming to some accommodation with them, he will be able to tame them, that’s a terrible, terrible mistake. Taming the shrew — ah! Impossible.

But if it falls into the basic tenets of how he views American isolationism and his supporters, then I can understand that there are implications.

Donald Trump wants political solutions that will be short-sighted — short of one situation that he raised and then did nothing about, which I immediately criticized, arguing it’s not going to happen because it’s just not even a half-baked cake. This is the talk about removing all the people of Gaza. It’s — let me use a non-diplomatic word — nonsensical.

But what helps him in that is that, yes, he has done already now some things that are very pro-Israel. He unfroze the embargo on arms to Israel that was basically imposed by Biden. He ordered his people in the UN organizations to continue to support Israel, even though it hasn’t yet come to any big test, like, say, a resolution in the Security Council about possible sanctions against Israel. That remains to be seen.

And at the same time, he makes it very clear that the focal countries of his new policy in the Middle East are the Gulf states: Saudi Arabia and Qatar, mainly, and the UAE, because they have something that Israel doesn’t have. They have the resources, the money.

And to give a kosher certificate, for example, to Qatar is the total opposite of anything which is like fighting terrorism. It is the greatest possible encouragement of terrorism because of what Qatar is and who the Qataris are. It’s as simple as this.

Israel’s paralysis and the waning American umbrella

Josef Olmert: What helps him with all that is — and that brings me back to what we already discussed — the total paralysis of the government of Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has no alternatives to anything, has no proposals to anything, has no initiatives — because he cannot do anything if he wants to maintain his current coalition, which is based on some lunatic — I would say lunatic — extreme right-wing parties, led by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. And for Netanyahu, this is the number one interest.

So even if Netanyahu were to change a little bit on all kinds of issues, or even to a large extent, it may not have changed completely the overall perspective that Trump has about how he should do his own policies and conduct them. But when Netanyahu does nothing and offers nothing, it makes it so much easier.

And that is the same mistake that Netanyahu has done throughout his political career — and definitely when it came also to the Obama administration: to say no with great, polished English is all very nice and easy. But to say yes requires courage, resolve, determination, leadership, which he lacks.

And what happens now is that because of the distance that is being created between Trump and Israel — he’s in the Middle East, but not in Israel. He’s praising Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, he’s meeting the terrorists like Mohammad al-Julani in Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the model countries for relations with the US. More and more countries are encouraged now to take more and more anti-Israel positions because they believe that the balance is changing. The umbrella of defense provided to Israel by the US is weakening, if not in the process of disappearing — which is, again, something very bad to Israel.

A troubling future for US–Israel relations

Josef Olmert: I can go on and on. I think I’ve said enough to lead me to interim conclusions.

Beware, Israel. The second administration of Donald J. Trump is going to be the greatest challenge to Israeli foreign policy in our memory, definitely in my memory. And I’m not a young person.

Israel will have to understand that America is changing. And with it are changes in American foreign policy, also in the Middle East.

And I will sharpen the point here by saying: The changes about Israel between this administration of Trump and the first one — in terms of the action but also the image, the perceptions — are just so important. These changes will not be the ones that will lead to a rebellion against Trump in the Republican Party, even by the greatest supporters of Israel, short of maybe a few. If there will be a rebellion against him, but it will be over other issues: the effect of the tariffs, the economic situation, the index of living, inflation, success or failure on the southern border and so on and so forth.

And that’s where we are standing, from the perspective of being in Israel now with less and less bipartisan support. If the Republican administration is the one that is changing the way I described, Israel cannot expect the Democrats to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for Israel. That could not happen.

So I have to leave my audience with this perspective: that for those who care about Israel and for Israel — and I’m one of them, of course — this is a very troubling, pessimistic, but I believe realistic assessment of the situation.

Thank you all.

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The speakers introduce the three primary actors: the US, Israel and Iran, framing the discussion around the American attack that occurred in the weeks preceding the conversation.

Israel’s perspective and objectives

The dominant political faction in Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the right-wing, on whom Netanyahu’s political survival depends. Netanyahu is running a coalition government that includes hardline far-right figures like Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir. Netanyahu is keen to prolong his rule because he fears trial in court on corruption charges. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have extreme objectives, including seizure and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza. This implies the expulsion of Palestinians and the destruction of the Iranian regime.

Israel assesses that Iran poses an existential threat because Tehran is developing a nuclear weapon. Israeli leaders deem this as “absolutely unacceptable,” because this would put “Israel’s and all Jews’ survival … on the brink of extermination.” Therefore, Israelis consider regime change in Iran to be fundamental and necessary to alter the current strategic equation. This task is believed to be beyond Israel’s sole capabilities — it requires US involvement.

Atul and Glenn highlight recent Israeli actions, including the decapitation of top Iranian leadership. This was a “spectacular special ops Mossad” operation and “one of the great intelligence operations in history.” Israelis also hit a number of Iranian nuclear and missile sites and claimed control of Iranian airspace. Despite Iranian counterclaims, the Israelis experienced far fewer casualties (an order of magnitude less) than they had anticipated, which led to a less pessimistic reality than their initial fears. This suggested Iranian counter strike capabilities were less powerful than feared. However, the economic dislocation for Israel has been immense.

There is a strong belief among Israelis that the Iranian regime is a “paper tiger,” which is utterly corrupt and infiltrated at all levels. Atul and Glenn cite the killing of the Palestinian leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in a VIP guest house — equivalent to killing someone in Blair House that is next to the American White House — as evidence of the deep Israeli infiltration into the Iranian regime. This suggests that this regime, despite its outward appearance, is not as cohesive, effective or united as it was after the 1979 revolution.

For Netanyahu, the timing of the attack on Iran was crucial: “If not now, when? If not us, who?” He views himself as the “savior of Israel” and the “guarantor of Israeli security.” With Hamas weakened, Hezbollah’s top leadership dead and the Assad regime in Syria gone, Israelis perceive a significant opportunity to strike Iran. Netanyahu believes the Iranian proxies present minimal danger, giving Israel a historic opportunity to attack Iran.

The ultimate goal for Israelis is regime change in Iran. A new liberal, tolerant and friendly regime could potentially restore the pre-1979 amicable relationship between the two nations. Atul and Glenn believe that the 1979 revolution, which brought in a “crazy Islamic regime” based on Shia ideology, fanaticism and opposition to the US, was an unnecessary development. The US was manipulated by the UK in 1953 to conduct a coup against a democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh. In 2025, some even believe the best course of action would be to eliminate Ayatollah Khamenei. Israelis think they can exert pressure and squeeze Iran due to its declining birth rate and persecution of Sunni minorities.

Atul and Glenn also explain the Begin Doctrine, which underpins Israeli national security. Per this doctrine, “none of Israel’s enemies or potential enemies should have or be able to have nuclear weapons.” Israel followed this doctrine to destroy an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and Syrian nuclear facilities in 2007. Note that Netanyahu attempted to apply this doctrine against Iran twice between 2009 and 2013. 

Netanyahu champions a hardline national security strategy but not all of Israel supports it. Many Israeli politicians, as well as intelligence and special forces personnel, oppose Netanyahu and his right-wing allies. The former head of Shin Bet left after much controversy. Historically, a strong majority of the Israeli population has favored a two-state solution and a negotiated solution with Iran, but this group is not currently in power. Many Israeli politicians and security professionals view the far-right’s desire for regime change as “a bridge too far.”

The US perspective

The US intelligence community’s assessment, as presented by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, differs from Israel’s dominant view: Iran is not manufacturing or possessing a nuclear weapon, and Ayatollah Khamenei has not reauthorized its manufacture. However, Iran has been “secretly developing weapons-grade fissile material,” which has only one use: a nuclear weapon. Iran is estimated to be anywhere from “days,” as Israelis assert, to “a good number of months” away from manufacturing one.

US President Donald Trump faced a dilemma: He had vowed not to engage in “forever wars” (precluding an invasion) but also stated he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. He ultimately aligned with the right-wing Israeli assessment that Iran’s capability to manufacture a weapon constituted an existential threat, irrespective of whether they currently possessed one. Faced with an “impossible dilemma,” Trump chose a minimalist attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and declared victory. He came to realize that regime change in Iran was not feasible and attempting it would make the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq “look like a birthday party.”

Iran’s perspective and resilience

The Iranian regime’s top priority is survival. Many analysts view them as “not crazies at all” but “very subtle and astute,” repeatedly signaling a desire for a resolution short of open war. In response to the US attack, Iran informed the Qatari government (and thus the US) in advance of their planned response, which involved a one-off missile attack on America’s largest base in the Middle East — symbolizing a strike at the heart of the US presence — before stopping.

Despite Israeli beliefs, Iran is more cohesive than its enemies imagine. It has demonstrated an ability to survive chaos, notably during the eight-year war with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Note that Western powers and the CIA backed Saddam. After the attacks, Iran could experience zeereh parcham — “rally to the flag” — and nationalism could make regime change far more difficult.

Atul and Glenn emphasize that Iran retains the potential to manufacture a nuclear weapon because “knowledge” cannot be killed, even if all involved scientists were assassinated. Iran is a “sophisticated society with millions of brilliant people who can study science.” They also note that Iran’s nuclear program was initiated by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, not the mullahs. The Iranian moral police have reportedly “dialed down” because of protests. There is little likelihood of an imminent revolution. Significantly, 20% of Iran’s population still lives in villages and largely supports the current regime. The Iranians want “nuclear insurance.” They note that poorer neighboring Pakistan has managed to avoid foreign interference for all its faults because it has the nuclear weapon.

Note that the Iranian counter strike was not “painless for Israel.” It hit business districts and apartment buildings, causing immense economic strain.

Broader implications and strategic changes

Atul and Glenn highlight profound strategic and structural changes to the power dynamics in the Middle East since October 7, 2023. Israel’s “brilliant decimation” (more than decimation because that means a tenth) of Hezbollah and Hamas has forced them into a defensive posture. The Assad regime in Syria has fallen as well. Israel has achieved lasting structural change.

However, the deeper issue of Iran’s nuclear potential remains unaddressed. While the Iranian regime may be weakened and subject to collapse in the long run (“stable until the day it’s not,” “things last until they don’t”), it has survived to fight another day. If the mullahs fall, they are unlikely to be replaced by women protestors in the streets. Rather, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) might replace the mullahs unless the women can convince a section of the military to side with them.

The British, drawing on a longer historical memory, express skepticism about swift regime change. They recognize Iran’s “imperial memory” and argue the nation is more cohesive than its enemies imagine. The Brits also point out that killing top military officers, while providing short-term tactical advantage, might lead to their replacement by younger, more competent and potentially more aggressive higher-testosterone individuals (“proper nutters” who are happy to have bullets with their names on them).

The most recent conflict has broader implications:

• The US is now back in the Middle East, leading to lower attention and lesser support for Ukraine.
• China will have a freer hand in the Far East. It can now increase pressure on Taiwan’s sovereignty through more incursions into international and Taiwanese waters. The Chinese will shift the status quo of what is acceptable before military intervention.
• Pakistan will feel less constrained and controlled by the US, potentially leading to increased assertiveness against India and “fireworks by September.”

The current situation is a “fragile truce,” with both Israelis and Iranians believing there is “unfinished business.” While there may be no immediate large-scale flare-up, Iran will “lick its wounds” and strive to obtain nuclear weapons for “insurance” against foreign intervention and regime change.

The “most likely happy solution” from a Western perspective is proposed as an “Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) evolution,” where the Iranian regime evolves without collapsing. The current doctrinaire mullahs who are in their 70s and 80s are replaced by more educated and internationalist successors.

[ edited this piece.]

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Biden’s team appeared convinced that diplomacy and the outdated Cold War of “indivisible security” are for sissies. After all, nuclear deterrence worked throughout the Cold War, kind of, so why should it be any different today?

Nearly every informed expert — though you would not know this if you consume Western media — has concluded that Russia has won on the battlefield. What’s left is a useless war of attrition which could go on for months or years. Unless, of course, the use by one of the parties of a tactical nuclear weapon, or some other provocation, leads to nuclear escalation. We’ve been living that drama for the past three and a half years. Many Americans voted for US President Donald Trump because he had promised to end that threat within 24 hours.

He’s still working on it. But if that wasn’t enough, nuclear-armed Israel’s permanent campaign to wage war on all its neighbors last week turned into a three-way scuffle when Trump offered to lend a hand by conducting his own massive bombing in Iran alongside Israel. Fears arose that Pakistan might intervene with its nuclear capacity in solidarity with Tehran.

If, in these perilous times, you live in the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, practically any European capital or the US, you would be justified, every morning when you get out of bed, in thinking there may be something to worry about. Something existential.

But if you’re a multi-billionaire living in the heart of Manhattan, and who also happens to be a pro-Israel Trump supporter, nuclear conflict is the last thing on your mind. There’s much more urgent business to attend to.

American billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman demonstrated that principle in a posted last week, following the upset victory of Zohran Mamdani over celebrity establishment candidate, Andrew Cuomo, in the Democratic primary of New York City’s mayoral race. His tweet began with this thought: “I awoke this morning gravely concerned about New York City.”

He has good reason to be concerned. Mamdani defined himself as someone ready to respond to the needs of working people and who refuses to kowtow to billionaires. Worse, he publicly empathizes with the evil Palestinians whose genocide in Gaza is being conducted by Ackman’s favorite “democracy” in the Middle East, with the active support of the US government — Trump’s no less than Biden’s. The idea that such a heretic seeking to become mayor of the Big Apple, the home of Wall Street, is far worse a prospect in Ackman’s mind than the risk of nuclear holocaust.

Fortunately, Ackman has a plan to save New York City, which he lays out in his tweet. It contains the following pragmatic advice:

“Importantly, there are hundreds of million of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Raising funds:

The primary activity of US politicians, both before and after being elected, and the unique criterion for determining the political talent for those who will have a role in governing the nation, the states or major cities.

Contextual note

It’s no secret for anyone paying attention to serious conducted in recent years, that the US, after innovating with the concept of democracy in the late 18th century, has more recently managed to remodel its institutions to assume the character of an effective oligarchy, with strong plutocratic tendencies. Everything we know about how Washington works, the role of lobbyists, the way campaign financing has been structured legally and financially confirms that what we’re looking at is a functional oligarchy that hides itself behind the ritual of lavishly financed elections.

If missing evidence was required, Ackman’s long tweet provides it. Ackman is as generous today with the words that describe his intentions as he will be tomorrow with the cash he promises to make available for the oligarchic cause. Like all true blue Americans, he deeply believes in this one essential truth, that “time is money.” Ackman assures us that “a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds.” He helpfully reminds us of the mechanism that defines the entire logic of the current system: a politician’s job has little to do with public service or the idea of devoting one’s time to perfecting the tools of governance. It’s about fundraising.

Fundraising is the principal skill every successful politician must acquire and work assiduously at refining. The art of communication, sometimes called spin, stands as the second skill essential to master. This consists of two basic components. The first is learning to speak in ways that sound informed and potentially authoritative (even when totally void of substance). Far more important than the cultivation of verbal style is the crafting of an “image” or public “personality” that projects a sense of commitment to whatever causes are seen from a marketing point of view as characterizing what Ackman calls “a great alternative candidate.” 

The hedge fund manager’s unlimited resources will serve to locate and groom the “great candidate” still waiting in the wings to be pressed into service. The beauty of the method consists of relieving the chosen candidate of the task on which ordinary US politicians spend the majority of their working time. According to most, fundraising consumes around 50% of their daily schedule. With fundraising taken care of, the candidate can focus full-time on polishing his or her image for the media.

Historical note

During the first 50 years of the new American republic, the patrician elite known as the “founders” deemed the idea of electoral campaigning unseemly behavior. The Puritan tradition had instilled the notion that community leaders should be elected on the basis of their perceived virtue. The very idea of self-promotion was anathema to the concept of US democracy. Fundraising in the modern sense was non-existent. Politicians counted on newspapers to establish their notoriety. The founding fathers on the idea of parties, which they tended to call “factions.”

During the Jacksonian era, beginning in the 1830s, the expansion of suffrage led to the emergence of a notion of mass politics. Political parties became the major vehicle for promoting individual candidates. Limited fundraising was necessary to support local organizations. But fundraising for the sake of electing a candidate was seen as foreign to the spirit of democracy.

Things changed radically during the Gilded Age towards the end of the 19th century. Corporate interests linked to the rapid development of large scale industry made their pressure felt in politics. The rapid shift from a formerly rural economy to one dominated by massive industries changed the nature of political decision-making. It also transformed the procedures and rituals surrounding elections. Some traditional politicians sensed danger. In 1907, Congress passed the, the first federal law banning corporate donations to federal candidates. In the name of democratic ideals, the political culture of the first half of the new century retained its moral bias against campaign funding.

Post-World War I American culture rapidly turned the traditional system on its head. The emergence of the art of (PR) and the work in the political and electoral field of PR professionals such as Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, the author of (presented as a positive, virtuous concept), transformed political culture.

From that point onward, the mindset of politicians turned from a focus on questions of governance to a far more essential one: getting elected. That meant doing everything required before and after an election to maintain one’s position. That doesn’t exclude politicians’ taking an interest in serious public issues, but it certainly encourages them to stay focused on anything that brings in the cash. That includes backing issues favored by those who donate the most to their campaigns.

The trend accelerated through the age of advertising beginning in around 1950, when advertising culture began to reign supreme. It culminated with two highly visible events: the Supreme Court ruling in (2010) that gave a free rein to corporate funding, followed six years later by the election of Trump, a candidate whose political and personal psyche is nakedly governed by his belief in the power of money. Trump’s political career signals the triumph of the new ideal of self-promotion that has eclipsed the ancient idea of the virtuous citizen.

Although Mamdani has himself developed the requisite skills of self-promotion that enabled him to defeat establishment stalwart, Cuomo, his commitment to causes defined as morally virtuous (combating wealth inequality, refusing complicity in genocide) challenges the status quo — a status quo Bill Ackman and his anonymous billionaire friends are committed to defending, in the name of democracy!

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Billionaires Line Up to Save New York from Democracy appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The fragility was built into the halt to the hostilities from the outset, starting with differences over whether the halt constituted a ceasefire. Iran rejects the notion of a ceasefire, even if it has agreed to halt the hostilities. Iran has insisted from day one of the Israeli assault that it would only stop retaliation for Israeli strikes once Israel halts its attacks.

A most fragile ceasefire

As far as Tehran is concerned, that is what Iran is doing in response to Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s labeling the halt of hostilities as a ceasefire. “As Iran has repeatedly made clear, Israel launched war on Iran, not the other way around. As of now, there is ” on any ceasefire,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X.

“However, provided that the Israeli regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people…we have no intention to continue our response afterward,” Araghchi added. Even so, an Iranian missile fired at Israel minutes after the halt of hostilities went into effect, and Israel’s destruction of a radar in northern Iran in response demonstrated the halt’s fragility and provoked .

Bowing to Trump’s demand that Israel restrain itself, Netanyahu Israeli fighter jets making their way to other Iranian targets.

Trump’s anger outburst indicated the degree to which the president can stop Israel from violating the ceasefire by striking at will whenever it feels that Iran is raising its head by, for example, attempting to rebuild its nuclear programme or replenish its missile arsenal.

Israel has consistently insisted that it has the right to strike whenever it feels that is warranted, as it does in Lebanon, despite the November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militia, and Syria.

“For Israel, the risk is you have to sit and watch as some targets appear that you would have wanted to strike but now can’t,” said former senior director for Middle East affairs at the US National Security Council, Michael Singh.

“Maybe they have to watch as Iran tries to rebuild its nuclear programme. And they have to now put a lot of trust and hope in the United States to be able to deliver some kind of diplomatic agreement that preserves the gains that you have made militarily,” Singh added.

Singh put his finger on the pulse with Iran determined to rebuild its nuclear programme and likely still in possession of of uranium enriched to 60% purity. The uranium, if further enriched, would be enough for nine nuclear warheads.

To be sure, the US and Israeli attacks have caused substantial damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, despite questions about the degree of damage and the whereabouts of the highly enriched uranium. The uranium, if further enriched, would be enough for nine nuclear warheads.

Also, unclear is to what degree the US and Israeli strikes have impeded Iran’s ability to enrich, leaving aside whether Iran would want to further enrich the 410 kilograms. Iran has consistently denied wanting to have nuclear weapons. An initial US Defence Intelligence Agency assessment, denounced by the White House as “flat-out wrong,” concluded that the US strikes at three Iranian nuclear facilities core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.

Iran is down but not out

Even so, Esmail Baghaie, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman. conceded that the US and Israeli strikes had “badly damaged the country’s nuclear programme. “,” Baghaie said without going into detail. Meanwhile, a growing body of Iranian voices suggests that the strikes, coupled with the near-collapse of Iran’s forward defence strategy based on non-state allies in Lebanon and Palestine and former President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, make nuclear weapons Iran’s best option to reestablish deterrence.

Iran’s potential withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) could embolden those who advocate for developing nuclear weapons.

Fuelling fears that Iran may opt for development of nuclear weapons, Iran’s parliament approved a bill to with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog. The bill, which must be approved by Iran’s unelected Guardian Council to become law, stipulates that any future IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites would need approval by the Supreme National Security Council.��

The bill “talks about suspending, not putting an end to the cooperation,” Baghaei said. The spokesman said restoring cooperation would depend on IAEA recognition of Iran’s “inalienable rights” in accordance with the NPT, including the right to enrich uranium up to 3.67%, and that the “security and safety” of the country’s nuclear sites and scientific community is guaranteed.

In addition to the damage caused by the US and Israeli strikes against nuclear installations, Israel has said it killed 14 Iranian nuclear scientists during the 12-day war. There is bound to be resentment in Tehran for these killings. Further threatening the sustainability of the halt of hostilities is the fact that Iran’s Axis of Resistance may be down but is not out.

A senior political official of the Houthi militant group in Yemen said that they are by the Israel and Iran halt of hostilities, asserting they would continue their attacks “until the aggression against Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.” The Houthis could provoke a breakdown of the ceasefire by targeting the US Navy and international shipping in Gulf waters.

In the same vein, it is hard to determine to what degree Israel may have diminished Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and ability to replenish it. Nevertheless, Iranian missile barrages highlighted weaknesses in Israel’s air defences, causing significant damages when they evaded the multi-layered anti-missile system.

Similarly, Israel struck at Iranian multiple non-nuclear targets, including police, cyber police, Basij militia, state television, and Red Crescent Society headquarters, the entrance to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, a power grid in the northern part of the Iranian capital, and a natural gas processing facility and gas refinery in Bushehr Province.

The strikes demonstrated Israel’s ability to hit whatever it fancies, including targets that could significantly impact the Iranian rulers’ grip on power as well as the degree of its intelligence penetration of Iran. Iran this week on charges of spying for Israel after earlier executing another three. Iran allegedly has arrested 700 people on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. So far, there seems to be no threat to the Iranian regime’s grip on power though.

The Israeli principle of overwhelming force is unlikely to work

The strikes followed a long familiar Israeli pattern that operates on the principle that sledgehammers and overwhelming force will whip opponents into submission. It’s a pattern applied to the Palestinians for decades that has failed to produce results. So far, there is no indication that it has worked in Iran despite Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu’s veiled assertions that this approach has worked.

The halt of hostilities is likely to remain fragile, even if it leads to a resumption of US-Iranian negotiations, given that there is no indication that Iran will bow to Trump’s demand that Iran “unconditional(y) surrender” and give up its right to enrich uranium to 3.67%.

In The Hague, Trump said that US and Iranian officials would meet next week but, convinced that the US strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, downplayed the significance of a formal agreement with the Islamic Republic. In doing so, Trump appeared to signal that the US would be hardline in the talks

“We’re going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary… I don’t care whether we have an agreement or not,” Trump said. The president insisted that the US would not allow Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme. “We won’t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won’t,” Trump said.

Trump’s dismissal fuelled fears that a resumption of Israeli Iranian hostilities may be inevitable. The threat of revived hostilities was compounded by the absence of any suggestion that Iran would agree to restrictions on its missile programme. Even, so Trump appeared to offer a carrot by indicating that he would not from buying oil from Iran, saying Tehran needs the money “to put that country back into shape.” This small carrot might not be enough.

[ first published this piece.]

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As an independent broadcaster, Carlson also dares to break many of the rules, not just of the media culture he has long been a part of. He has also acquired the habit of challenging the nation’s dominant political culture. He made headline news when, shortly after leaving Fox, he dared to carry off a long in the Kremlin with the man whose voice is never allowed to be heard in US media: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Carlson certainly understood that refusing to talk freely with Putin is part of a strategy designed to leave Western commentators in charge of interpreting Putin’s secret thoughts. They alone know what he is truly thinking, so why bother listening to the man himself? It’s an effective strategy. For example, how many times have we heard from the politicians and the media that once Putin has fully integrated Ukraine into Mother Russia, he will set about conquering Poland, the Baltic States and probably Finland before sending his tanks down France’s Champs-Elysée. Emmanuel Macron, for one, appears to that. As does NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who not so long ago, according to Defense News, “that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to ‘wipe Ukraine off the map’ and could come after other parts of Europe next.”

Carlson has since become specialized in long, informal interviews with important people in politics. In the context of the Middle East crisis, last week, Carlson fellow conservative Republican and one-time presidential hopeful, Texan Senator Ted Cruz.

In the course of the interview, Carlson dared to accuse Cruz of being a neocon, ready to intervene and attack foreign countries on the flimsiest of supposedly moral principles. “You’re saying we’re making a moral case,” Carlson claimed at one point, while pointing out that the reasons for attacking Iran, similar to the case of Iraq two decades ago, is being made based on lies. Insisting he isn’t a neocon, at one point Cruz objects: “I’m not in the morality game. I’m in the US interest game.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

In the game:

An expression popular in the United States to designate the area in which people conduct their professional activities, deemed a sport or competition rather than a vocation because in US culture everyone’s role in society is to maneuver in ways that lead to winning at the expense of everyone else, the “losers.”

Contextual note

Cruz is guilty of nothing more serious than using an easy-to-grasp metaphor to make his point. The expression, “in the game of,” has featured in American English for at least a century. It usually appears in the negative formulation, as a form of denial: “I’m not in the game of X,” an assertion similar to “I’m not in the business of X.”

Cruz’s denial of being in the “morality game” tells us a lot about two things: US political culture in general and Cruz’s own lack of seriousness. Games produce results (wins or losses) and scores. But those results, unlike the results of international conflict, have no permanent effect on society. The senator’s formulation conveys the idea that the matter under discussion is just a game, with no serious stakes.  But the matter he evokes is foreign policy — more specifically war and peace — a domain in which the stakes are always serious. We should note, however, that in the US, labeling something as “foreign” means it can only be of marginal interest.

Another distinction will help to understand how US political culture distinguishes between the serious and the trivial. Cruz would never be tempted to talk about what “game” he’s in when discussing immigration policy. Immigration is a “serious” issue that we should never think of in terms of playing a game. Americans treat foreign policy as a distraction, like a team sport. When a war starts, a new season begins. When it ends (as it tends not to do these days), the season is over.

In the same conversation, Cruz has no qualms about contradicting his denial of playing the morality game. At one point, to justify US aggression, he out: “That’s who Iran wants to kill, is all the Jews and all the Americans.”

In other words, he frames the emerging US regime change strategy for Iran in terms of a moral duty to punish an immoral government. His does so on the grounds that people thousands of miles away have a desire to kill Jews and Americans. Carlson laughs at his ignorance of any of the basic facts about Iran, including the size of its population. And clearly Cruz has not tried to explore the meaning of the verbal threats Iranians have been prone to make in the past. Whether it’s “the morality game” or the “control of Middle East oil” game, for him it’s only about who will win or lose. No more of an issue than who will win next year’s Super Bowl.

Historical note

Every culture on earth, throughout history has created, adapted or adopted popular games in which people compete mentally, physically to prove what they are capable of, either individually, collectively or both. The Egyptians and Sumerians invented and played as far back as five thousand years ago. Games provide non-threatening opportunities to simulate, experiment, understand and eventually master complex human activities. Over the course of history, these have been related directly or indirectly to religion, sexuality and marriage, business and, of course, war, most directly alluded to in the game of chess. Though they have no applicable purpose, the skills thus cultivated often play a role in implementing strategies of survival and social organization.

Games are built around formal rules and strictly defined contexts that are designed to avoid confusion with social, political and economic reality. But the relationship between games and living history evolves over time. In modern cultures, particularly in the West, the frontier between those two realms of competitive activity appears to be breaking down. Cruz provides an example of how that may happen. By entertaining the idea that political reality is a game, a contest, in which there are winners and losers, rather than as a kind of social ballet serving to knit a complex fabric of society, our understanding of how the world works is diminished. Within every society, complementary forces interact in a variety of ways to facilitate exchange (of information, goods, language, wealth and the arts). If the distinction between social interaction and games is lost, society’s concept of politics inevitably becomes confused with the violence of war, the ultimate and fatal form of competition.

Our age has elevated the idea of national security as everyone’s top core value. This usually translates as an expanding effort aimed at multiplying the physical and technological means of protecting the status quo of existing governments. The surveillance state becomes a universal ideal. US President Donald Trump clearly shares that mindset. But so did former President Joe Biden.

Trump biographer Michael Wolff is now featured in the media quoting examples of Trump’s captured from phone calls made over the past week leading up to his decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. The litany begins with: “Are they going to win? Is this a winner? Is this game over? They are so good. This is really a showstopper.” The day before authorizing the bombing, Trump said, “If we do this, it needs to be perfect. It needs to be a win. It has to look perfect.” Capping it all, the president summed it up with, “In, boom, out.” In US sport, that is called planning a “buzzer-beater.”

Once upon a time, nations would routinely attempt some form of diplomacy before beginning a war. If it failed, war ensued. In the course of the war, they would then prepare for the diplomatic campaign that would resolve the war. That isn’t what happens in games. And the fact that we no longer see diplomacy at work before a war and that wars are conducted with no “end game” in sight, tells us that civilization has adopted a new set of rules: no rules, other than the logic of force. “Peace through force” in the eyes of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu translates as “might makes right.”

Although his style was different, Biden also reduced foreign policy to a game. Upon taking office in January 2021, he repeatedly claimed that the world was a contest between two teams: democracies and autocracies. That explains why he didn’t bother , at Putin’s request, to hammer out a framework for European security. The game would be a proxy war.

Trump took the aversion to serious diplomacy one step further when he used officially programmed negotiations as a simple feint in his game strategy that allowed Israel to Iran on the pretext of settling by force the very issue the US claimed it was “negotiating.” That attack included an attempted of Iran’s chief negotiator.

One thing seems to be clear in the wake of the last two US presidencies: concerning the fate of what the Biden team tirelessly vaunted as “the rules-based international order.” For that order, it is truly “game over.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Foreign Policy Game: Cruz Talks, Carlson Scores appeared first on 51�Թ�.

That actually might make some sense. But no one now expects sense to be made in a world run by mad dictators.

Days before US President Donald Trump decided to fall into the role of the 21st century’s Adolf Hitler and solidify Netanyahu’s role as his Benito Mussolini, I attempted to get some clarification on the official cause of the war the new Mussolini and Hitler had launched via a coordinated Pearl Harbor-style attack on June 13.

On the fundamental argument used to justify the most desperate geopolitical decisions of the 21st century, I addressed the following prompt to ChatGPT.

“We hear it mentioned frequently that Iran wants to destroy Israel. But has that specific intention been explicitly stated or is it just politicians and journalists expressing an interpretation of the official intentions?”

ChatGPT obliged with this response.

“This is a crucial and often misunderstood topic. The claim that ‘Iran wants to destroy Israel’ is widely repeated in media and political discourse, but the basis for it deserves careful scrutiny.

1. Official Statements from Iranian Leaders

Iranian leaders, particularly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have made numerous provocative and hostile statements about Israel over the years. However, whether these statements explicitly call for Israel’s destruction in a military sense is debatable and often hinges on translation and context.

Ahmadinejad’s 2005 Statement

The most cited example is Ahmadinejad’s 2005 statement, often reported in the West as calling for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map.’ This phrase became a media catchphrase, but the original Persian phrase

more literally translates to: ‘This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.’

This phrasing, while deeply hostile to the regime, can be interpreted as a political statement against Zionism or the Israeli government rather than a literal military threat to annihilate the country or its people. Even prominent Israeli figures and scholars, like former Mossad head Efraim Halevy and Middle East historian Juan Cole, have pointed out the nuances in that translation.

Khamenei’s Position

Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly referred to Israel as a ‘cancerous tumor’ and stated that it will not exist in the future. In 2015, he published a document titled ‘Palestine,’ in which he called for a ‘referendum among the indigenous population of Palestine, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians’ to determine the country’s future — implying a post-Zionist solution. He explicitly opposed the killing of Jews or military genocide, while continuing to advocate for the end of the Zionist regime.

So, the official line seems to envision the end of the Israeli state as a Zionist regime, but not necessarily through direct military destruction.

2. Rhetoric vs. Policy

There is a significant gap between rhetoric and actual policy:

• Iran supports Hezbollah and Palestinian factions opposed to Israel, clearly challenging Israeli interests.
• But Iran has never directly attacked Israel (except through proxy conflicts), despite decades of hostile rhetoric.
• Israeli military planners treat Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a strategic threat, but this is largely pre-emptive, based on perceived potential rather than declared intentions to launch nuclear attacks.

3. Interpretations and Media Framing

Western and Israeli politicians, particularly those favoring a hawkish stance on Iran, often summarize Iranian rhetoric as a desire to ‘destroy Israel’. This serves political goals: rallying public opinion, justifying defense budgets, and shaping foreign policy.

The media frequently echoes this interpretation without always exploring the original language or historical context, reinforcing the simplified narrative.

Summary:

• Iran has expressed hostile views toward Israel’s government and Zionism, calling for its end as a regime.
• Iranian leaders have not explicitly called for the mass killing of Israeli civilians or a military destruction of Israel.
• The phrase ‘destroy Israel’ is largely an interpretation of rhetorical, ideological, and geopolitical opposition, often amplified or simplified in media and political discourse.

If you’d like, I can show examples of key statements in Persian and English with annotations.”

I confirmed my interest in examining those examples. ChatGPT obliged.

“Great — let’s examine some key statements by Iranian leaders, focusing on original Persian phrasing, literal translation, and context, followed by interpretative notes.

🗣️ 1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005)

Original Persian (Oct 26, 2005):
«امام فرمود این رژیم اشغالگر قدس باید از صفحه روزگار محو شود.»

Literal Translation:
‘The Imam said: This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.’

Context:

·         He was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s revolutionary leader.

·         The statement came during a conference titled ‘The World Without Zionism.’

·         No military action was proposed; the focus was ideological opposition.

Interpretative Note:
The phrase ‘محو شود’ (maḥv haved) means ‘be erased’ or ‘vanish,’ but not necessarily by violence. Critics say the phrase suggests genocide; defenders argue it expresses a belief that the Israeli regime will collapse or be replaced, akin to the Soviet Union.

🗣️ 2. Ali Khamenei (Twitter post, 2014, and repeated in 2015 publication)

Original Persian:
«اسرائیل 25 سال آینده را نخواهد دید.»

Literal Translation:
‘Israel will not see the next 25 years.’

Context:

·         Tweeted in 2014 after Netanyahu warned against the Iran nuclear deal.

·         This statement was widely interpreted as a threat of destruction.

Interpretative Note:
Khamenei later clarified that he was referring to the demise of the Zionist regime, not the physical destruction of people. He wrote in his 2015 booklet ‘Palestine’ that armed resistance and a referendum among the indigenous population (including Jews) was the path forward.

🗣️ 3. Ali Khamenei, ‘Palestine’ (2015 Booklet)

Original Persian:
«ما راه‌حل مسئله فلسطین را جنگ نظامی نمی‌دانیم… ما پیشنهاد همه‌پرسی برای ساکنان اصلی سرزمین فلسطین داریم.»

Literal Translation:
‘We do not consider military war as the solution to the Palestine issue… We propose a referendum for the original inhabitants of Palestine.’

Interpretative Note:
Khamenei frames the issue as anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish. His vision appears to be post-Zionist — the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, but not necessarily the elimination of its Jewish inhabitants.

🗣️ 4. Recurrent Metaphor: ‘Cancerous Tumor’

Original Persian (various speeches):
«رژیم صهیونیستی غده سرطانی است.»

Literal Translation:
‘The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor.’

Interpretative Note:

·         This metaphor is inflammatory and dehumanizing.

·         However, it targets Zionism, not Judaism.

·         It’s a metaphor often used to argue for ‘surgical removal’ (i.e., regime change), which leads to diverse interpretations, including military action or political isolation.

Summary Table

Conclusion:

Iran’s official rhetoric unequivocally rejects the legitimacy of the Israeli state as a Zionist project, but explicit calls for physical destruction or genocide are not found in the official language. The language is radical, ideological, and symbolic, but also strategically ambiguous, allowing room for both deniability and mobilization.

Would you like me to include references to Iranian media or political sources to back these translations further?”

I followed this up by the following prompt: “Iranian assemblies have quite often been seen chanting a phrase translated in English as ‘Death to Israel’ or ‘Death to Jews.’ Since the two ideas are very different, it’s important to understand which is the official chant shouted in the presence of politicians.”

“You’re absolutely right to draw a sharp distinction between ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to Jews’ — the two have radically different implications. Understanding the original Farsi phrases, their historical context, and how they’re used is essential for clarity.

✅ The Common Official Chant: ‘Marg bar Isra’il’ (مرگ بر اسرائیل)

Translation:
‘Death to Israel’ or more literally, ‘Death upon Israel.’

This is the standard phrase chanted in political demonstrations, Friday prayers, and official state gatherings, especially on occasions like Quds Day (Rooz-e Qods) and anniversaries of the revolution.

It is often chanted alongside:

·         “Marg bar Amrika” (مرگ بر آمریکا) — ‘Death to America’

·         “Marg bar Engelis” (مرگ بر انگلیس) — ‘Death to England’

⚠️ What About ‘Death to Jews’?

The phrase ‘Marg bar Yahud’ (مرگ بر یهود) — ‘Death to Jews’ — is not an official chant in Iran, and there is no documented case of it being used by top leadership in state-sanctioned settings. In fact:

• Iranian leaders, including Khamenei, have repeatedly said they distinguish between Zionism and Judaism.
• Iran has the largest Jewish population of any country in the Middle East outside Israel (roughly 8,000–10,000), and the Jewish community has a seat in Iran’s parliament.
• Khamenei’s office has published statements saying ‘We are not anti-Semitic’ and distinguishing Jews from the ‘usurping Zionist regime.’

📢 Examples from Public Events

In Friday sermons or protests, the chants typically go:

مرگ بر اسرائیل
مرگ بر آمریکا
مرگ بر انگلیس

These are coordinated and often encouraged by the regime, but they target states and governments, not peoples or religions per se.

📌 Summary

🧭 Conclusion

Iran’s government and official assemblies do chant ‘Death to Israel’, which is directed at the Zionist state and its policies — not at Jewish people as an ethnic or religious group. While the slogan is undeniably aggressive and symbolic of deep hostility, it is not the same as — nor does it include — a genocidal or anti-Semitic slogan like ‘Death to Jews.’”

My conclusions

I don’t know how many Western politicians and journalists I’ve heard in the past week explain the necessity to attack Iran and overthrow its regimes because it has threatened to destroy not just Israel but Jews. Many of them insist equally that once Iran destroys Israel with a newly acquired nuclear weapon it will go on to attack Europe and the US. Republican Ted Cruz, challenged by conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson, was perhaps the most and extreme: “That’s who Iran wants to kill, is all the Jews and all the Americans.” Earlier this year, Congressman Jared Moskowitz submitted a affirming that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is a credible threat to the United States and an existential threat to Israel and other allies and partners in the Middle East.”��

While it is legitimate to suspect a possible hidden intent behind any government’s or politician’s words, most of these commentators claim to know that intent, even when, like Cruz, they demonstrate their ignorance of the country, the population and its culture, a fact Carlson highlighted (“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?”). For the past three and a half years, Western commentators and politicians have similarly produced endless accounts of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s never expressed intentions to recreate the Soviet empire and send his tanks through the streets of most European capitals.

If this wasn’t about justifying war — a potentially nuclear war in both cases — we might chalk up this kind of gratuitous invention of other people’s thought processes simply to these commentators’ and politicians’ taste for hyperbole. The media plays its own role in this tragicomedy, preferring alarmism to cold analysis.

It’s worth noting the title of an published by The Guardian this weekend by Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz: “Iran is the enemy Netanyahu has always wanted to destroy. Even from their bomb shelters, most Israelis support his war.”

Before drawing conclusions about the designated enemy’s hidden intention, we need to ask ourselves, with a sense of objectivity: “Who wants to destroy whom?”

In times of war, it is usual, when asking this question, to reflect on who took the initiative in the race to destroy the other. What complicates this case is the fact that the initiators were both Israel and the US, who colluded on Israel’s June 13 attack and again on this weekend’s illegal act of war by the US. Shouting slogans calling for the death of another nation, as the Iranians have done for decades, is the emotional expression of an unrealistic wish. Dropping bombs and assassinating leaders is, quite simply, an act of massive destruction.

However one assesses the success or failure of Trump’s brazen attack, it is difficult to imagine that the rest of the world is not now convinced that both Israel and the US are definitive rogue states, and deserve to be treated as embarrassing pariahs by even those nations that have maintained the status of loyal allies.

The worst is yet to come.

Your thoughts

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these points by writing to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com.�� We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We will build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.��

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone’s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At 51�Թ�, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

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Casey Given: Thanks. It’s so great to be here.

Atul Singh: Brilliant. So Casey, let’s talk about civil liberties and free speech. From your background, it seems you’ve always cared about these issues. What do you really mean by civil liberties and free speech?

Casey Given: Ooh, good question. Well, I think I would just go with the definition of at least my priors. I am what would be called a classical liberal or libertarian. So I’m really interested in free speech and civil liberties, really more in the sense of the individual liberty standpoint.

Atul Singh: Are you a John Stuart Mill sort of liberal?

Casey Given: Yes, exactly. So I would say that. But of course, as an American, the Bill of Rights, I think, is really the type of liberties that I seek to preserve and defend, especially through my organization as a vehicle.

Atul Singh: I see. And so, the Bill of Rights. So give us a little more meat, then. What do you see as the role of the state? Should the role of the state be minimal? Should the role of the state be limited to foreign policy and defense and perhaps running the Federal Reserve — or maybe not? Or should it extend to other areas, such as regulating the environment or providing welfare to those who have been left behind?

Casey Given: Yes, all good questions. We were just talking before the stream about my undergrad days at UC Berkeley, and I used to love getting into these size-of-the-state articles—

Atul Singh: Where I taught, by the way. You didn’t take my class. (Both laugh)

Casey Given: And we were both knocking it! I wish I had taken your class. But I used to get into arguments all the time with my fellow students about minarchy versus anarchy. And to some degree, as I get older, I’m less interested in that. I like to describe myself as a directional libertarian, in the sense that I think the size of the state should be directionally smaller. But that’s not—

Atul Singh: You’re not an absolutist anymore. Let’s say in the UK context, you’re not someone who’ll say, “Let’s get rid of the National Health Service.”

Casey Given: Exactly, yes, that’s a great example. Or in the American context, of course, things like Social Security, or — you specifically mentioned welfare. I think that overnight abolition is a ridiculous concept. But I think that there’s plenty of halfway measures to reform these programs that desperately need it.

DOGE and the case against tariffs

Atul Singh: Yeah. So I read your column in The Hill, and you had predicted that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would find it hard going in Washington. And the budget seems to have proved your point. And indeed, Elon Musk has talked about the big and beautiful bill and said it can either be big or beautiful — it can’t be both. Are you dissatisfied with the budget, which is going to increase trillions of dollars of government debt and boost the deficit?

Casey Given: Yes, absolutely I’m dissatisfied with it. I was a cautious optimist for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. And now that he’s leaving, I still think it was a good faith effort. But the thing is, in many ways, he was getting all of the blame for the dysfunction, when I think there should be more blame exactly on Congress, which is an actual branch of government that has basically absolved itself of any responsibility and has given into the big government, wasteful spending, as seen in the budget. So I think it’s very disappointing. I think that conservatives in Congress aren’t actually being conservative. And that’s why I still firmly identify as a libertarian rather than a conservative or Republican, is that I think that we need to actually activate the branches and have smart governance.

Atul Singh: So let’s talk about what you would like to see. Would you like to see a cutting down of regulation for small business? Would you like to see a cutting down of, say, defense spending, Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security? Would you like to see an increase in taxes to balance the budget a little bit? What is it that you would like to see? And since you’ve said you’re a libertarian, where do you stand on tariffs?

Casey Given: Yes. Well, first, to return to DOGE, I think that a lot of the cuts that they made were directionally sensible. There’s just so much waste when it comes to the feeding off of the trough of pork-barrel spending when it comes to NGOs, where their mission is not exactly clear. Of course, that is a drop in the bucket, and I absolutely understand the points that critics have of DOGE — that the real wasteful spending, or at least statistically, the biggest areas of the federal budget are, of course, entitlements: Social Security, Medicare and defense spending on the discretionary side.

So to really tackle those, I would say that with defense spending, obviously, there needs to be a lot more auditing of the Department of Defense. I mean, it seems like regularly that they lose billions of dollars that they can’t account for, which is just completely unacceptable. And in terms of Medicare, with Social Security, I think that we need to raise the retirement age for the future. When it was created by FDR, 65 was well above the average lifespan. Now people are, fortunately, living so much longer. So I think it’s fair to raise the age of payout.

And Medicaid — I think that it’s really disappointing. I think that Elon, in a brief tweet, talked about a lot of fraud. I suspect that’s probably the biggest program where there’s a lot of wasteful spending, of people claiming to be disabled, etc., who actually aren’t. So I think there are ways to meaningfully save the budget. But again, as a directional libertarian, I think it’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that there needs to be halfway measures and more rational reform slowly.

Atul Singh: I mean, you’re making the case for a responsible right, really. What you’re doing is saying: Let us have sensible policies. And so talking about sensible policies, let me take you back to tariffs. Most people who are libertarians — indeed, going back to the original classical liberals — they stood for free trade. The Economist magazine began on the principle of free trade. And where do you stand on that? Because we are living in a very different era now, with industrial policy under Joe Biden and, before that, tariffs as an instrument of trade policy under Donald Trump 1 and Donald Trump 2.0.

Casey Given: Yes, this is the area where I would be the most critical of Donald Trump. I think that his tariff policy has been an absolute disaster. I think that it’s really, if anything, so far punishing our closest friends in terms of Canada, the EU, etc. And even if you believe in tariffs — this is something I often tell to my friends who are big Trump supporters — I think the way that he’s going about it is completely irrational, where he changes his mind every 24 hours. It’s like, if you’re going to set a policy, just by pure regime stability, is that markets will adjust if you just put the tax in place.

So I think that tariffs are destructive. I think the whole framing of a tariff deficit is completely twisted and not really what a state should try to pursue. Because, of course, trade is a mutual benefit. It goes back to Economics 101, which I won’t dare even have to bring up in front of an political economy professor, but I think it’s completely silly and destructive what the admin is doing. So I hope they’ll knock it off.

Free speech in Casey’s Berkeley days

Atul Singh: I see. So you have been libertarian, and you went to Berkeley, where you and I both spent time — you as a student, I as faculty — and I found Berkeley very ideological, very to the left. What was it like being a young libertarian in Berkeley — and, of course, even in George Washington University?

Casey Given: Yes, well, I should say also — I should probably reveal my age — that I’m 35. So I graduated in 2012, which I feel that in the scope of my life is not that far away — or doesn’t feel like it — but it really is, I think, a separate era of history, at least in the US. Of course, this was under the Obama years, but also in terms of campus attitudes towards free speech.

Greg Lukianoff and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education really say that 2014 is when there was a new regime when it came to free speech and the growth of the administrative state in universities, etc., that kicked off the current wokeness age backed by law.

So I would say that I actually really enjoyed my time at UC Berkeley. It was certainly predominantly left when it comes to the average student body. But I would say even at that time, most of the people I encountered were very cordial. We had fun. I ran the college libertarian group, so we had debates with the College Republicans, with the Democrats, etc. It’s a top-tier school, maybe not in the humanities, but at least in STEM I would say—

Atul Singh: Oh, it’s one of the best in the world. I mean, for computer science, for physics, for so many disciplines, it is a school with Nobel Prize winners, cutting-edge research and really clever young people.

Casey Given: Yeah, and so I would say that most students were heads down, wanted to do the homework, and there was just a small faction of ideological, very lefty students that created trouble — which is often the case on college campuses.

Atul Singh: Got it. Now, the reason I asked you was whether your experience led you to run Young Voices, the organization you are supporting. You’re supporting young people of the right who are commenting on politics, policy, civil liberties, and I was wondering if your student experiences were formative or not in working on this?

Casey Given: Oh, absolutely. That is really where I solidified in my mind that I have a knack for leadership. I started the libertarian student group my sophomore year. And I also, in my senior year, became known on campus enough that I became the political columnist for the student newspaper, The Daily Californian, which really, I think, put me on my current trajectory, ultimately leading to my position as CEO of Young Voices. So in many ways, I’m living the fantasy that I had in my undergrad days of pursuing political commentary and running an organization like that full time.

Threading the needle between extremes

Atul Singh: So let me ask you a question: How do you thread the needle between the liberal establishment and the populist right? Because you clearly don’t fall into either camp. You very much, as you’ve said, want to be the responsible right. You are libertarian, but you’re directionally so. You’re not saying, “Let’s slash and burn, let’s throw the baby out with the bathwater.” So you’re in a tricky situation, Casey.

Casey Given: Yes, that is a very good question and one that I’ve thought about a lot. I feel like, in many ways, libertarians, at least of my ilk — I like the “responsible right” moniker, or “classical liberals” is probably what many of my peers call ourselves — really do try to walk a tightrope of not trying to throw out the liberal establishment, as you mentioned, but also not trying to be too radical, especially when it comes to populism or illiberalism or the national conservative economics, as they like to call themselves.

Atul Singh: The Steve Bannon approach that you need tariffs, you need economic nationalism, you need to bring jobs back for the working class, and a combination of immigration controls and tariffs will resuscitate the American working class.

Casey Given: Yes. So here’s how I thread the needle. I want to give both sides their due. I think that the Steve Bannon populist right has hit on something that I think is correct, in the sense that there has been widespread failure of institutions going back for decades now — failure to respond to security challenges, I mean even going back to 9/11, failed wars, the Covid pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis. We are living in an era — even down to everyday living, of crumbling infrastructure — where government institutions are failing, and people are feeling like they’re getting the short end of the stick. And I think that anger is justified in many ways.

However, I think that the way that it has manifested — especially with MAGA, of “we need to tear everything down” or “we need to punish our enemies” — that is ultimately a philosophy of destruction rather than a philosophy of building. And I think it’s very dangerous, again, to throw the baby out with the bathwater of trying to just completely destroy things or really express your anger rather than trying to actually reform.

So, I do respect people on the populist right who are trying to do a little more of the building. And I respect people on the left, too. Like, I’m very encouraged by trends on the left like the “abundance agenda,” who are really looking for more proactive good institution-building that involves markets. And I hope to see more of that on both sides — that solution-oriented, not just culture wars, destructive anger expressed in that way.

Young Voices’s funding, training and mission

Atul Singh: Alright, fair enough. Let me ask you a more pointed question: Who funds Young Voices, and how do you ensure editorial independence? We are a nonprofit, too, and we’ve had to fight really hard — and ours is a crowdsourced approach. So that’s why I ask this question, having gone through this myself.

Casey Given: Absolutely, that’s a question I get often. Young Voices — we are completely privately funded, 100%, from individuals, foundations and corporations. These are a mix of people who give anywhere from $1 to $100,000 or so. We have over 50 donors who give us above $5,000, I believe. So it’s a good mixture of people, and I think just having a diverse portfolio of supporters is a great way to keep ourselves independent and not be anyone’s toady, if you will.

But beyond the who question, we also have lots of practices in place. We have a code of ethics that’s on our website that specifically outlines our approach to editorial independence in the fact that no donor can ever influence or edit our drafts. And more so than that, actually, we’ve restricted the editorial independence of our writers as well. We allow our writers to more or less write whatever they like, so long as it is broadly within classical liberal principles. So we really take independence and ethics quite seriously.

Atul Singh: I see. Now, tell me: What exactly do you do in Young Voices, and how do you do it? We have an idea, but I’m very curious. Obviously, you have a number of people from the libertarian school or the classical liberal philosophy whom you’re schooling. How do you find them? What exactly do you do with them? And what is the vision?

Casey Given: Yes. Well, first of all, we’re a program that’s in high demand in the sense that what we do is offer editorial services, media training and placement services at absolutely no cost. That means we edit and pitch op-eds, we schedule radio and TV hits, we get people onto broadcast media, arrange in-person speaking events, etc., at no cost to the participant.

So just through the appeal of that offer, we get over 200 applications every year for our programs, of which we accept about half, or just under half. In terms of where we find our folks, we are trying to get better about actively recruiting because I think we’re more interested at this point in the quality of participants rather than the quantity of applicants.

And we find them from undergraduate groups that are classical liberal, libertarian, conservative groups — sourcing them — as well as probably the biggest area we’ve had success with, which is think tanks, both in DC, where we’re headquartered, but also across the country and in Europe, through networks like the Atlas Network or State Policy Network. We really try to find people who are getting their first roles, looking to build a career in the world of ideas and grow with us in that way.

Classical liberalism outlook: Europe and the US

Atul Singh: So let’s talk about Europe. Since you’ve mentioned Europe, you’re just back from Europe, we have a strong presence in Europe. In fact, part of our editing team is in Europe. Right from the outset, which countries are you focused on, and where are you finding classical liberals of great promise in Europe?

Casey Given: Yeah, so we are in about 20 countries across the continent. Of course, when I say that, I mean we’re working with individual writers in the country. So it’s not super institutional in that sense, but rather individual relationships. We have one employee based in the UK who does all of our editing and pitching across the continent.

But really from there, we’re not trying to put dots on a map, but rather work with people in the think tank and journalism world that we think are aligned with our values and are very excited to develop their careers in media.

Atul Singh: So no relationships with political parties yet in Europe? Not a single political party?

Casey Given: No. As a 501(c)(3), even in the United States, we don’t have any formal relationships with the Republican Party or the Libertarian Party or anything. We work purely with individuals.

Atul Singh: Purely with individuals. I see. The reason I asked is because in Europe, classical liberalism often means something different from what Americans mean. And often, the people you’d call liberals — liberals in Germany, for instance — are extremely free market. And liberals in the US are quite interventionist. Hence the question. And also, the change in the zeitgeist in Europe now is leading to a curious combination of populism, both on the left and the right, and classical liberalism is finding it hard to stay afloat.

Casey Given: Yes, it absolutely is. And I think that’s something that I hope to try to change. (Chuckles)

Atul Singh: I see.

Casey Given: And to answer a question that you didn’t ask, but I do think about this a lot: I do think it comes to that metaphor you used of threading the needle. You really have both sides: one, the left, that has the establishment, the neoliberal order; versus the right, which is increasingly more populist and aiming to destroy that order.

And so I think the middle ground is where classical liberals can really lean into and say that institutions are important. Elites are important — but they need to be held accountable. That’s really where I see at least my version of classical liberalism can do something. But I know that’s a message that is not really satisfying to one side completely.

Atul Singh: So let me ask you — since you have an employee in the UK, and I’m sure you go to the UK — and I, of course, lived and studied in the UK for a while. In fact, I’ve written a book chapter on Brexit, amongst other things, and I follow Britain very closely. Where do you see classical liberalism in the political landscape of Britain today?

Casey Given: Yes. I would say— 

Atul Singh: This is the country that gave birth to the idea. It’s the land of John Stuart Mill, who, by the way, worked for the East India Company. And although he was very liberal, he did not advocate freedom for Indians, because he felt they were not in the majority of their faculties. (Laughs)

Casey Given: Wow, yeah. (Laughs)

Atul Singh: No turkey ever votes for Christmas. I suppose he didn’t want to lose his paymaster. (Laughs)

Casey Given: Exactly. He actually did the same for Catholics, too. I’m a Roman Catholic, so I would not, in his world, either have been granted— 

Atul Singh: So both of us wouldn’t have had the vote. Women could have the vote, though, if they were Anglican and Protestant. (Both laugh) So he was progressive in many ways—

Casey Given: Exactly.

Atul Singh: But not too progressive. (Laughs)

Casey Given: Yeah. To answer your question, I do go to the UK at least once a year. It seems like at least politically, in the parties, it’s very difficult. I mean, I would say that, of course, historically the Conservatives — the Tories — have been the party that embraced more classical liberal ideas. With the current wipeout they had recently, it seems like their stock is really on the decline.

Atul Singh: Yeah. Rishi Sunak — he did the same degree as me. He did Philosophy, Politics and Economics as well. And he was, I think, two or three years my senior. And shall we say, he was very efficient, very clever, very hardworking, very good at time management. But he has the charisma of a dead mouse (laughs) and the convictions of a middle manager in Goldman Sachs. (Laughs)

Casey Given: Yeah, absolutely.

Atul Singh: That does not fly in electoral politics.

Casey Given: And I actually was in London in February for the ARC Conference, the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship. So I heard there was a lunch with — I always mispronounce her name. Is it Kemi, Kemli?

Atul Singh: Kemi Badenoch.

Casey Given: Kemi, yes. So I heard her give a speech. And it certainly seems like there’s more energy — she seems to at least be an improvement on Rishi. But it seems like all the Brits in the room afterwards were really not very happy with her.

Atul Singh: Well, she is very weak right now and is unlikely to stay in the job for long. So you don’t see very many people in that space. What about the US? What’s your great shining light for the US?

Casey Given: Yes, for the US, I would say that there’s really not too many classical liberal, libertarian voices in government either. I think, of course, the closest we have is like Rand Paul or Thomas Massie or whatnot. So I think it’s a little bleak right now politically. But I think the great thing about the US — the hope — is that we have so many nonprofits like Young Voices, but so many other think tanks like the Cato Institute, Reason magazine, Mercatus Center, the Atlas Network, etc. There are hundreds and hundreds of them that, I think, we have strong civil society NGOs in the US that, hopefully, if we’re doing our job well, the stock of classical liberalism will be on the rise.

Just to return to the UK really quickly, I think that’s the problem, that there’s not as strong of a nonprofit/NGO sphere for classical liberals there. Although I do think the one hope I would see is exactly that conference I just mentioned: ARC, the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship, which was explicitly classical liberal and had over 4,000 attendees. It was at the Expo Center in East London. So I think that there is hope. That would be, hopefully, the long-term hope in the UK — building more of that civil society, nonprofit sphere that will hopefully eventually manifest itself in politics.

And I would say in the US, hopefully — I think the libertarian, classical liberal movement is perhaps a few decades ahead in terms of at least the strength and the quantity. But I absolutely understand the frustration — especially donors might have — that we need to start racking up wins, especially when it comes to the political sphere.

Atul Singh: Excellent, Casey. Thank you very much for your time. We’ll have you back, and we will continue to publish Young Voices that you send our way. Good luck. You have your job cut out.

It is certainly living up to the Chinese proverb — or Chinese curse — “May you live in interesting times.” So you have your work cut out in interesting times.

Casey Given: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this chat.

Atul Singh: Thank you.

[ edited this piece.]

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Though no direct link to Beijing or the tariffs has been confirmed, the timing and reach of these stories warrant close attention.

The first wave centered on a provocative archeological claim: the supposed discovery of the revered Prophet Zulkifli’s tomb beneath the Great Wall. A short featuring this story quickly garnered 2.8 million views. Its appeal blended religious symbolism, cultural mystique and a spiritual connection to China that resonated with many Indonesian Muslims.

Comments poured in, both faithful and skeptical, some citing the often-misquoted hadith: “Seek knowledge even as far as China.” Others flagged the story’s reappearance, noting that it had circulated online as far back as 2022. 

Suspicion mounted: Why was it trending again in 2025? Was it being deliberately recycled to influence public opinion?

As the tomb story gained momentum, another narrative emerged, this time overtly geopolitical in tone. Social media accounts China had broken through Israel’s military blockade of Gaza to deliver aid, alone and undeterred. A popular Instagram post even China as the only country brave enough to challenge Israeli control and provide assistance to Palestinians directly.

The posts were persuasive and powerful, with imagery of trucks, soldiers and parachutes suggesting a righteous mission. The timing was compelling: since March 2, Israel had sealed Gaza’s borders, worsening a humanitarian crisis. In Indonesia, where pro-Palestine sentiment runs deep, the idea of China as a bold and compassionate actor struck a chord.

But fact-checkers at Tempo and other media outlets the truth. The narrative was a fabrication. The videos were stitched together from unrelated clips: old footage from 2024 aid deliveries, UNRWA operations and international air drops involving the U.S., Indonesia and European nations. While China pledged aid, it delivered via Jordan, not by breaching the blockade.

Despite these corrections, the damage had already been done. These narratives positioned China as both a spiritual partner to Muslims and a moral alternative to the West —  bold, benevolent and unafraid of confrontation. In the process, they also neatly diverted attention from China’s economic entanglement in the fallout from Trump’s tariffs.

Which brings us back to the bigger question: is this mere coincidence? 

It’s premature to assert that Beijing is behind this wave of disinformation. There is no forensic trail, no leak and no definitive evidence of state sponsorship. But the narratives’ resonance, the re-use of old content, and their alignment with geopolitical tensions suggest more than random viral noise. Whether pushed by nationalists, click farms, or covert actors, the effect is the same: to distract, seduce and divide.

It is also essential to understand the uniquely fertile ground in which these stories took root. Indonesia, with its vast and volatile digital ecosystem, is especially vulnerable. Religion, politics and pop culture intertwine online and weak regulations make disinformation a structural feature of the landscape. 

Global South, global patterns

This matters because Indonesia is not an isolated case. The dynamics unfolding here — the entanglement of foreign policy narratives with cultural identity, the weaponization of myth, the speed of viral deception — echo patterns seen across the Global South. As Chinese soft power expands and Western influence shifts, the battle for public opinion unfolds not in official press releases but on platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and WhatsApp.

What’s happening in Indonesia is not an anomaly. It’s a preview of how geopolitical stories will be contested in a post-truth world. Tariffs may have sparked the moment, but the real contest is for hearts and minds, waged through symbolism and sentiment, not statistics.

We shouldn’t overreact. Not every viral post is part of a conspiracy. But neither should we dismiss them.  Dismissing these stories as mere oddities overlooks the strategic vacuum they fill and the damage they can cause. In a world where the line between news and myth continues to blur, vigilance, digital literacy and a renewed commitment to transparency are our best defenses.

We may not yet know who is behind these stories. But we do know what’s at stake: not just the facts behind a prophet’s tomb or aid to Gaza, but the credibility of the public sphere itself. And in the long shadow of trade wars and power shifts, that may turn out to be the most crucial battleground of all.[ edited this piece]

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The debate has led to all sorts of theories, including the traditional folk wisdom of warning against the risk of “spreading oneself too thin” (excess breadth, insufficient depth) or proverbially noting that “a jack of all trades is master of none,” expressing a bias in favor of depth. 

From a prudential point of view, seeking depth seems the surer, safer approach. But the modern economy and the examples provided by the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have produced a model of growth and ambition in which a rapid achievement of perceived depth — based on an initial laser-like focus on either hardware, software or even selling books — serves to install a platform destined to become ever-expanding and attain practically limitless breadth. Stretching across the landscape is natural when one feels solidly rooted in a fertile earth.

The psychologist Angela Duckworth famously insisted on the importance of , which she describes as “grit,” or perseverance in a single direction. Others, such as Todd Kashdan, emphasize breadth that unfolds thanks to and the cognitive flexibility of generalists.

If Genghis Khan proved more successful than other more ephemeral military conquerors such as Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, it was because of the organizational depth of the Khan’s original non-linear logistical focus, featuring his “,” a complex relay of mounted couriers. Was Genghis our first network thinker? The depth of that potentially encompassing idea made possible the most rapid extension of geographical breadth in world history.

As we continue to witness an increasingly destructive war of expansion — perceived as an illegitimate quest for expanded breadth either on the part of NATO or Russia, depending on whom you prefer to blame — the question of depth vs. breadth has once again come to the fore. Ukraine’s spectacular “Spiderweb operation” just days ago forcefully struck military targets deep into Russia even as far as 4,000 kilometers beyond its national border. It achieved obvious breadth, impressing both the Russians and especially Western media. What it lacked, however, was depth, as most successful operations focused on PR tend to do. That remark could apply to the whole history of NATO, an organization that over the past 30 years has quite successfully extended its breadth (after solemnly promising not to) at the expense of its depth.

If we are to believe one of NATO’s most vocal leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron, the trend towards breadth is still in the cards. Why stop at Europe (Ukraine), West Asia (Afghanistan) and North Africa (Libya) when NATO has the potential to reach around the circumference of the globe? According to a Politico that appeared on Friday, “Emmanuel Macron warned China that NATO could become more deeply involved in Asia if Beijing does not do more to stop North Korea from taking part in Russia’s war on Ukraine.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Deeply involved:

In geopolitics — according to the usage of the presumably democratic model that guides Western Europe and North America — ��surreptitiously installed in specific places to exert influence and ultimately control, following the model of the jewelled cockroach by zombifying its host.

Contextual note

Even in promoting the idea of breadth by defining a role for NATO to play in the extreme Orient, Macron felt the need to pay lip service to depth by promising to see it “deeply involved.” Politico points to a troubling paradox: “France has long maintained that the transatlantic military alliance shouldn’t expand its reach into Asia and led the campaign to block the opening of a NATO liaison office in Japan in 2023.” But Macron is the kind of politician who has always felt empowered to shift from one position to its opposite. In his very first political campaign, he proclaimed his right to embracing opposites “en même temps” (literally, “at the same time”). That was his official back in 2016, when he boldly asserted he was both left and right.

We shouldn’t be surprised to see Macron aim for breadth and depth at the same time, even concerning NATO, an institution he does not control. The problem, however, is that in contrast with Aristotle, his reasoning shows no inclination for either sophia nor episteme. In the fraught geopolitical landscape of 2025, dominated by an impulsive, volatile and capricious orange “leader of the free world” and de facto dictator of NATO, suggesting the radical extension of NATO and a goal of deep involvement sounds like the summit of irrationality.

NATO expansion, whether consciously or not, has literally thrown Europe into a state of permanent chaos; political, military and economic chaos. Putin us about it in 2008 and even gave a detailed explanation of why. US ambassador Bill Burns and later political scientist John Mearsheimer saw chaos as inevitable if expansion were to be pursued. Common sense dictated that no good could possibly come of such a conflict for Europeans, which is why Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy opposed expansion to Ukraine at the time. In contrast, even the class dunce on the other side of the Atlantic (and, of course,) could appreciate the monetary value such a conflict might have for the US military-industrial complex.

One deplorable result is that democracy in Europe has taken a serious hit. The toolbox of the European Commission — a pseudo-democratic institution, if ever there was one — now includes active support of the of election results (Romania in December 2024) whenever they appear to threaten an increasingly isolated political elite. France and Germany have set about either disqualifying popular (Marine Le Pen) or threatening to rising parties.

Largely thanks to a long history culminating with US President Joe Biden’s initiative back in 2021 of rejecting as a source of inefficiency any residual notion of diplomatic engagement, Europe’s current leaders have discovered the surest way of ensuring that democracy is simply to sideline it. Europe is no longer a community of sovereign nations, but focuses its identity around NATO. The Ukraine war has served to create a semblance of unity not as a common market, but an imagined future federated army. 

This ongoing drama has turned into something resembling Alfred Jarry’s celebrated absurd tragi-comedy of “.” It has Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer playing the lead role on alternate days. Assuming the position of casting director, Starmer just this week made an for supporting roles and extras: “Every part of society, every citizen of this country, has a role to play because we have to recognise that things have changed in the world of today.”

Historical note

No one should doubt that this is a monumentally significant period of transition in world history. Starmer and Macron see themselves as visionary leaders capable of guiding global events simply by verbally dramatizing the gravity of the issues and claiming to be the central actors. In reality, Europe has —  perhaps for the first time in two millennia — found itself in a historical limbo, strutting and fretting like an over-the-hill actor spouting his lines on a tacky stage. Here’s Starmer boldly announcing: “The front line, if you like, is here.” Perhaps he would “like” you to believe the front line is “here” (in Glasgow where he gave the speech? Or in 10 Downing Street?). That telling phrase, “if you like,” highlights the lame comedy of his script.

Macron has an equally compelling message about the course of history in which, as Starmer helpfully points out, “things have changed.” “The French president,” Politico reports, “also warned against the risk of nuclear proliferation and the potential collapse of the global order established after World War II.” Such comments, like Starmer’s on the changing world reveal their mutual commitment to the equivalent of Hamlet’s speculation about taking “arms against a sea of troubles” (Russia). They see this truly impossible mission as the key to preventing the collapse of a wonderful order that — sorry, dear Manu — is already beyond repair.

All this militaristic bombast projected by the leaders of enfeebled nations chained together within an unstructured alliance incapable of acting — militarily, politically or otherwise — in any coherent way, is designed not to define the future of Europe, but in the hope that their operatic bellicosity will convince Donald Trump to take them seriously and underpin their “cause.” They’re formulating their appeal at the very moment when the wild man in the White House has signaled his resolute reluctance to listen to their pleas.

The comedy we’re witnessing reveals broad but unintentional humor in a context that is deeply ironic. It points unambiguously towards an outcome that is likely to strike the audience as an unadulterated tragedy.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

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Glenn Carle: If I did, I was not in Lebanon, but I was the Lebanon desk officer. That was my first assignment. That’s true, over 40 years ago.

Atul Singh: So you’ve been dealing with the Israelis for a while. So educate us. Paint us a picture.

Glenn Carle: Well, we had some news today that is sort of representative of how the Israelis at present are, and for quite some time, have approached the issue of what to do about hostility from Muslims and from the Palestinians, from Gazans in particular, which is that the Israelis announced they had killed Muhammad Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas in Gaza. And so this is a triumph, but I can tell you, and all of you will know if you have followed the news, that America, during the “War on Terror,” became spectacularly good at killing the chief of operations of one terrorist group or another. The life expectancy was short for these individuals, and so each of these strikes was touted as a success.

And in a tactical sense, certainly they might be brilliant operations. They might be successes, because that will disrupt an organization if you kill its leader for a period of time, but it really addresses zero of the structural problems, the fundamental problems that lead to an organization like Hamas existing, or al-Qaeda or any other. So it will divert our attention from the larger issues, which remain unchanged and quite possibly worsened by this kind of operation. So in one human operation there, we may see, I would argue, the fundamental dynamic of tragedy and non-solution of the problems in Gaza, specifically this time.

Hamas is unkillable

So what’s happening? Well, the situation, as you’ll know, is that the United Nations warns that of the two million Gazans, over 500,000 face imminent starvation. Not deprivation, literally starvation. I think 60,000 children are in imminent danger of starvation. There have been no supplies, not a trickle. Zero supplies of any sort, including water, as I am informed, allowed into Gaza by the Israelis. The destruction of Gaza, which is, I’ll approximate — it’s probably 50 kilometers long by 15 kilometers wide, maybe not even that large. Well, here’s a reference point: During World War II, the Allies — essentially the United Kingdom and its dominions, the United States and the Soviet Union — destroyed, literally destroyed, one building in every three that existed in Germany. One-third of all structures were destroyed by the Allies in World War II. Well, in Gaza, the Israelis have destroyed 70% of every structure in Gaza. The two million people have been crowded into something like an area one-tenth the size of Gaza itself, and then shuffled from one part to another as the Israelis decide to bomb different areas. So the situation is unimaginable. But what’s the policy of the Israeli government? No one really knows, because there really is not one, other than to destroy Hamas. Many observers, before the fighting began two years ago now — and I will say I was one of them — said it’s essentially impossible to destroy Hamas through a conventional military approach.

Atul Singh: Gary Grappo, our colleague, also said the same thing, and he served as number two to Tony Blair in the office of the peace quartet. Both of you were of one accord when you said that you simply cannot destroy an ideology.

Glenn Carle: A conventional military really can’t do it unless one commits genocide, and that literally would kill everybody. But then you’d probably so anger people not killed that they would adopt the views of those who had been. It’s not really an appropriate tool. I’m not a pacifist. I’m not opposed to military as—

Atul Singh: It has been done in the past. Look at Native Americans when your forefathers first came (laughs) to the northeast.

Glenn Carle: That’s true. And there were, you know, a few thousand, and it took 300 years of history of terrible things. That is actually literally true, though. So the situation in Gaza is just catastrophic. And Israelis’ policy — they can’t stop the war, because if they stopped fighting, Hamas is still there, and there’s no alternative government. And any Gazan who criticizes Hamas, Hamas kills. Polls show that even before the fighting began, Hamas was not popular. Most Gazans opposed Hamas. The polls show that there’s still anger against it. But what does one do? You can’t do anything if you don’t have a weapon, you aren’t organized and the other side has weapons and organization and will kill you.

So symbolic of all of this is the solution proposed and then denied by the Trump administration. It is what would sound sort of like a lunatic idea, but there are five separate sources from The New York Times and other reports that have corroborated since that the Trump administration was at least, if not is, considering moving one million of the Gazans to Libya. And to convince the Libyan government — such as the Libyan government is, because Libya is a failed, dysfunctional entity, almost not a state, actually — would be that the United States would unfreeze $30 billion of Libyan money that the United States and international community froze when it was overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi.

Atul Singh: That’s not such a bad idea. The Gazans, with their military organization, could take over the entirety of Libya. They could do to Libya what the early immigrants have done to other societies.

Glenn Carle: Well, there is precedent, which the Israelis of all people, the Jews of all people on Earth, should be keenly aware of. In 136 AD, at the end of the Bar Kokhba — I’m probably mispronouncing that — revolt against the Roman Empire by the Jews in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish country homelands, Emperor Hadrian ruthlessly suppressed the revolt, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and then, when he had destroyed all organized resistance, expelled every Jew from Judea and Samaria, and then said, “Enough of the Jews. We’re going to solve this problem once and for all. It’s no longer Judea and Samaria. I now dub this land Palestine.” The Jews have been haunted and the world has been haunted with this policy decision and error for 1,900 years. You don’t change a people’s sense of self from that sort of a policy.

Now, the Trump administration has backed off on this. It’s not quite a strawman, but it is just about inconceivable that this would happen. But it is a sign of the emptiness, the lack of any solution, proposal, policy on how to end the conflict and what to do about Gaza when the fighting stops. There’s no plan. Logistically, were that to happen, it’s just essentially inconceivable. But put that aside. There’s no plan for who would govern. The Israelis have refused to agree to or come up with anything. One talks of a multinational Arab — which means Muslim — force under the umbrella of the United Nations, perhaps, but essentially it means occupying Gaza to administer it, which then would mean that whatever entity is there would have to deal with more than remnants; the continued existence of Hamas, somehow.

At present, Hamas has lost — estimates are about 50% of its manpower, maybe 20,000 out of 40,000. Most of those killed, I think 17,000 have been killed. The estimates are from 8,000 to 17,000 Hamas fighters. Well, 50,000 total Gazans have been killed. That includes the 7,000 to 15,000 Hamas fighters. But nonetheless, it still has thousands of members. It recruits thousands per month, apparently. It is still launching rockets into Israel. It appears to have expanded some of its operations to the West Bank. So it would seem that you can’t kill Hamas, and there’s no replacement even proposed. The solution mulled over by the Trump administration and by the far right of the Israeli political spectrum — which controls, really, the existence and the survival of the Netanyahu government — would like to do what Trump is proposing, but it probably won’t happen.

So we are in a future that doesn’t exist and a present that is unsustainable.

Israel’s internal crisis and fracturing society

Atul Singh: You’ve mentioned the far right. And so let’s talk about the Israeli situation. There is a crisis brewing in Israel. First of all, there is unease over Gaza, and the reason is simple: There are some reservists who are going for their sixth or seventh tour of duty, and there are 60 to 70,000 Haredis, ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have not been summoned to fight. By law, they should be doing the fighting, but politically, because Bibi Netanyahu’s coalition depends on far-right parties — it’s a coalition government, it’s a very fragile government — and it’ll fall because of that, if he summons the ultra-Orthodox to fight.

We’ve had many Israeli sources tell us that if things continue like this, Israel is on the verge of a civil war, because you cannot have the burden of the state on one section of the population and the benefits of the state accruing to another section of the population. And this is causing strains that are increasingly coming to the fore. They cannot be papered over by this appeal to common Jewish identity. There’s also—

Glenn Carle: This is a critical point.

Atul Singh: Yes, and we’ll delve into it.

Glenn Carle: Yeah, I haven’t been to Israel for some time, but all visitors, all observers, comment on something that I did feel, even when I went, which was the rise of the religious right, socially and politically, in Israel, so that the Israel of today is profoundly riven between, to simplify, the secularists and the ultra-Orthodox. And that has undermined the functioning — not just the efficient functioning, but the functioning — of democracy and the stability of Israeli society, independent of, although you can’t separate it really from, the problem with Gaza.

Atul Singh: We’ll get to that in a second. There’s the economic pain that Israel is going through. Remember, Israel is a small country. It doesn’t have a large population, and it is the reservists who are the productive elements of the population. The ultra-Orthodox actually live off subsidies, produce babies and read the Torah. They are actually a burden to Israeli society and the Israeli economy, and so they are not necessarily producing great products and services that power the Israeli economy. So economically, the continuation of the war and the reservists going to battle instead of working in their offices or factories is causing massive strain to the Israeli economy.

And let’s go back to the strains within the society and the polity, because the strains in the polity — Bibi Netanyahu fired the chief of Shin Bet. The chief of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, is widely regarded as a top professional. He’s seen as an outstanding officer, he has acquitted himself very well. His former subordinates say he’s extremely professional, and he has accused Bibi Netanyahu of dodging his own responsibility, trying to get Shin Bet to do Bibi’s political dirty work, and firing Ronen to cover up allegations of corruption within the prime minister’s office.

Now, the Supreme Court — yes, of course, it skews left, yes, of course, you could argue that they have always opposed the religious right — but the Supreme Court is the last check on Bibi Netanyahu, because in a parliamentary system, Bibi can do anything were it not for the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, “Hang on a minute. You simply can’t fire Ronen Bar.” And then it prohibited Bibi Netanyahu from firing the new intelligence chief. But he went ahead and ignored the judgment and did so.

And so what we are coming to now within Israel is a political crisis — not just a social crisis, not just an economic crisis, but a political crisis and a constitutional crisis. So the strains are not just there within Gaza. The strains have come home to roost within Israel as well, and we are seeing a major crisis. And this is not to mention the complete evaporation of support for Israel in European capitals, and the fact that the UK has suspended a trade deal with Israel. Canada and France have come out together with the UK to condemn Israeli actions as disproportionate. We have the European Commission saying the same.

And at the end of the day, Israel is a small, export-oriented economy, and Israel cannot afford the loss of public support, particularly in Western capitals, because it has already lost the Muslim world. Yes, it has good relations with the Gulf countries, where the sheikhs are very much in favor of Israel and they don’t care about Palestinians. But if you look at Pakistan, which, of course, is a dysfunctional state, there is absolute, searing hatred for Israel. Iran, which is messianic against Israel. Malaysia, Turkey — we could go on. And Turkey, in fact, is now arguably the big threat to Israel, because now the Turkish intelligence service MIT — not the MIT in Glenn’s ancestral town, but the secret service Glenn probably knows well — MIT is now pulling strings in Syria, and Mossad is making its counter moves on the chessboard against MIT. So we are seeing an increase in the temperature in the region, and the Middle East is increasingly like a pressure cooker.

And the Gaza situation is also putting pressure on Arab leaders, because there has always been a gulf between the Arab palace and the Arab street. And that is widening because the Arab street is very much in favor of Gaza, and the Arab palace wants to do deals with Israel and just move on. And so there are wheels within wheels, and the situation is going from bad to worse.

Existential risks and the road ahead

Glenn Carle: Yeah, I would agree that the dissatisfaction and hostility towards Israel from other countries — specifically those who have hitherto been allies and supporters — is real. But I’m less concerned with that — I think that will change if the policies change — than I am with the increasing fissures, fractures in Israeli society rendering government impossible, and the lack of a way forward to resolve the Gaza war in some way which wouldn’t bring down the Israeli government. There seems to be no way to have the pieces add up to four or whatever solves the equation.

I do think, similarly to the US experience in Afghanistan, say — I always argued that the “damage” to the US would not be particularly lasting from leaving. Whether one should have left or not is an important issue but a separate one. I thought that that was the right decision, but that’s actually irrelevant. But the supposed damage and lost trust and so on, all these things pass pretty quickly if the policies change, and other countries have interests in dealing with a gained state. But the fractures in Israel are approaching existential, it appears.

Atul Singh: Yeah, and at the root of it is really yet another polarized society, where people have very different visions of the future. And the risk to Israel is if the Haredis, if the ultra-Orthodox, keep increasing in number, and they keep taking disproportionate benefits and keep putting the burden on the more talented, entrepreneurial secular Jews who serve in the military, the intelligence, the diplomacy, then Israel could start seeing a talent and capital flight. And that is a big risk.

Glenn Carle: Well, it’s a religious war within Judaism, it’s just as Europe destroyed itself for hundreds of years in its religious wars, and Muslims and Christians have been at each other’s throats for a long time, and the Jews are now coming to be almost at each other’s throats in Israel.

Atul Singh: There’s a caveat. It’s not so much religious wars as in, it’s not the Protestants and Catholics. It’s not like the jihad/crusade versus Muslims and Christians. This is a battle between the secular and the religious Jews. So, slightly different.

Glenn Carle: Yeah, well, yes. But religion is half of the equation. It shapes the outcome here, and religion is fundamental and part in it.

Atul Singh: On that note, thank you very much. And before everyone goes, we will take one comment: that Hamas reminds Peter Isackson of Osama bin Laden, who was betting long-term on the destruction of Western power by making it focus on terrorism. And his point is that Hamas are perhaps betting on the long term by protracting this conflict and destroying the legitimacy of Israel and weakening its power and weakening Western powers.

Glenn Carle: Yeah.

Atul Singh: Fair point, Peter. I think that’s all we have time for. Thank you very much for watching. Do subscribe to our YouTube channel and do sign up for our newsletter. Thank you. Bye.

Glenn Carle: Shalom.

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However, in May 2025, we will cover two — two, not three — issues. They are: US Budget and US–China Tariff Deal Unleash New Economic Uncertainty, and Hunger Now Strikes Gaza and Big Crisis Brews in Israel. So, let’s get to number one: US Budget and US–China Tariff Deal Unleash New Economic Uncertainty.

So we have a lot to get through. And the gist of it is that for all the promises of balancing the budget and trimming government finances, the House of Representatives under their great leader, US President Donald Trump, has passed a budget that will spend even more. So deficits will go up, debt will go up.

Glenn Carle: I’d like to jump in here. Great art, I would argue — and I’m not a conservative who argues for the unities of time and space — must combine farce with tragedy so as to leaven the sadness. And the budget bill, we’ll call it, seems to be a spectacularly wonderful piece of art then. So why don’t you start with what is fundamentally — one should only look at it as a farcical enterprise, because otherwise we would all simply commit suicide.

Atul Singh: We don’t want you to commit suicide, Glenn. You have a long, long way to go, many books to write and many Hollywood thrillers to be made about your various stories. But let’s start.

The House of Representatives passed a budget bill for fiscal year 2025 by a single vote. Members of Congress debated the bill through two successive nights, and only after a marathon push, this bill passed in a 215 to 214 vote.

Contents and consequences of the Trump budget

Atul Singh: And this is extremely telling because it’s by a knife’s edge, a razor’s edge, and clearly the Congress — or rather the House of Representatives — is deeply divided. The bill is 1,100 pages long. I’m sure, Glenn, you’ve read every page. If not you, I’m sure some others have. I see we have Christopher Roper Schell in the audience, and I’m sure he’s read every page since he spent 11 years on Capitol Hill — so a hundred pages for every year.

Anyway, importantly, what does this 1,100-page extravaganza do? It extends corporate and individual tax cuts passed in 2017. Remember, this happened during Trump’s first term in office, so he’s very committed to extending these tax cuts. This bill also cancels many of former President Joe Biden’s green energy incentives. Now, I know, Glenn, you will be saddened by that. It tightens eligibility for health and food programs for the poor. The bill also funds Trump’s crackdown on immigration, adding tens of thousands of border guards and creates the capacity to deport up to one million people each year. The bill also loosens regulations on firearm silencers — because, you know, that’s extremely important. Not just to own a gun, but to have a silencer, (laughs) so that you can operate it with safety after night, without any sound to give you away.

Glenn Carle: That’s right, you don’t want to bother the neighbors!

Atul Singh: Yes, sound pollution is a terrible thing, ladies and gentlemen. Indian regulators and legislators should take note. They should learn something from the US.

Now, this is a sweeping tax and spending bill that increases US debt by trillions of dollars. Note: the US debt has already reached 124% of the GDP. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill will increase the US government’s deficit by $3.4 trillion by 2034. Note that the US government spent $1 out of $8 on interest payments. According to the CBO, this is more than the defense budget. Over the next ten years, the CBO estimates that the US will spend $1 out of $6 on interest payments because of an aging population. As we know, anywhere in the world, aging populations push up any government’s health and pension costs. The US is no exception. So maybe we need to bring back smoking, Glenn, smoking and drinking. All this clean living is a bad idea.

Glenn Carle: That’s right. That’s right.

Political rhetoric and regressive realities

Atul Singh: Now remember that this budget has led to mixed emotions. The Speaker of the House actually says the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation. This is Mike Johnson. Maybe he’s right. Who knows?

US President Donald Trump has the bill, “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” I don’t see how it is an act, because it has to go through the Senate — but let’s go with the President, because he is the most powerful man in the world, and the wisest, of course. And his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, is disappointed. Musk says the bill can either be big or beautiful but not both. So, well, now there seems to be a chasm between two BFFs — best friends forever.

Note that all Democrats and two Republicans voted against the bill. A third Republican voted “present,” which means he or she voted neither for nor against the bill. Another Republican missed the vote because he had fallen asleep. Very convenient. It will not show up on his record.

Now, after all this division within the House of Representatives, Moody has downgraded US credit rating from Aaa to Aa1, citing a decline in fiscal metrics. For the first time, the US does not hold a top-notch score from any of the three big credit rating agencies.

Markets are worried about growing US debt. And note, the CBO estimate, which I mentioned that the US would spend $1 out of $6 on interest payments, does not take into account Trump’s new budget. The House of Representatives’s new budget worsens an already bad fiscal situation. So obviously, markets are worried. Yields on 30-year government bonds have jumped to over 5%, the highest in 18 months. Markets are volatile and they have dipped somewhat — not dramatically, but still. If you look at them across a six-month timespan, they have dipped.

More importantly, the dollar has depreciated. This has major implications when it comes to the cost of imports and could add to inflationary pressures. So, on the whole, the US budget, which has just gone through the House of Representatives, now has to get through the Senate. And if it does, it adds to the fiscal pressures on the US.

Now look, any reform will require cutting a bit of spending and raising taxes, and that causes pain. And this is a challenge with all democracies. All democracies find it easy to kick the can down the road. They find it very difficult to cut spending or to raise taxes because that causes pain.

Glenn Carle: Well, that’s the thing. I mean, it’s easy to give, but it is very difficult to withhold or to take or to tighten one’s belt, or make others tighten their belts. I do agree with the Speaker of the House that it may be, if not the most significant, one of the more significant pieces of legislation in… well, that’s Trump who said this: if not in the history of the country, certainly it is very important. But I think for the really opposite reasons than Trump claims, although I don’t know that he actually believes himself.

So with all of these detailed things, what really is going on? It’s the same old story, really. And stereotypes are always based on some truth, and the relevant stereotype or thumbnail sketch of the respective parties’ positions and what’s happening — is that this is perhaps the most regressive budgetary tax legislation in history. It takes — the various proposals will probably remove ten to 12 million of the poorest citizens in the United States from any sort of medical insurance whatsoever so that those saved funds can essentially be granted to the top 1% of Americans based on wealth, which means that those who have $11 million net assets or more will receive all of the funds through tax cuts that have, up until this bill, funded medical insurance for the 12 million poorest Americans. 

The middle class will suffer a bit — probably $1,200 per year, or $1,200 to $1,600 per year, I think it is more in cost. So you’re going to get to that part actually next — that’s on tariffs — so I’m speaking a little bit there. But it’s not catastrophic for the middle class, but it is a phenomenal gift to the wealthiest 1%.

What’s happening — this is the standard difference between Republican philosophy and policy and Democratic, broadly speaking. But all thought is generalization and all generalization, of course, will ignore any number of specific details that contradict the broader statement.

The Democrats, as we all know, think the government must be activist so as to create more equality. Ideally, equality of opportunity — not always of outcome — for society as a whole, and that one cannot pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps all the time, but sometimes one needs assistance to start the process.

Whereas the Republicans believe — and we’re having a distilled version of pure conservative Republican ideology in the Trump administration, whose policies really are shaped by the right wing of the Republican Party — believe that the only function government should have is border control — we’re seeing that in spades in the Trump administration — a strong national defense, and that’s it. That’s it. So that, literally, people are free to do whatever they want — which means if they can’t figure things out, they can die under a bridge.

I’m paraphrasing once again one of my favorite , which is from Anatole France in the 19th century and his arguments in France over liberal economic policies versus the socialist ones. That’s truly what is happening here, in a way that has not happened in policy terms since the 1880s, 1890s — since before the birth of the modern welfare state or social democracy, the role of governments to address some social concerns, be it the health of its citizens or stability of the banking system and so on.

Atul Singh: Though to be fair, Glenn, the House of Representatives have not really cut down Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security — the big ticket items — so they have not gone to—

Glenn Carle: Medicaid will.

Atul Singh: Okay. But not Medicare yet. And Social Security, they haven’t touched it much.

Glenn Carle: No, it’s coming.

Atul Singh: So they haven’t gone back to the pre-Bismarck era.

Glenn Carle: It’s coming. No, well, I didn’t say they’ve eliminated everything yet. But the trend and the objective is to reduce the size of the federal government. We saw this through Doge — whatever one thinks of Elon Musk, he actually was acting simply as an agent of the philosophy that has shaped the policy recommendations of the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Project 2025 and its authors, which is to reduce, in absolute terms, the size and role of the federal government of the United States — to decentralize anything, to leave everything to local authorities or to do nothing.

And we have seen a proposed increase in the defense budget, a substantial increase in the border control budget — because we’re going to get rid of all these people who don’t look like me and are not here legally, or even maybe if they are here legally. And it is a nearly revolutionary shift in thrust and intent of the role of the federal government. Certainly one we’ve not seen since in the United States since the Supreme Court prior to 1933, and policies by the Democratic Party — the parties are switching the theology — up until about the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt 125 years ago.

So it is shockingly powerful and coherent. I personally find it appalling. One might support these views — I know a lot of people who are friends, actually, who do — but that’s the intent.

Now, on the budget deficit. Theoretically, this is supposed to — the Republicans have baked their bread and buttered it on claims that they want to be the party of fiscal responsibility. As Atul pointed out, this is the most irresponsible single budget in American history.

You know, when Social Security was begun in 1933, the retirement age was set at 65. And in an act of great humanitarian compassion, the life expectancy — so that meant that one could not receive the pension until age 65 — but the life expectancy in 1933 was 65. So one might be slightly cynical about how generous it was. But a fortunate circumstance was that there were something like 16 workers per beneficiary at the time. And as we all know, that has declined continually as the American population and all populations have aged. And now there are, I think, two workers per beneficiary. And that is unsustainable.

However, to fix all of this problem with Social Security and the federal budget deficit actually could be done without catastrophic harm or disruption. I believe that Paul Krugman has calculated — and his first name slips my mind, I just had a conversation with him, actually — one of President Bush’s chief economists is Mr. Mankiw — both of them have—

Atul Singh: Greg Mankiw.

Glenn Carle: Mankiw, yeah, have said — thank you — a change in revenues and expenditures adding up to 2.1% — that’s the figure that I retain — of GNP. So a rise in revenues, decline in expenditures equal to 2.1% of GNP would address the United States’s structural budget deficit.

That could be done progressively, without huge disruption. You freeze Social Security cost-of-living increases, say — I’m just making this up off the top of my head — and you increase taxes by 1% or something to that effect. These are not quite marginal changes, but they are not revolutionary changes. And yet, as Atul pointed out—

Atul Singh: It could increase retirement age as well. There are many, many tweaks you could do.

Glenn Carle: Which has been happening and probably should continue to. And if one does that — because now the life expectancy is not 65 — it’s 79, I think, for males—

Atul Singh: More parties, more beer.

Glenn Carle: Then we wouldn’t have to have all of the tooth-pulling and true pain, disruption that is coming from this bill, if ever it is passed, which is very problematic.

Tariff truce or temporary fix?

Atul Singh: So what we see is that the bill still has to go through the Senate. The bill will still have to then come in as legislation, and we see that the uncertainty that characterizes America is only on the rise. And indeed, that’ll have global consequences.

And talking about uncertainty, we have to talk about the US–China trade deal. And this happened a lot earlier than a lot of people expected. It happened after negotiations in Geneva. The US, of course, will decrease the extra tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%. China will remove non-tariff barriers on American goods and decrease extra tariffs to 10%. The total US tariffs on Chinese goods would remain about 40%, while Chinese tariffs on American goods would be 25%.

So this is detail-schmetail, in a way, but the key question is: Why did both these countries agree to a truce? Well, when it comes to US President Donald Trump, he clearly does not want empty supermarket shelves, inflation or recession. Most market analysts predicted a guaranteed US recession with 145% tariffs on Chinese goods. This was more pain than Americans were willing to bear.

Our sources in the Trump administration inform us that Bessenomics is winning against Navaronomics. Now, this is very interesting. In our conversations with many people in the Trump administration, they are saying that the administration is falling into two camps.

Bessenomics refers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant’s economic vision. So this is a more transactional take on traditional Republican economics. Bessant wants China to sign more purchase agreements, as it did during Trump’s first term — buy more commodities such as soybeans, maybe American beef, pork, manufactured goods such as Boeing planes. And so, his idea is: China has not played fair, and this is what Republicans believe in. And there’s more than an element of truth — China has not played fair when it comes to trade. It has backed national champions. It has tariff and, more significantly, non-tariff barriers. So let’s use tariffs as a transactional tool, as leverage to gain greater market access into China. That reduces the deficit, and that is in American interest because it creates American jobs, because a key focus for the administration is to bring back American jobs. So for Bessant, this is just a means to an end.

Navaronomics refers to the economic vision of Peter Navarro, the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing to Trump. Now, he aims for a total reordering of global trade through punitive tariffs. He is much more of a true believer. He believes in truth with a capital T. He’s much more of an ideologue. He’s a bit like the neoconservatives of Iran. And so, he’s authored the 2006 book, The Coming China Wars, and the 2011 book, Death by China. He believes that Chinese illegal export subsidies and currency manipulation make it impossible for American companies to compete. The solution is an isolationist and protectionist economic policy that unleashes a full-scale trade war on China.

And we hear — and this is not just us, this is a number of other publications have also alluded to this — that Bessant, not Navarro, has pushed for a US–China trade truce.

So that is the incentive on the US side. What is the incentive for Xi Jinping? Well, we’ve talked a lot about China, and we were China bears long before others were. And both Glenn and I remember going and meeting the Indian Foreign Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry folks there had belief in China’s miraculous ability to defy the economic laws of gravity. We always believed that the Chinese economic miracle would face a slowdown. It’s not that China will go back to smoking opium as in the 19th century, but we certainly see the increased unemployment — particularly youth unemployment — the decreased growth; the real estate sector in the doldrums, which we pointed out repeatedly; the high debts on bank books; the aging population; the fact that households have a majority of their wealth locked up in real estate — because you don’t have such developed capital markets, people are not owning portfolios of Apple, Google, Walmart and God-knows-what shares.

Glenn Carle: And in one of the great ironies of modern history, certainly one of the last two, I think it is, maybe three, remaining “communist” states have a terribly underdeveloped social security system. The Chinese people don’t have the pension system and care that Western democracies provide for their populations, which is in part why their savings are so high, and why the property bubble explosion is more than just bad economically, but catastrophic even socially.

Atul Singh: And our sources in Beijing and Tokyo regularly explain how the Chinese economy is experiencing a profound crisis. Why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fears unrest, and some even believe that the economic pain could lead to a real threat to the stability of the regime. And that is why Xi Jinping, who withdrew his zero-Covid policy very quietly with the white flag of surrender.

Therefore, Xi Jinping definitely doesn’t want to be bullied, he definitely does not want to lose face in his negotiations with the US. But also, this Xi-led CCP does not want the economic pain to get so overbearing that it starts impacting the stability of the regime. So it was in their interest to conduct a truce.

Now, both sides claim victory. Both sides say that the other is more vulnerable to tariffs. The jury is still out on what is truly the case. But the important thing is that this is just a truce. The trade war is not over yet. This is something to really bear in mind.

The US will retain tariffs on electric vehicles. The US will continue to stop China gaining cutting-edge technologies, whether it is semiconductors or jet engines. The US has already sanctioned more than 20 companies, including Hong Kong-based entities, for shipping Iranian crude oil. And of course, the Chinese are objecting to the US–UK trade deal, which lowers American levies on British car and steel imports provided that the UK works to promptly meet US requirements on supply chain security and ownership of production facilities.

Why is this important? Because the Chinese own a lot of these facilities in the UK, and the Chinese see this as a violation of the basic principle that trade agreements between countries should not target other nations. And they see this as a clear example of mala fide US intentions. So, on the whole, we believe this deal achieves a suboptimal equilibrium, and it could easily be undone.

Undermining superpowers from within

Glenn Carle: I think we should think of China and the United States as being two people in a rowboat in the ocean, who don’t get along whatsoever and want to go in opposite directions. But unless they both row, the boat will be swamped. So they’re stuck. China cannot do without the US market and cannot — without huge disruption to itself — withdraw or sell off, exit from the $700 billion, I think it is, in US bonds that it has. And the US can’t, without tremendous political problems for the administration and huge economic pain and recession, pay for the imported goods with the higher tariff rates or produce equivalent products itself in a way that would avoid causing economic harm.

[Atul shares the Geopolitical Risk Monitor on his screen]

Glenn Carle: Oh, goodness, are we sharing a screen?

Atul Singh: Yes, I’m sharing a screen showing the Chinese GDP growth declining. This is our Geopolitical Risk Monitor. You can see that there are strong incentives for China, as Glenn said, as there are for the US, to somehow not completely end up in a bish-bash-bosh and sink the boat, which is the global economy.

Glenn Carle: Something that’s shocking — at least shocking from the American perspective, perhaps a little less shocking from the Chinese perspective, but nonetheless shocking — is that both countries and both leaders, Xi and Trump, are taking actions that long-term undermine the strengths of their respective economies and societies.

Atul has spoken about the budget issue — that’s what we’ve talked about so far in the United States — and it’s very important. But it’s one element of a broader series of changes being proposed or executed through executive actions to a host of American practices and systems that really have been the generator of American exceptionalism and economic wealth, and therefore, political strength and influence. In the United States’s case, are Americans intrinsically superior economically? Obviously not; see others.

But what America has done better than anyone else — and it’s not only because America is a continent with great natural resources, which are fundamental attributes and parts of the explanation — but there’s this web of approaches and systems that has been unique in the world. We still have a vast array of strongly supported research institutions and universities, such as Harvard or Bell Labs, which do cutting-edge research. And they can do so because they have access to huge amounts of capital, which has been funneled significantly by the federal government, working within a society where the rule of law is on the whole objective and applied equally and openly; where capital flows are ample, liquid and relatively unregulated; where the workforce is highly trained and literally the best and the brightest from around the world have been aggressively encouraged to come, compete, succeed — and those who fail cause no problems, because the successes vastly outweigh the failures.

All of those attributes of American success are being eroded and undermined now. The budget is one component of this. And all of this is almost the American government committing suicide. It’s the Trump administration actively, consciously pursuing many of these policies. We can talk about the reasons why they think it should be done, but they’re undermining the roots of American exceptionalism.

At the same time, Xi Jinping, I think pretty clearly, is doing the same thing to China. China is the great success story in human history of the last 40 years, with its growth and the wealth and the opportunities it’s providing to ever more of its citizens, and its increasing influence and power worldwide. I would argue China has been, and could continue to be, achieving essentially all of the goals that it seeks without taking the steps that Xi has felt obliged to do, for fear of, as Atul touched upon clearly several times just now, losing control and seeing the Chinese party challenged or overthrown through social unrest and grievance and demand and so on. His response has been the classic one of an authoritarian, totalitarian — to double down on tightening control.

So that now you have, in every level of every corporation in China, every business, a representative of the political commissar, essentially — a Communist Party official who interferes with the rational decision-making of a bank, car company or farm, and undermines, long-term, the roots of the Chinese miracle, if you want to call it that, which has been decentralizing decision-making and providing opportunity for people to pursue their own interests.

So it is a remarkable thing we’re seeing. And the budget issues, which are critical, are just one component of this larger, terrible story that we’re living.

Atul Singh: Two quick points and we’ll move on. Peter Isackson makes the point that he is more inclined to follow Louis-Vincent Gave of Gavekal Research’s analysis of China rather than our doomsday scenario. Well, Louis has a point. But Louis is rather rosy on China. Yes, China has bet big on electric cars, solar panels and even AI. But fundamentally, we think that the structural problems in the Chinese economy are not going away. Xi is fundamentally amongst—

Glenn Carle: If I had to choose between the economic policies addressing fundamental issues of China today or those of the United States, I would choose China. Certainly, I agree with Peter on that.

Atul Singh: Okay, well, so maybe I’m a little biased. I think the Chinese economy, with its centralization and Xi being a Maoist, has a lot of risks that are underappreciated — particularly in the West. The top-down structure often has problems that are swept under the carpet, until one day they are no longer hidden.

Of course, the US has multiple problems, and we’ve touched upon them — in particular, the polarization, the division, the inability to make sane political and economic decisions, and now a very skittish market, which is seeing rising bond yields and a depreciating dollar. So, a lot of uncertainty in the world.

And those of you who are running companies and want to talk to us, we’re happy to talk to you. Give us a shout. We’ll take this forward.

Glenn Carle: I have for years now made the unamusing pseudo-witticism that with the Brexit vote, England basically committed suicide and declared itself an inconsequential island someplace in the mists of the North Atlantic. But Brexit, compared to what the United States is doing to itself, is a rational step. I do not want to understate the gravity of the harm — economically, socially, politically — of the policies that are working their way through the law-making process in the United States. And Atul talked about the budgetary one.

But let’s go to the next section of the world where things are going completely screwy.

[ edited this piece.]

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Trump predictably echoed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who expressed his at the “horrific, antisemitic” act. Time magazine promptly published a by Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt with the title: “The D.C. Jewish Museum Shooting Was Inevitable. The Time to Act on Antisemitism is Now.”

For Greenblatt, this “doesn’t come as a surprise” because the suspect was allegedly involved with “a range of radical causes.” Well ahead of the FBI,  ADL connected “Rodriguez, with a high degree of certainty, to a manifesto with the heading ‘Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home.’ They concluded ‘this was targeted antisemitism.’”

ADL draws its conclusion on the basis of “slogans commonly used by anti-Israel activists, particularly in more extreme, militant spaces“ such as “time to escalate.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Anti-Israel:

1. An increasingly common and historically comprehensible position of political opposition based on certain individuals’ moral condemnation of the extreme practice of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide practiced by the state of Israel.
2. A term equated with “antisemitic” by the Israeli government — but also by many in the US, Germany, the UK and elsewhere in the West — who see no problem with apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide and even mass starvation so long as it is practiced by the Jewish state.

Contextual note

Policing the English language to unearth antisemitic dog whistles has become an art form that appears to be evolving, perhaps even escalating. It’s good to know that all kinds of ordinary English words, like “escalate” may be cited as proof of deep-seated prejudices. Nevertheless, even in making this less than credible statement the ADL article proves more level-headed than Greenblatt when it correctly identifies these people as being “anti-Israel activists” without terming them antisemitic.

Among all nations, Israel possesses the exclusive privilege of being able to equate simple criticism — even of its most extreme, illegal and inhuman behavior — as a call for the total suppression of its people. Furthermore, it can reliably count on the president of the United States, whatever the party in power, and journals like Time to complacently echo its formulaic complaint.

Even before the FBI, ADL was the first to authenticate Rodriguez’s manifesto in which the alleged murderer recalled the facts that justify calling Israel’s action genocide. He equally expressed his frustration at the difficulty of persuading governments, media and ordinary people of the urgency of ending the slaughter. This makes it clear that this sacrifice of two lives is not about hating Jews as Jews (the classic definition of antisemitism). Instead, Rodriguez proclaims it as taking a historical stance on an ongoing catastrophe. In the manifesto, he cites the case of Aaron Bushnell whose violent crime, a public , was equally designed to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.

The ADL article correctly identified Rodriguez as “anti-Israel” before moving on to evoke what US politicians prefer to identify as the real problem: American antisemitism. As is now common practice, the article cites statistics such as the “1,702 antisemitic incidents in 2024.” It doesn’t distinguish between hatred of genocide and hatred of Jews.

Time considers the shooting “inevitable” not because of the emotion stoked by livestreamed genocide but by statistics concerning Jewish victims of violence. Who can deny antisemitism exists and has existed for a long time? It’s an eternal presence, like a wailing wall one can lean on. In comparison, “the Palestinian problem” will pass and the civilized (and mostly white) world will forget that it was ever there. Whereas antisemitism — to everyone’s relief — will always be at our side, ready to mobilize in case of ideological need.

Historical note

On a dedicated, the US State Department has posted “a , along with examples, of antisemitism since 2010.” The basic definition contains five different points. Only the last leaves us bemused: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.” This formulation violates the spirit and letter of the Constitution’s celebrated First Amendment. If it said, “accusing all Jewish citizens of systematically being more loyal…” it would become credible. But many people, wherever they live, may feel more loyal to another cause, clan, belief system or nation than to the government that has issued their passport. The First Amendment’s freedom of speech includes freedom to accuse other people of wrongdoing. If the accusation is false, it would be judged slander, not general prejudice.

The linguistic and logical errors in the State Department’s definition continue in the subsection labeled, “Demonize Israel.” It includes the crime labeled: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Comparisons are common rhetorical devices that permit reasoned speech and reflective dialogue to refine our understanding of complex facts. It is illogical to suppose that one group of people may not, at some point, consciously or unconsciously, reproduce the behavior of another group of people. Explicitly excluding certain comparisons — whether true, partially true or false — is a violation of free speech.

Following the murders in Washington, Al Jazeera’s featured a discussion between three experts on the topic: “Does criticizing Israel amount to antisemitism?” Phyllis Bennis, a Jewish American writer and activist joined Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist, and Saba-Nur Cheema, a German political scientist of Pakistani Muslim heritage, to examine the significance of Rodriguez’s crime.

Bennis and Levy agreed on the obvious fact that Rodriguez, much like Bushnell, was making a personal statement, with no accomplices or support. He did so in defense of what he felt were victims of radical injustice perpetrated by a violent state. According to Bennis and Levy, Rodriguez’s act elicited no approval and only condemnation from pro-Palestinian movements.

Cheema alone sought to identify Rodriguez’s act as part of a collective strategy, which the other panelists emphatically denied. But Cheema went further. Over the protests of her two Jewish colleagues, she asserted, as if it was axiomatic, that Rodriguez’s anti-Zionism had to be deemed antisemitism. When the others reminded her of the genocidal context to explain why Israel’s critics focus on the behavior of the government and not on the identity of the people, she defensively replied, “We must resist the temptation to contextualize these killings.” Strongly held irrational beliefs often distrust context.

The best argument Cheema could muster was to assert that criticism of Israel is “a very clear way of antisemitism nowadays.” This supposedly means that antisemitism is a kind of default value, a background issue that simply looks for random occasions to express itself. Historical reality can then be written off as nothing more than a convenient pretext to do what Time called the “inevitable.”

After floundering a bit further, Cheema ends up contradicting her earlier contention when she says, “it’s the context we need to understand.” By this, she appears to believe that antisemitism from the past is the only context to take into account. It trumps manifest genocide taking place in the present.

Levy far more realistically points out that his nation’s “biggest success story” was “labelling criticism of Israel as antisemitism.” He castigates the cynicism of those who draw antisemitism out of their holster to shoot the term antisemitic at them as soon as they criticize the Israeli government.

This was a strange spectacle. A German of Pakistani Muslim origin attempting to school an Israeli and American Jew on the meaning of antisemitism. The fact is that many Jews in Israel, Europe and the US have no problem recognizing the terrifying reality of Israel’s political decisions and acts. In contrast, the German government and most “respectable” Germans have not only overidentified with Israel, which they see as a form of required penance for the trauma of their nation’s past crimes, their government has now endorsed a formal policy of against anyone, including journalists and noted experts, who deviate from the official unconditional approval of Israel’s acts.

Though this was never mentioned in the discussion, Cheema is married to Israeli-German educator and writer . Mendel has quite understandably been active as a prominent public figure keen on denouncing the very real right-wing antisemitism that has been expanding in Germany in recent years. But suggesting any kind of common ground between Germany’s own neo-Nazi antisemitism and the principled criticism of Israel by those, including Bushnell and Rodriguez, who engage in extreme acts out of despair in the face of genocide, is precisely the kind of dangerously abusive comparison the State Department condemns with regard to Israel and the Nazi regime. Israel and Adolf Hitler’s Germany do have something in common, as well as much that differentiates them. Bushnell and Rodriguez, for all the violence of their acts, have nothing in common with right-wing German neo-Nazis.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Glenn Carle: And I am the WASP.

Atul Singh: Today, indeed, we are going to talk about “Why Donald Trump Targets Harvard, and Why That Matters.” So, Glenn, you went to Harvard. You played ice hockey for Harvard.

Glenn Carle: I did.

Atul Singh: You still wear your Harvard sweatshirt, which is only 200 years old. (Chuckles)

Glenn Carle: My children refuse to be seen in public with me if I have any Harvard insignia anywhere on my person.

Atul Singh: Oh, deary me. But you still clearly have loyalty to the institution. You clearly have a good understanding of government because you have spent a long time serving the government. You didn’t just serve the CIA — you reported to the White House, and you’re a historian by training.

Glenn Carle: I worked in the White House.

Atul Singh: Yeah, you worked in the White House. So educate us. What is going on? Why does it matter?

Glenn Carle: So, Harvard’s an easy target, and one that everyone will — at least initially, superficially, for a moment — pay attention to or become aware of, because Harvard’s name is Harvard. The only thing that foreigners will tend to have heard of in American educational circles will be Harvard — rightly, wrongly, justifiably or not. Largely justifiably.

Atul Singh: I call it the “Harvard and Hollywood effect.”

Glenn Carle: Yeah. I think those are the two things that people really know. And then obesity, football and American military actions.

Atul Singh: The football — American football — is not that well known, actually, in many countries, including India. But the military is. And so is Silicon Valley, to be fair.

Glenn Carle: That’s fair enough. Okay. But so what’s happening now? I think most people will know that the Trump administration is attacking, I guess we could say, Harvard on the ostensible subject of antisemitism and woke culture and bias in education. But really, what is happening? This is a far larger issue than a simple tiff between a conservative administration and the icon of the American elite and, ostensibly, the American left. Harvard has for many decades been called, by Republicans at least, “The Kremlin on the Charles.”

Atul Singh: It’s a wonderful name. (Chuckles)

Glenn Carle: Which during the Soviet era had more resonance than today, but nonetheless, it’s considered far-left. Now, the ostensible reasons are, as I say, that all of this was catalyzed by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and then the following demonstrations on American campuses, including Harvard’s, against Israeli actions — and considered by conservatives in the United States, at least, as antisemitic and too biased in favor of the Palestinians. That Harvard has embraced institutionally — in its curriculum, in its faculty, in its practices regarding free speech on campus and in its student cultural and intellectual cultural life — the whole vaguely-defined “woke culture.” Which means that what are considered left-wing terms culturally are acceptable; others are not, and are ostracized.

Atul Singh: Well, there’s an element of truth to it, because I was at Harvard just after October 7, and there was a professor who told me this needed to happen — meaning these attacks needed to happen. And he made the argument that Israel is an apartheid regime, the Palestinians have been pushed into open-air prisons — the West Bank and Gaza — and these conditions are deplorable and unlivable, and the only way the Palestinians could have drawn attention to their plight was by resorting to terror. And I found this extremely dangerous, this form of reasoning. It was clearly someone left-leaning, clearly someone who’s never stepped out of a university, clearly someone who was an activist, clearly someone who grew up in a posh suburb. These comments were made in confidence and in private, so it would be remiss of me to take the name of the person. But this line of thinking was prevalent not just among certain faculty, but also among certain students — indeed, not just students who were American. I mean, this person was American, but there indeed were a number of students who were not even Muslim, who were not even Arab — they were Indians or they were Chileans — and they were all signing up for all sorts of petitions without understanding, probably, what they meant. But there is an element of truth that there was condoning of the use of terror. There was — maybe, if not antisemitism — certainly anti-Israeli sentiment. So some of that is true. And we’ll get more into woke culture when we discuss the Ivies, because Harvard is a metaphor for the Ivies and for the American elite. And a lot of insanity did go on on these campuses.

Glenn Carle: I actually think what we’re starting to talk about right now in detail is a diversion from the central point. But a lot of what you just said, Atul, really is simply a statement of fact. One needn’t conclude — or shouldn’t conclude — that terrorism, therefore, is justified. A majority of the Israeli public itself, and certainly the Labor Party in the center and the left in Israel, recognize that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have for years — partly by being oppressed and having no choice as a result of Hamas’s doing, partly by their own cultural paradigm and inclinations and partly by Israeli government actions — been put in a horrendous situation that only Hamas and the Israeli government could rectify. And unfortunately, as always seems to be the case, demonstrations focus on democratic governments that actually can do something in response to people’s wishes, rather than focusing on terrorist or totalitarian organizations such as Hamas, which will simply ignore you or kill you if you disagree with them. But that is, in part, sincerely the objective — but I think largely, it is a pretext for what’s going on. And what’s going on — that being those subjects and those disagreements and issues and actions by students and faculty at Harvard, in this specific instance — there are probably four major and truly existential-for-the-United-States issues at play in what the Trump administration is doing towards Harvard: The first is a direct attack, quite consciously, by American conservatives on America’s dominant culture of the past 80 years — an attack by aggrieved, conservative, less educated, more isolationist segments of society, embodied by and championed by, at present, Trump and the Trump administration.

Conservative backlash against the global elite

Glenn Carle: Harvard is the icon of America’s elite. Rightly or wrongly, it certainly is the symbol and largely the fact. It’s true that there are 161 Nobel Prize winners from Harvard. Harvard has $53 billion in endowment. It’s the third-wealthiest private institution in the world, if you put governments aside — only the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church have more money than Harvard. It has represented — less today, as America has become truly more democratic in its practices and society — but nonetheless, it has represented the center from which many of America’s business, financial, academic and political leaders have come. There have been four or six presidents from Harvard, and on and on and on. So that’s one thing.

Atul Singh: And just to add to what you’re saying: It is no longer the preeminent center for the American elite. It is now the institution of choice for the global elite. After all, where do Indian billionaires — whether it is Anand Mahindra or whether it is Lakshmi Mittal — give their money? They give it to Harvard. Even Narayan Murthy — the Murty Classical Library is at Harvard. Where do a number of Etonians now come to do their undergrad?

Glenn Carle: Where did Xi Jinping’s daughter study?

Atul Singh: Exactly. So it is indeed — you’re absolutely correct in saying it is an elite institution — but it is now home to the global elite. And the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School, the Harvard PhD programs — and especially the science degrees — are home to a number of foreigners.

Glenn Carle: It’s a good point. Depending on one’s perspective — if you are from the Trump perspective, those who are attacking Harvard through the Trump administration — it is evidence of the problem itself: these globalized, cosmopolitan elites. If you’re from the other perspective, it’s an example of the triumph of American society and American ideals — to become more open, more meritocratic, more diverse and so on. So that’s one issue. The second major issue at play — and I touched upon it already — is that this is a direct attack upon America’s ruling elites by those now not just ascendant, but sitting in the White House and controlling the levers of government: from the Supreme Court, to the Congress, to the White House against the policies and values of that ruling group — largely in the Northeast, not exclusively, but heavily centered in the Ivy elite institutions and on the West Coast — and this is an effort to bring them down by the now-triumphant Neo-right. The third thing is it’s an even more broad but very explicit and conscious attack by those same groups on secularism, cosmopolitanism — this sounds like very 1930s left-right jargon, but it is very important and relevant — on globalization and on humanism itself. On the secular, rational foundation of society, government and knowledge itself. I’m not exaggerating. It is a repudiation of trying to bring down those who have set the tenor, the tone and the truths that have shaped society and government comportment since the Scopes Trial in 1926 or the rise of Darwinism. And then finally, it’s a direct assault on America’s system of democracy and government — on the separation of powers, on reaching social consensus in favor of what is, frankly — and I am not exaggerating, I am choosing my words very carefully — a fascist construction. A fascist system of government, which I’ll talk about later. It’s called the “unitary theory of executive power,” and it is being explicitly pursued by the Trump administration. And the attack on Harvard is one of the tools that this movement is using — which is really the right wing of the Republican Party, which is now dominant and really, exclusively is the Republican Party — that shapes, defines and guides all of the policy steps and objectives of the Trump administration. Trump himself is no thinker. But he has bought into — and is following and giving free rein to — the neoconservative thinkers who are implementing this series of policies. So all of this — this attack on Harvard for those four principal reasons and objectives, constitutes — I have argued for years — the greatest threat to American institutions, government and society in America’s history.

Culture wars and campus orthodoxy

Atul Singh: Let’s take Harvard as a metaphor. Let’s talk about the deeper objectives. Let’s begin with culture wars. And culture wars have been going on in the US for a while. I have observed them as an outsider; you have lived them as an American. I have also seen that there is an element of truth to some of the things the left says — but also some of the things the right says. I’ll give you an example: I went to the Wharton School. I did my MBA there. And as you know, it’s part of the University of Pennsylvania. And as you also know — and our listeners will probably remember — there was a transgender swimmer called Lia Thomas who swam for the women’s team and won everything. Won by a country mile and more. And I had many female athletes tell me in private — because they were too scared of being labeled as transphobic in public — and they said, “Look, this is insane. This means that we have the right to compete but not the right to win.” And it wasn’t just the fact that Lia Thomas could compete for the women’s swim team, but also that everyone else had to just shut up and go along with Kremlin-speak.

Glenn Carle: Because if you didn’t, you were, by definition, a racist or a zealot.

Atul Singh: Exactly. Transphobic.

Glenn Carle: Or transphobic, in some way intolerant, elite, totalitarian and undemocratic.

Atul Singh: Exactly. And so this sort of pressure did exist. And I have to say, my university did not behave honorably in that issue.

Glenn Carle: And it’s hardly exclusive to the University of Pennsylvania. This is something that all Americans have lived with. And there’s much good — of course I subscribe to the objective of broadening opportunity for people, whether they’re green, purple, red, Hindu, Muslim or from Mars. But there is, in truth — and this is not something people “on the left” are allowed to say, because, as you just said, it proves your guilt if you assert something against the orthodoxy on the left. During my career — and anecdotes don’t make a proof, but there are an infinite number of them and every American will have experienced the following kind of circumstance — one of my bosses — you know, obviously we make jokes about how I am a WASP — this particular boss happened to be a generation older than I, but roughly from the same background. I don’t know exactly, but he certainly looked like me. And I had done something right on some issue in the office, and he walked over to me and he slapped me on the shoulder, and he said, “Well done. We need more people like you.” And then he walked away. And that was the end of it, and I felt pretty good about it. It turned out he was brought up before the human relations people for having been unfairly biased in favor of me and therefore discriminatory against others — because he was a white male, and so was I, and he had slapped me on the shoulder. And somehow that was proof that he was excluding others, when actually I had done something right and he was just trying to praise me.

Atul Singh: There’s the “jimmy” story, too — which, again, is an anecdote, but—

Glenn Carle: It’s crazy.

Atul Singh: I think we can’t just be slaves to statistics, because often when you say something, people on the left — and sometimes on the right, particularly on the left — will say, “That’s an anecdote. You dare not mention it. Give us statistics.”

Glenn Carle: I don’t come from the right, as anyone who’s listened to me should know. But I don’t think I come from the left. I try to come from nowhere. And here’s the example of what is pervasive and why the Trump administration is attacking Harvard and why there is a lot of support for it in American society. I literally went to buy an ice cream with my family — I’ll leave it no more precise than that — and I ordered a vanilla ice cream with jimmies. Now, few of you will know what I’m talking about. “Jimmies” is a local Boston slang term — I am from Boston — that means chocolate sprinkles. That’s it. That’s all it means. It has meant that for the 60+ years of my life, and has no further meaning. And I was attacked by people present, and ended up having an unpleasant exchange, for being a racist. And I said, “Where did that come from?” And it came from — someone had alleged in a TikTok thing, or a Twitter post, or I don’t know where — that “jimmies” was a condescending reference to a Black youth, a Black boy working behind the soda fountain sometime in the 1950s, and therefore was condescending and racist. Well, I don’t know if there was ever a Black youth or a “boy” — and one may not use the term “boy” with regard to Black Americans, because it is considered pejorative, and there’s reason for that, certainly — but the term “jimmies” has nothing to do with race. And yet I literally could not buy an ice cream without being accused of being a racist for having used a truly innocuous term. Now those are two, in isolation, inconsequential anecdotes, as you said, Atul. But they are infinite in number. I could go on and on and on. And I don’t think I’m hypersensitive on this. But many others have even dramatically more strong feelings than I. So the attack, the actions of the Trump administration against Harvard, explicitly attack this sort of, frankly, totalitarian perspective on the left.

Diversity demands and conservative inclusion

Atul Singh: And it’s not just us. We have friends. I indeed have personal friends who teach at Harvard, teach at Princeton and who teach at Brown. And all three of them said that they couldn’t speak freely in the current climate. They felt constrained, they felt suffocated, they felt the fear of ostracism. And they said that it was a new form of totalitarianism, but it wasn’t by the state. It was, fundamentally, by the university bureaucracy and the dominant culture on the campuses. So when we see Donald Trump speak out against the left, it resonates because a lot of people do not agree with where the American universities have gone and where they want to take the rest of the society to.

Glenn Carle: So the reasonable, I guess one could say, element or aspect of the Trump administration’s criticisms of Harvard, but more broadly of American higher education, is that they couch this in terms of, “We denounce Harvard, etc., etc., etc., for antisemitism,” which means that if one says something in favor of Israel, one is denounced.

Atul Singh: If you say something against Israel, you’re denounced as antisemitic.

Glenn Carle: As antisemitic, that’s it — which is not true. Now perversely, the actual movements the Trump administration is taking, I feel quite strongly, are actually themselves antisemitic. But that’s a secondary term, because what it means from the Trump perspective is that unless one supports the right wing of the Israeli political spectrum, that one is anti-Israel and therefore antisemitic. And it so perverts what could be a broader, more reasoned, healthy support for Israel, and critique of what Israel and the Palestinians do or don’t do, that it renders the issue and possibility for public discourse the opposite of what it claims to be achieving, and the opposite of what it is rightfully denouncing, which is this woke business. So it’s quite twisted. But the clear objective that I’m getting to of the Trump administration’s actions against Harvard is to score political points and substantive change against this woke, which is a leftist totalitarian cultural demand in social behavior and then institutional structure and teaching and the faculty. The third thing that is happening in the actions against Harvard is the Trump administration is saying, “Unless Harvard changes and does what we tell it to do, we will continue to sanction Harvard.”

Atul Singh: They’ve stopped funding. There’s just no more federal grants to Harvard.

Glenn Carle: That’s right: no more federal grants.

Atul Singh: I read that yesterday, so that probably dates the podcast for our listeners. But there’s been an escalation, and Harvard has written a letter not accepting all its demands. And many universities, such as Stanford, have caved in. So in one sense, some people are cheering Harvard on.

Glenn Carle: Well, many, many are. Two hundred universities have signed, I think, a statement of support or a DUA supporting Harvard.

Atul Singh: Oh, I didn’t know it was that high.

Glenn Carle: Yeah, 150, 200 — I forget the exact numbers. But many, many.

Atul Singh: Is Stanford one of them?

Glenn Carle: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Atul Singh: If so, then my apologies to Stanford. (Both laugh)

Glenn Carle: So the third thing is that the Trump administration is saying that Harvard and elite institutions — all institutions, but particularly the Ivy elite and the best schools in the United States — have to increase their “diversity.” Well, that sounds innocuous. But really, what that means is that Harvard, specifically, must have more conservative voices on the faculty and in the administration than it does, and so do other elite institutions.

Atul Singh: So more people like Amy Coney Barrett who are opposed to abortion, and they should be professors in Harvard Law School. And people like Stephen Miran should be professors in Harvard Business School. And maybe Pete Hegseth can come and teach in the School of Government. (Chuckles)

Glenn Carle: That’s right. He’s a Princeton grad.

Atul Singh: He’s qualified, eminently so. He does a lot of push-ups, by the way. So he claims.

Glenn Carle: And that’s a high qualification to lead a $1 trillion budget with two million people employed.

Atul Singh: Exactly.

Glenn Carle: One more push-up, and I’ll see the light. So “diversity” means: Hire more conservative voices, because the conservatives feel that the elites have condescended to them and frozen them out. Well, that sounds fine, except the deeper story here is that — why are they being frozen out? What the conservatives want is more people to argue against the theory of evolution or to argue against global warming. But the problem there is that evolution is really an established fact and global warming is an established fact.

Atul Singh: Really? I thought it was just Jesus testing your faith. (Glenn laughs)

Glenn Carle: And the reason that faculties and institutions that base themselves in the scientific method and in empirical truth and research don’t have people advocating these things is because it’s quackery or personal opinion rather than established scientific fact. And that’s an unfortunate problem for those who believe in that. And that’s part of the center of the left–right wars for all of American history, and certainly at present.

America’s religious divide and rising unitary power

Atul Singh: Two quick points to make here: I have some very close friends in the CDU, which is the Christian Democratic Union — the center-right party of Germany, the ruling party now of Germany since Friedrich Merz, right? He just won the vote of confidence after losing the first one. And they are horrified by the fact that you can question evolution. Similarly, we were speaking to a very dear friend of mine from Oxford who’s also a Tory. And he’s horrified by the fact that you can question global warming, you can question evolution, you can question the things that the center-right all across Europe takes as scientific fact. So what is the divergence across the Atlantic? And why?

Glenn Carle: Well, this is one of the fundamental points of American exceptionalism: America’s religiosity, or religiousness. I think it’s something like 40% of Americans regularly attend religious services.

Atul Singh: As high as 40%, even today?

Glenn Carle: I think so. Don’t hold me to the fire for that statistic.

Atul Singh: It’s a large number, a much larger number than Europe. That’s the operative fact. Let’s not get hung up on the statistics. The argument holds. The argument is simply that more Americans go to church than Europeans.

Glenn Carle: Americans are more religious, and not just religious — they are from born-again, evangelical denominations and convictions far more than in Europe, where that’s a highly unusual strain of Christianity. And they oppose the diversity and theory of evolution that the left and the scientific, secular, empirical societies embrace. The final thing, the fourth underlying objective of the attack, is they’re going after America’s elite and all of their beliefs, which have dominated politics and society for three generations, at least, in the United States. And they want to bring down the high temple of thought and power of these beliefs, which is Harvard. And those beliefs include the scientific method and secularism, humanism. These things sound ethereal and not relevant to day-to-day life. “Really? Do people still argue about this?” Well, the answer clearly is: yes, in America now more than ever — for more than four generations. And the globalization movement that brings in foreign products and foreigners—

Atul Singh: People like me.

Glenn Carle: That’s right. They don’t look right, they don’t talk right, and they’re taking our money, and stealing our jobs and making us eat strange foods. Food is always one of the concerns — seriously, I’m not being facetious — of conservatives reacting against the increasing diversity of their society. Famously, a French prime minister — Jacques Chirac — it’s almost 50 years ago now, said, “None of us want to have our hallways filled with these strange smells from cooking down the hall.” And he was alluding to Muslim immigrants. This recurs — that it’s culturally offensive and somehow dangerous, this diversity. And so this movement is trying to dismiss and cut down a notch these beliefs and the power of the people who hold these beliefs — who the conservatives, culturally and now politically in power, think dismiss them and condescend to them and exclude them from power. So all of that sounds really sort of metaphysical and hard to imagine, but it is literally what the objectives are in going after specific policies of the Harvard administration and elite institutions.

Atul Singh: And fundamentally — you’ve mentioned this before, and we’ve discussed this before in many of our FO° Exclusives — what underlies this knock against Harvard is not just the fact that, say, Donald Trump and his administration want to cut down Harvard a notch or two, but also the theory of the unitary executive.

Glenn Carle: Absolutely. And you anticipated the concluding point, which is it gives structure, direction and power to all of the views and objectives — culturally and politically, socially, intellectually — that the attack on Harvard is attempting to achieve. What is the theory of the unitary executive? It sounds bizarre.

Atul Singh: You’ve mentioned Grover Norquist, who was at Harvard with you.

Glenn Carle: That’s right, we were classmates, yep. I casually knew him. He wouldn’t remember me. I first became aware of the theory of the unitary executive 25 years ago during the “war on terror,” when I was still an official working in the intelligence world. And this is a belief — it’s a coherent, structured theory, not just a conviction — that the American system of government is no longer, if it ever was, appropriate or able to govern the country effectively, and in particular is inappropriate for a global power like the United States. The separation of powers — which is one of the foundational tenets and principles of the American system of government, that there are three co-equal branches of government: the executive, which is the president and its agencies; the legislative, which we know is, of course, the elected Parliament — the Congress and the judiciary, which independently establishes what is legal or not in conformity with the American Constitution, our founding document. This all sounds abstruse. It’s critical. That is our system of government. And that is what it was intended to be — by design — inefficient so that no one branch of government, no one faction and no individual could have a predominant amount of influence.

Atul Singh: I had a brief interaction with none other than Justice Antonin Scalia, the darling of the right in those days, and he said exactly the same thing: “Look, we are a system designed for gridlock. We have a system designed for gridlock because we want to avoid the concentration of power.” And the funny thing is that this philosophy comes from Montesquieu — the idea of separation of powers — who, in turn, was inspired by Great Britain, England.

Glenn Carle: Absolutely.

Atul Singh: And he was contrasting the Ancien Régime — pre-1789, pre-revolutionary France — to England. And indeed the UK, which was far more diverse, far more parliamentary, far more dynamic as a society. In fact, you could attribute the colonization of India by the British and not the French because Dupleix was a very impressive chap, but the French military commander was let down by his own people. And Robert Clive, of course, thrived in a system which allowed him to excel. The same could be said about Horatio Nelson or any of the great British characters. They thrived in a system that was more meritocratic than their French counterparts.

Glenn Carle: The foundations of the American system certainly are developed by Montesquieu. But even before that, it’s part of the triumph of the British political evolution in the 17th century, in the 1600s. Blackstone, the great theorist of the law for England, is also one of the foundational thinkers for America. And why do I mention this obscure person?

Atul Singh: No, he’s not obscure. I studied law in England. Blackstone isn’t obscure! (Laughs)

Glenn Carle: Well, to the average American, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the average American will never have heard of Blackstone. (Chuckles)

Atul Singh: We are two members of the elite. I went to Oxford, you went to Harvard. We are snooty and snotty.

Glenn Carle: I’m part of the problem. But Blackstone wrote that it was better for ten guilty men to go free in the judicial system than that the system be so constituted that one innocent man be convicted. Well, that’s not a very efficient way of doing it, but it guarantees individual freedom under the rule of law. That principle — then Benjamin Franklin, 100 years after that in typical American exaggeration — said it’s better that a hundred guilty go free than one innocent be convicted. But it is foundational to the American system of government. This is exactly what the theory of the unitary executive seeks to overturn and replace. What is it? It says that power is inefficient in the American system, so we have to unify under the control of the chief executive, the president, all executive power so that he can rule.

Atul Singh: There has been an expansion of presidential power.

Glenn Carle: Oh, for decades.

Atul Singh: In fact, as many jurists have said words to the same effect, one told me personally, “What we’ve done is we’ve loaded the pistol.” And this was pre-Trump, with mala fide intentions, not bona fide intentions. It has a loaded gun to fire. So this is something that jurists have been aware of and warning against for a while.

Glenn Carle: That’s right. So where does the theory of the unitary executive come from? What does it imply? What do its proponents — the Trump administration’s thinkers and those devising and carrying out the policies of the administration, specifically with regard to Harvard in this context, but more broadly across the entire spectrum of government actions and American society — say? That we have to unify power to be efficient. But also because the “deep state” is exploiting the American people. And only the leader, the representative of the people, the individual who represents the people’s will and needs, can protect the people from the abuses of the state and the exploitations of the elites. So what is that? Well, that is pure fascism. That is the description of the social analysis and the political solutions proposed by the fascists. The man who developed explicitly the theory of the unitary executive was a man named Carl Schmitt. Carl Schmitt was a German jurist and lawyer — highly intelligent and accomplished and well-regarded — who, I would argue, quite unfortunately, was dramatically successful and became the lawyer for Adolf Hitler. He theorized, developed and then defended while propounding the Nazi state. And fascism believes that the oligarchs and the elites in the government are, by definition, the enemy, and that the people can only be represented by its tribune — the Leader with a capital “L,” in American English terms — who will then decide everything if he has all power unified under the executive, which he will become. And probably, under this construct, it would be a “he” and not ever a “she.” And that is explicitly what the theorists of the Trump administration are — and prior to Trump, of the now not just dominant faction of the Republican Party — are seeking to do. So what’s happening here are four things, really: The attack on Harvard is an attack on America’s dominant elite culture of the last 80 years by an aggrieved, conservative, less educated, more isolationist society. It’s an attack on America’s ruling elites. It’s an attack on secularism, cosmopolitanism — which means an openness to diversity, international people, to excellence, to globalization and to humanism itself. It’s an attack on America’s system of democracy and government — on the separation of powers. It’s an attempt to assert and create a centralized unitary executive in a frankly fascist construct. And all of this, then, is not just an attack on my alma mater and on elite Harvard, but on what American society and American government have been. Which is why I have said for many years that America is facing its greatest crisis since 1861, when we split in half and murdered one another for four years over slavery.

Historic battles against the elite

Atul Singh: Now, when we are speaking of elites — and we are speaking about taking the battle to the institutions, the culture and the elites — sometimes they happen. Let’s talk about 1789, we’ve referred to them. It is true that the elites of the Ancien Régime were useless. They had monopolized all power. They had much of the land. But they were good for nothing. And they didn’t evolve, unlike their British counterparts. It is also true — we were talking about the Junkers earlier in the day. Now people will marvel at what we talk about even when we are offline. Yes, we talk about interesting things such as Junkers in Russia. (Both laugh)

Glenn Carle: Isn’t everybody?

Atul Singh: Yes. And if not, why not? So we’re talking about Junkers. And again, the Junker class — and Bismarck, in a way, was much more liberal than the Kaiser. Bismarck created the modern welfare state. But the Junker class didn’t want to give away power. And eventually, that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Look at the Indian bureaucrats — the Indian Administrative Service — or the Pakistan Administrative Service, or the Bangladesh Administrative Service. Any of the colonial elites — they want to retain the big colonial bungalows. So there are times when elites need to be toppled for a society to march ahead. And some of the smugness of Harvard — and some of the wokery or some of the totalitarian leftist cultures at the elite institutions of America — needed to be toppled. The question, as I posed in the morning, is: Do you want a Danton–Robespierre-type reign of terror? Or do you want something better?

Glenn Carle: Well, there’s a critical difference and distinction to be made between the attack on the elites — let’s say, with the 1789 example, the French monarchy and aristocracy — and the attack by the Trump administration against the Harvard–American elite. And that is that the assault in 1789 was against social…

Atul Singh: Stratification.

Glenn Carle: Stratification and rigidity.

Atul Singh: Lack of social mobility, which was terrible in France.

Glenn Carle: Whereas the attack against the Harvard American elite is an attack on the increasing pressure for diversity and openness.

Atul Singh: Very quickly, an interjection: Many of the people on the right have pointed out that Harvard is very diverse racially now. But socioeconomically, not so much. I was at the Harvard Kennedy School yesterday, and you can see that the students there are largely affluent, or they come from powerful backgrounds. They’re already part of their local elites. Now, it may make sense for the US to have all of them in Harvard Kennedy School — HKS — for soft power. Joseph Nye was not wrong. He had a point. But it also means that, within the US, you’re not as representative. And you’re not as representative in terms of ideas, because there’s a very heavy domination of this entitled global leftist set. The outrage of privilege is there in every Ivy. The Lia Thomas example, for instance.

Glenn Carle: That does speak to a problem in American society and the American educational system, I would argue, rather than a criticism of the Harvard student body and processes that led to it within the university selection process. One could say this is a distinction without a difference. But I don’t think that is true. The problems are — it’s a fact, and an unfortunate one for many — that you end up standing up from where you were born. And if you were to the manor born, then you will probably stand up and be a member of the elite. And you have advantages that people who grew up in less favored circumstances don’t. I often have said, I grew up in a wealthy town. The nickname of my town was “the wealthy town.” Brookline, Massachusetts had remarkably good schools. Two kilometers away is Roxbury, Massachusetts — it’s a predominantly Black community of Boston. You just walk under a bridge, maybe a kilometer from my home where I grew up, and there’s a transformation instantaneously from Brookline to Roxbury. Nine other of my classmates and myself — so there were ten of us from my graduating secondary school who attended Harvard.

Atul Singh: Wow. That’s a pretty high number for a public school. That means a government school, for those of you who are in England.

Glenn Carle: And I think that over 90% of my classmates attended university from secondary school. And yet two kilometers away, that certainly was not the case. Now, that speaks to socioeconomic differences in opportunity and child-rearing. The result is that you have people who look like me and come from my background at Harvard, overwhelmingly — and not so much from less privileged communities. I don’t know that I would blame Harvard, because I will say that the Ivy institutions and all higher education in the United States — for the 50 years that I’ve been an adult — aggressively, by law and by policy, have sought to diversify the opportunities for education. So that Harvard really is far more diverse today — imperfect as it may be, and other institutions — than was the case when I was a student 50 years ago.

Atul Singh: Alright. So what you’re saying, however, is that this focus on elites has more to do with a power grab than with ensuring higher social mobility. Because, after all, as a friend of mine — who doesn’t want to be quoted (laughs) — who teaches at Harvard, said: When Donald Trump is creating a dynasty and Elon Musk is siring kids a dime a dozen, it doesn’t seem to be the case that they care about the poor working-class kid in West Virginia or the impoverished farmer in Mississippi. This is a power grab.

Glenn Carle: Oh, sure. Absolutely. But it also is a sincere implementation of what I think are grotesquely contradictory and hypocritical policies sincerely held by many. So if they sincerely wish to help the miner’s son or daughter in West Virginia, they would increase the budget for Head Start programs, which are an American federal government program to help poor communities and socioeconomic sectors of society have early education for their children. Because doing so has, empirically, shown increased performance and success — educationally and professionally — through the remainder of the beneficiaries’ lives. But they aren’t, because they view this doctrinally as a socialist program. Because it’s the government being paternalistic, rather than letting you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Of course, historically, if people are left to pull up their own bootstraps, they cannot frequently, because they have no bootstraps to pull up, and they have no money to buy any boots. It’s like Anatole France said in the arguments in 19th-century France between socialism and conservatism. He said, “Well, the conservatives say everyone should be free, but that will mean simply that I am free to sleep under a bridge because I have no job and no home.” It’s the same dynamic now.

Harvard will survive

Atul Singh: Brilliant. So let’s end on a cheery note. I take the view that Harvard has preceded the American Revolution by more than a century. It survived the American Revolution. It survived the Civil War. It survived World War I. It survived World War II. It survived the 1960s student uproar in America. It survived, indeed, the War on Terror. So I guess it would be fair to say Harvard will survive Donald Trump.

Glenn Carle: I suppose, yes. There are many people whom I respect who argue that we can’t raise ourselves above our moment and see broadly enough to realize that this is a relative crisis, not a regime-ending or existential one. I am not sure that that is the case. I am more pessimistic. I don’t think, by nature, I am on historical trends. But I do see the current threats. I see the meta-trends of society and in the world and in the United States — the same way that Steven Pinker so well describes them—

Atul Singh: Another Harvard man. 

Glenn Carle: —As broadly moving in a Whiggish view of history; things improving. The metadata shows improvements in every aspect that one can measure about human life and society. But this is not your normal political argument or crisis. This is a traditionalist reaction to radical social change and modern progress. And never before in American history has this strain of American culture and political thought held the White House and the reins of power. It hasn’t. So can they stop history? No one can stop history. But can they do irreversible damage? I would argue they already have. And I think that America can — we are not so exceptional that we will not become — for all of the strength of our civic institutions, and they are quite strong, have been quite strong compared to other countries — but we aren’t immune to going the direction of Turkey or Hungary or Venezuela or Russia — or France, numerous times in its history.

Atul Singh: You could argue the theory of unitary government is inspired, to some degree, by the French — by Charles de Gaulle. They’ve had, of course, Napoleon Bonaparte. And if we go back further, then Julius Caesar. After all, Julius Caesar was a response to a failing republic. So they are inspired by historical precedent.

Glenn Carle: So I’m, if not a fatalist, I am very alarmed, certainly at the direction of the policies and the trends and the consequences already. And I’m not at all complacent that this too shall pass.

Atul Singh: Aha. So Harvard may not have $53 billion. It may not continue to remain the third-richest institution after the Catholic and Mormon church.

Glenn Carle: I think it’s really easy to break things. And it takes generations and good fortune to build them.

Atul Singh: On that note, we will be back. Let us know what topics you’d like us to cover with Glenn and me. It is bye for now.

Glenn Carle: Veritas.

[ edited this piece.]

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The 2024 election exposed a deep fracture in American politics. The two parties, once distinct in their visions for the future, have shifted dramatically. The Democrats, traditionally the advocates of progress, labor and reform, now act as stewards of entrenched systems. Meanwhile, the MAGA Republicans have morphed into radical insurgents, eager to dismantle the very institutions they once held sacred. Each side reveals profound contradictions, which contributes to a political climate ripe for instability and disillusionment among the American people.

The Democrats: from reformers to guardians of elitism

�մǻ岹��’s Democratic Party is a far cry from the New Deal coalition that championed the working class and pursued a vision of broad-based economic prosperity. In their quest for electoral viability and influence, Democrats have realigned their loyalties, increasingly courting elite interests, corporate backing and technocratic governance. This shift is rooted in the Bill Clinton-era “,” which positioned the party away from labor and toward neoliberal policies that served corporate and financial elites. That realignment was successful in appealing to moderates, but it came at a cost: the alienation of working-class voters who once saw the Democratic Party as their voice.

Kamala Harris, who represented the Democratic Party in the 2024 Presidential election, exemplifies this realignment’s hollowness. Despite years of public service, her political record remains underwhelming, marred by a lackluster 2020 presidential campaign where she failed to gain traction even within her own party. When former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline became apparent, the Democratic establishment chose Harris to step in, the primary process and imposing her candidacy on an ambivalent public. The absence of meaningful discourse with voters highlights the party’s insularity and growing distance from democratic principles it claims to uphold.

In foreign policy, the Democrats have also become more hawkish, increasingly embedded in the military-industrial complex they once opposed. Under the Biden administration, we saw continuous military support to longstanding allies, sometimes with scant regard for the ethical implications. The situation in Gaza further highlighted the party’s abandonment of progressive ideals. Tens of in military aid have flowed to Israel, facilitating policies that many view as nothing short of “.” Harris’s platitudes on the issue ring hollow to a youth increasingly disillusioned with what they see as American complicity in human rights abuses.

On social issues, Democrats continue to promote progressive identity politics, a realm in which they feel safest and most justified. However, this focus has alienated many voters who feel that economic issues affecting working-class communities are left unaddressed. Democrats have failed to adapt these social policies into a broader, inclusive vision that unites Americans beyond their identity groups. As a result, the party, in practice, appears to be conserving the very power structures they claim to challenge, committed more to maintaining their standing within the elite ranks than to fostering meaningful reform.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans: radical non-Conservatives

Contrasting starkly with the Democrats’ elite entrenchment, the MAGA Republicans are redefining conservatism by actively seeking to dismantle traditional institutions. US President Donald Trump epitomizes this shift, he led the GOP not as a conventional conservative, but as a figure who channels the resentment and frustration of Americans who feel betrayed by the political establishment. While Trump’s policy positions — particularly on trade, border control and a non-interventionist foreign policy — have remained consistent, his overarching ambition is to break down institutions he sees as obstacles to “America First” priorities.

Trump’s own psychological make-up informs much of his leadership style. Driven by a profound need for loyalty and validation, he has cultivated an environment where sycophancy is rewarded and dissent is swiftly punished. This transactional approach has extended beyond his personal relationships to the structure of government itself. His disdain for the so-called “” and obsession with loyalty have culminated in plans to fire massive swathes of federal employees, aiming to what he perceives as entrenched opposition within America’s bureaucratic institutions.

Trump’s isolationist instincts also extend to international institutions. He regards the United Nations, NATO and other multilateral organizations with suspicion, perceiving them as burdens on American sovereignty and impediments to unilateral action. Unlike traditional conservatives, who valued these alliances as a means of maintaining global stability, Trump sees them as unnecessary obligations that drain American resources. His goal, to drastically scale back US or to force other nations to their share, has reframed the GOP’s foreign policy in terms of economic advantage rather than shared values or global responsibility.

This brand of MAGA conservatism, however, is not without its dangers. Trump’s willingness to court ultra-nationalists and authoritarian figures like Hungary’s , Russia’s , Israel’s or India’s raises alarms about his embrace of illiberal, even authoritarian tactics. He has amplified far-right elements within the party, normalizing dangerous ideologies that promote racial and ethnic division. His inflammatory rhetoric on immigration, race and national identity has extremist groups, threatening social cohesion and inciting violence. In his pursuit of a “restoration” of America, Trump has overlooked the moral imperatives that once grounded conservatism, instead creating a movement defined by grievance, retribution and divisive populism.

Democrats as conservatives and Republicans as radicals

In an ironic twist, the Democratic Party has become the true conservative force in American politics, clinging to established institutions, norms and global alliances. Though they champion social justice issues, the Democrats act as stewards of a regulatory state and global military network that remains fundamentally resistant to substantial reform. They have taken on the classical conservative role of preserving the status quo, ensuring the continuity of long-standing institutional structures.

On the other hand, the MAGA Republicans have abandoned their conservative roots, opting for a radical reimagining of American governance. Where traditional conservatism prized gradual change and respect for established norms, MAGA ideology seeks upheaval, favoring authoritarian solutions over democratic compromise. Trump’s GOP is fixated on “draining the swamp” and remaking American institutions in his image, embodying an approach to governance more akin to authoritarian populism than . The party’s embrace of illiberal elements and authoritarian figures underscores a disturbing shift toward extremism.

A crisis of integrity

The 2024 election underscored a crisis of integrity within both parties. The Democrats have sacrificed the progressive legacy of the and for corporate patronage, regulatory entrenchment and a global military presence. They have alienated the working class and embraced elite power structures, leaving a void where genuine reform once stood. Harris, the chosen heir to this legacy, embodied a political machine more focused on preserving its own power than on addressing the economic and social challenges facing the American people.

Meanwhile, the MAGA Republicans have adopted a brand of radicalism that threatens the fabric of American democracy. Trump’s GOP has become an insurgent force within American politics, dismantling institutions it views as impediments, often at the cost of democratic norms. The GOP’s courtship of far-right elements and disdain for traditional conservatism have pushed the party into dangerous territory, normalizing authoritarian tactics and divisive rhetoric.

This realignment has created a peculiar dynamic where neither party fully serves the interests of those seeking meaningful reform of failing institutions while preserving democratic stability. The Democrats’ reflexive defense of all institutions, even dysfunctional ones, alienates those seeking necessary change. The MAGA movement’s destructive impulses threaten to demolish vital democratic guardrails along with problematic bureaucracies.

The challenge ahead lies in finding a path that allows for meaningful institutional reform without descending into authoritarian chaos. This requires acknowledging both the legitimate grievances driving anti-institutional sentiment and the genuine need for stable democratic institutions. Until either party can chart such a course, American politics will remain trapped between institutional sclerosis and institutional destruction.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial��policy.

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Even at the time, genocide wasn’t a difficult case to make. Whatever it was then has become demonstrably more flagrant today. At the very least, systematic attacks on , explicit acts of and deliberate, organized all fall squarely into the category of war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

Many of the world’s governments, particularly in the West, have preferred to practice what they may think of as a style of “diplomatic discretion” that prevents them from explicitly condemning Israel’s actions. Few have taken any bold steps to use whatever political clout they could muster to prevent Israel from turning a plausible genocide into a fait accompli we Europeans just have to learn to live with. Several European nations have even continued to provide military assistance to Israel throughout the period.

, and are the only members of the European Union to have literally accused Israel of war crimes and followed it up with an . In contrast, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States have continued to back Israel militarily, even while occasionally hinting to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government that they would feel more comfortable if he were to tone down the destruction a bit. Italy initially arms exports but later resumed them quietly. “Piano, piano!” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni seemed to be saying. Bibi, the Israeli virtuoso, naturally interprets her words as an invitation to play, with unusual brio, his latest resounding apocalyptic concert on her keyboard.

Emmanuel Macron’s France, to its credit, has consistently supported UN ceasefire resolutions, knowing the US would veto them, but adamantly refuses to call Israel’s actions genocide, collective punishment or ethnic cleansing. At the same time, it has refused a full arms embargo but, to demonstrate its empathetic rhetoric with a suffering population, has restricted the supply of certain weapons.

In other words, despite a few courageous initiatives from a small minority of governments, the Atlantic alliance — the US, European nations and the EU itself —  has remained relatively unified in solidarity with Israel. From the beginning the US has led the fanfare, first under Biden and then, despite a visible change of style, under Israel’s favorite US president of all time, Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, the pressure is mounting and some of the seams appear to be cracking. Just last week, Macron characterized the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “,” adding that it has become “” (����é�徱��). By “unprecedented” he meant that Israel’s conduct today appears to be even worse (������������é��) than it was at any earlier point in the campaign. In other words, his complaint is less about the nature of the act than the degree, as if war crimes can simply evolve quantitatively before crossing the distant threshold of genocide. This kind of reasoning enables Macron to maintain a position that falls short not only of having to utter the g-word, but of acting in any concrete way upon his perception of ongoing horror.

Nevertheless, the temperature is clearly rising. France’s state-owned radio news network Radio France Internationale (RFI) that Macron’s government has at least begun thinking about the theoretical tipping point beyond which it becomes necessary to evoke gross violations of international law. “French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot,” RFI informs us, “has voiced his support for reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement, amid growing concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

Our Devil’s Dictionary has recently highlighted the moral ambiguity associated with prominent political figures who voice “concern.” But Barrot provides another clue about the strength of France’s moral fiber when he proclaims: “This is a legitimate request, and I invite the European Commission to examine it.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Legitimate request:

A timidly formulated hope that others will recognize a moral stance unwilling to take the form of a commitment. It contrasts with what the same parties see as an “illegitimate request,” such as firmly demanding the cessation of a genocide.

Contextual note

The French have always cultivated the idea that they are a generous and welcoming people, clearly reflected in Barrot’s promise to “” the European Commission to review its solidarity with a nation credibly engaged in genocide. Note that the invitation aims not at changing the relationship or taking any concrete action, but at examining it.

That attitude of bold moral resoluteness turned out to be too much for the currently disenfranchised leader of the opposition to Macron’s regime, Marine Le Pen, who no need for a review. “Israel is doing what it can in a situation that is extremely difficult,” she charitably explained. Her reasoning may follow a well known pattern: Any nation that would go so far as to invite the opprobrium attached to practicing live-streamed genocide and ethnic cleansing would only do so in response to an extremely difficult situation. Take the case of Nazi Germany, whose regime Marine’s father (and founder of her party) openly . After losing World War I, the German nation found itself humiliated by the victors, saddled with exorbitant reparations to pay that in turn provoked raging inflation that undermined the economy and destabilized the government. The world treated Deutschland as the sole culprit in a war Europe’s leaders had collectively sleepwalked into. In such extremely difficult circumstances, it is natural that only a holocaust could follow.

Le Pen herself has undergone the humiliation and disgrace of being barred by the courts from running in an election, even though the put her in the lead for the 2027 presidential election. That may help explain her current position on Israel, which she expressed in her critique of Macron’s impatience with Israel: “He is constantly increasing his criticism of Israel, perhaps because it is incapable of providing a solution to facilitate the fight against Islamist fundamentalism.” The German example may have convinced Le Pen that when attempting to “provide a solution” the only surefire way of achieving one’s goal is by aiming at a “final solution.”

Historical note

Historical inertia, the patient acceptance of immoral behavior as a fait accompli or feature of the landscape, has become a standard response for leaders like Macron. Le Pen is right to point out that he has no solutions, but that won’t prevent him from defending to the death his right to hold onto power and prevent anyone who might have solutions from applying them. The current class of European leaders has become adept at using the perception of intolerable situations as faits accomplis that can never be seriously questioned as the most convenient way to define and maintain their dangerously confused policies. This is especially true with regard to the two major conflicts they appear committed to: a Ukraine war started and then apparently abandoned by the US, and Israel’s noble “self-defense” against a captive, occupied and confined population whose cowardly soldiers hide behind human shields composed essentially of women and children.

If it didn’t involve the sacrifice of probably more than a million Ukrainians and Russians, the case of Europe’s inertia with regard to Ukraine may appear comic, at least since the return of US President Donald Trump to the White House. The Donald has embarrassingly made it clear he’s ready to pull out of a war his predecessors encouraged Europe to join. The belief initially inculcated by US propaganda that Ukraine has the capacity to win a war designed to humiliate and eventually dismantle Russia is already delusional. But formulating the project of replacing the clout of the US — which under Trump is withdrawing from the fight — and believing that Europe’s commitment could turn the tide is positively surreal.

Europe’s backing of Israel follows the same pattern. Former US President Joe Biden set the tone and Europe followed suit. In this case, NATO solidarity could not provide the pretext, but the logic was identical. The US leads NATO and NATO leads Europe; with or without NATO, the US has led Europe… by the nose. That’s what Europeans have accepted as a “security system” (some would call it a security blanket). It is not limited to Europe and its periphery. It applies even to nations in West Asia. It should be noted that Macron, thanks to his obsession with the idea of “strategic autonomy,” is the rare European leader in recent times to have expressed his desire to refuse the status of vassal to the US.  Note that he “desires” to “refuse” which means quite simply that he will not dare to refuse.

The policy of passive conformity with the policies of other nations — Israel and the US — who have fewer qualms about engaging in evil, may now be coming back to bite Europe and France. A group of French “Jurists for the Respect of International Law” (JURDI) have taken legal action, sending a formal (mise en demeure) addressed to the European Commission and the European Council calling for “the immediate suspension of all agreements of cooperation with Israel,” individual sanctions imposed on responsible parties and exclusion of Israel from the SWIFT payment system. These are all measures that the Europeans rapidly applied to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As Le Monde, this is an accusation of “institutional complicity.” Readers will note the radical difference between a mise en demeure (a formal legal act) and a “legitimate request.”��

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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John Feffer: Sounds good. Thanks for having me.

Atul Singh: Great to have you, John. John, before we crack on, please explain to our viewers and our listeners — I’m sure most of them know about soft power already — but lay out: What do you mean by soft power?

John Feffer: So generally, the contrast is between hard power or military power — the use of military force to achieve objectives — and soft power. Soft power being non-military, could be political, could be economic. It’s often grouped together with cultural efforts to promote a country’s cultural offerings. But there is also the same objective. The objective is to get other countries to do what you want them to do. With the United States, the idea was, well, if we introduce these kinds of soft power mechanisms, such as sending US jazz bands around the world or providing consultancies on how to build democratic institutions, that countries would gradually converge towards US values and ultimately do the kinds of policies that the US wants other countries to do — make it easier for the United States to negotiate with these countries to achieve trade deals, ultimately, perhaps military deals as well. But soft power was a key tool in the toolbox in the arts of persuasion, the arts of what might be called hegemony. In other words, the effort to get countries to do what you want to do not by forcing them to do so, but by convincing them that it is in their own interest to do so, to such a degree that they may not even think that they’re doing what, say, the United States wants them to do. They just think that they’re doing what they want to do. That’s the ultimate victory of soft power. For the United States, of course, this was birthed in the competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviet Union, of course, had its Communist International. It was promoting its version of soft power — in other words, the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, perhaps also the works of Stalin — sending those books around, sending movies around that embodied communist ideals, the Bolshoi Ballet, Shostakovich music. So the Soviets had their version of soft power as well. But of course, the United States was a wealthier country and had things that a lot of people around the world wanted to see or hear, i.e., jazz, Hollywood movies, even food products that the United States produced, like Spam. So this was our effort to win hearts and minds around the world in our competition with the Soviet Union. Of course, it still existed post-Soviet Union, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but we could argue that perhaps soft power no longer had the singular focus that it had during the Cold War. The goals, the ambitions somewhat constrained when they were no longer within the context of US–Soviet competition.

Atul Singh: Brilliant, John. My old lecturer at Oxford — now quite famous — Niall Ferguson, called it “blue jeans and rock and roll.” And I call it the Harvard and Hollywood Effect. (Laughs) Of course, Joseph Nye — whom I’ve met and who has very kindly been a donor to 51�Թ�, too — came up with this idea of soft power a while ago, and you explained it very well. And America’s great ability to have that attractiveness in terms of its economy, its technology, its entertainment industry, its educational institutions and its values held sway. And one could go back to the Atlantic Charter under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We could go back earlier to Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Points and the League of Nations idea. And the US has had this earnest, moral, “city on the hill” element to it. But — and there’s always been a but — Vietnam dented it. Before that, the 1953 coup in Tehran — MI6-inspired, largely conducted by the CIA — dented it. And in recent years, the Iraq War really dented it. Torture dented it. The flouting of the UN and international treaties dented it. And we have seen soft power a bit damaged. And yet, thousands of students have still come to Harvard and Stanford and MIT. I’m sitting in Silicon Valley, and I was at Stanford yesterday, and it’s still full of foreigners. And so the attraction still persists.

Erosion of US soft power

Atul Singh: So what is this talk about decline, and particularly dramatic decline, that we are seeing in some quarters and that we’ve got together to discuss today?

John Feffer: Well, you’re right that the moral leadership that the United States purported to show to the rest of the world has been damaged — damaged not only by events like the Iraq War but damaged by historical revelations of US involvement in a variety of immoral activities. But increasingly, you saw soft power be separated from the US government itself in the minds of many people. In other words, they could consume Hollywood movies, many of which were critical of US government actions, and imagine that they are consuming an American product without necessarily consuming an American government operation, shall we say; that they could buy blue jeans and not be complicit, say, in US government wars around the world; that they could go and study in US institutions, and that they would be studying at Harvard — they wouldn’t necessarily be studying at the center of CIA recruiting in the United States. (Laughs) So there was plausible deniability, shall we say, in the consumption of the products of soft power and their connection to the US government itself. But increasingly — and this begins before the Trump administration — the US government begins to question the validity of or the value of its soft power operations. Again, in part because it’s no longer advanced in the service of a specific effort or campaign to win hearts and minds — hearts and minds, in this case, against the Soviet Union. For a period of time, obviously in the wars on terrorism, this substituted for the goal of American soft power. We have to somehow convince people around the world that terrorism — or the objectives of al-Qaeda and Boko Haram and other groups around the world — that those are morally bankrupt or instrumentally not competent or whatever, and that US values still should hold sway in this sphere. But it’s really with Donald Trump coming to power in his first administration, and then even more unsettlingly in his second administration, that the assault on soft power begins in earnest. And the attacks are across the board: Soft power and institutions like USAID — the Agency for International Development — that they’re corrupt themselves or that they encourage corruption in other countries by basically shoveling money into the pockets of corrupt leaders; that they’re ineffectual; that they don’t produce either the results that they themselves say that they’re trying to produce, i.e., lifting people out of poverty when, in fact, it seems that no country has been lifted out of poverty by the efforts at least of these humanitarian or development programs; that these institutions simply support failings of well-paid NGO people in the United States or in the UN or in a variety of different organizations. So the critiques are across the board, and Trump comes in and says, “Well, let’s just get rid of them! Let’s not even discuss whether this program or that program is useful or not. Let’s just get rid of USAID,” without realizing — this is par for the course for Donald Trump — that USAID is not just supporting the efforts of finding a better approach to fighting AIDS in Africa or addressing famine around the world or helping people out after a humanitarian disaster. But USAID was a cornerstone of helping the US itself. USAID used to boast on its website that 80% of USAID dollars were spent inside the United States. In other words, a lot of the food aid that went out was, of course, purchased from US farmers. A lot of economic development went into the pockets of US consultants or US businesses. It was a projection, not just of US moral leadership in the world — i.e., “We believe in the importance of humanitarianism” — but it was a bottom-line-oriented effort to help out US businesses. So Trump really wasn’t thinking through that and thus has undermined a lot of US business activity around the world. Not only that, but he has undermined the cornerstone of the research and development complex here in the United States. So much of the money that has been dedicated to scientific research and the like in US universities and research centers has come from the federal government, and Trump has come in and slashed at that as well. And this, of course, has eroded the US educational position around the world. But again, as I said, it was eroding before Trump took office. According to a recent survey, out of the top ten research institutions around the world, only one of them is American. Only Harvard makes the top ten, and the rest, basically, are Chinese. So what Trump is doing is attacking an already weakened edifice of research and development, educational achievement. And so when we’re talking about the erosion of American soft power, you could say that Trump is dealing it a death blow, but he certainly was not the first one to wield an axe against this particular complex.

Tariffs and global backlash

Atul Singh: So, question for you: You just said 80% of the money was being spent in the US, which means that actually the money being spent overseas was not that high. But more importantly, it was creating this loop, which — okay, you want to send food aid, but you purchase it from US farmers. You save people from famine, you also help US farmers. There’s a multiplier effect. And of course, you increase goodwill, so you show that the US is more than missiles and drones, bombs and bullets. It’s also about winning hearts and minds. So basically, is the wheel now off? Is it now largely the US coercive power which will rely more on strong-arm military or economic leverage — tariffs being a classic example? And I can tell you that — and I’m sure you have friends in Europe and Asia, of course you do, you speak many languages, including Russian — many of my friends in the diplomatic circuit, in the business circuit, in the political circuit in countries like Japan and Switzerland, Germany and France and the special ally, UK, are apoplectic at this new indiscriminate levy of tariffs on friend and foe alike. How do you explain this? What will transpire? What will happen because of this?

John Feffer: Yeah, well, there are two aspects of US soft power we haven’t really talked about. One is managerial competence. In addition to the exporting of democracy and the exporting of blue jeans, there was also the exporting of technical expertise. And the United States was a center for that — developing new scientific methods, like during the Green Revolution, for instance, promoting golden rice and sending the scientists around the world to India.

Atul Singh: India benefited greatly from US help in the Green Revolution. There’s a tremendous input. Norman Borlaug, if I remember the name correctly, played a great role.

John Feffer: Yes, but it wasn’t just scientists. It was also folks who specialized in representative democracy. And if a country was emerging from 40, 50 years of martial law, or 500 years of colonialism, then the United States could be expected to send competent managers in the political realm to show folks how to draft a constitution, how to put together checks and balances. Well, obviously managerial competence is not a strong point for the Trump administration. And it has no interest in showing people how to replicate the model that it is currently destroying — i.e., representative democracy and checks and balances in the United States. So that’s off the table right now. The second key element of soft power was participation in global institutions and the establishment of global norms. And here we get closer to your question about tariffs. Because, of course, the United States was instrumental in the establishment, first and foremost, of the United Nations and various international institutions and agreements around such things as human rights and conduct during wartime. And with the United States now withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council under the Trump administration, that kind of participation in the establishment of those kinds of norms is off the table. But it wasn’t just in the political realm — of course, it was in the economic realm as well, with the United States being instrumental in the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions — the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and so forth — and the creation of the rules and regulations, if you will, the traffic laws governing the global economy. And that held sway, arguably, until — well, relatively recently. You could even say it held sway until Liberation Day, when Donald Trump instituted these across-the-board tariffs, which was a throwback far before World War II, to a time when, for instance, in the lead-up to World War I or the lead-up to World War II, there were efforts by various countries to protect their economies from globalization. What was globalization at that time? Globalization 1.0 — and grow their economies within tariff barriers. Now, that strategy didn’t disappear. It was employed by other countries during this ascendant period of a globalized economy. South Korea, for instance, uses tariff walls in order to build up its steel industry and then its shipbuilding industry. But it does so within the context of globalization. In other words, South Korea is doing this in order to participate as a stronger actor in the global economy. North Korea is the opposite example. It closes off its economy, uses, effectively, tariff walls — (laughs) along with all sorts of other walls — but not in order to join the global economy; in order to create an autarkic, or what they call Juche, system of self-reliance. So you have those two models just on the Korean Peninsula of approaches to the global economy. What’s unusual, though, is for a dominant country like the United States to use tariff walls, because ordinarily it’s a smaller country that’s going to say, “Well, we can’t compete against these major economies unless we protect our infant industries — help them grow, help them develop — so that one day they can grow up and compete.” Well, the United States has had a fully mature economy for decades and decades. So one might ask, why does the United States exactly need tariff walls to protect what are no longer infant industries? These are completely mature car-making industries or machine-building. And of course, globalization has had a problematic impact on the US economy as well, and the erosion of manufacturing. We’ve compensated with services and financial economic approaches, but a lot of people have suffered. A lot of blue-collar workers have been left behind in this transformation, and these are the folks who voted for Donald Trump, imagining that the United States could return to its position as a manufacturing center of the world and that tariffs would allow that to happen. A little hard to imagine how that’s going to happen, because unfortunately, the United States is indulging in very erratic and unpredictable economic activity at the moment. Trump says, I’m going to impose these tariffs, and then the next day says, well, I’m going to carve out these exceptions, or I’m going to make an exception for an entire country because they’ve been nice to me and kissed my ring. But what that means is that a country outside the United States, as well as businesspeople inside the United States, are trying to make predictions about where they’re going to invest money. They’re not likely going to invest a lot of money in, say, a manufacturing plant in the United States if Trump is going to change his policies the very next day and you’re suddenly left with a stranded asset — an enormous factory that’s designed to produce component parts for a US-made, US-manufactured auto. Previously, those component parts came from Canada, Mexico, China. And you’ve built this plant because you’ve been following Donald Trump’s recommendation to revitalize American manufacturing. And then — boom — he makes a decision: “Ah, well, we’ll let those components come in from Canada or Mexico.” And you’re basically out of luck with this big investment you’ve just made in this manufacturing plant. So it’s very, very difficult to expect the tariff walls will produce in the United States the same kind of results that they produced in South Korea during its major growth phase, because in South Korea they were accompanied by an industrial policy that provided predictability in economic planning. And here in the United States, the tariff walls have not just not been associated with industrial policy, but the Trump administration has been actively cutting out the legs from whatever industrial policy the Biden administration was beginning to establish during its four years in office.

Fairness, decolonization and geopolitical fallout

Atul Singh: That was a very insightful analysis of the Trump tariff effect. But here’s an argument that I hear a lot from people in the administration: that, look, the dollar is overvalued because too many foreigners want to keep assets in the dollar. We are the reserve currency of the world. It is the world’s currency. But our problem — reversing the statement of Nixon’s man who said, “The dollar is our currency and your problem” — they say that manufacturing has hollowed out because other countries have cheated in the global trading system. South Korea, for instance — South Korea keeps tariffs, supports its industry, and then, once its industry has advantages including government subsidies, and once it has been protected under the infant industry argument through tariff and non-tariff barriers, then South Korea basically eats the global shipbuilding industry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And so you don’t have shipyards anymore in the US, or for that matter in the UK, in Glasgow or elsewhere. So this is not fair, and tariffs are a way to even the playing field. And the Trump administration wants to use tariffs and a devalued dollar to bring back manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt. And they say something needed to be done, and we are the only people who are willing to act. And the others simply were not. The others were happy to sell the American working class down the river for the interests of American consumers and American shareholders. So what do you say to that, John?

John Feffer: Yeah. Well, there are two arguments. One, the Trump administration could care less about blue-collar workers — except when it comes to election time and they need their votes. But the record of the first Trump administration demonstrated that they enacted policies that tilted the playing field even more in favor of the wealthy. And there was no return of manufacturing jobs or better salaries for blue-collar workers during the Trump administration. Number two — Trump administration number two — it’s unlikely that we’ll see any substantive changes in American policy that will benefit the working class. An industrial policy — if these tariffs were associated with an industrial policy, well, maybe we would see that. But there is no industrial policy. We saw something of the like under the Biden administration — an industrial policy to emphasize and protect US green energy production and jobs and manufacturing. So an industrial policy plus tariffs, selectively, against the major players, primarily China. So of course, the Biden administration maintained significant trade barriers, though nothing like the 145% that the Trump administration has levied against China. So that’s one argument. Second argument is that the Trump administration is, in fact, not interested in leveling the playing field. It wants to go back to a time when the United States was king of the hill — when it could say that US business interests and US manufacturing interests trump all the interests of everyone else in the world. Yeah, the United States helped create the global economy. It also structurally ensured that that global economy would benefit the United States — at least initially, until, say, the 1980s or 1990s, when globalization became turbocharged. So the United States, of course, has dominant control over — not control necessarily, but more control than other countries — in institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. So much so that China has said, “Well, forget it. We’re going to create our own parallel institutions, because we’re sick and tired of trying to have a fair distribution of votes within these institutions.” In fact, you could say that South Korea, China, all these other countries were cheating in order to build up their infant industries. And that’s absolutely correct. Another way of putting it is that they deliberately got prices wrong. This is the argument from Alice Amsden — that they looked around at the global economy, and in 1960, South Korea was basically GDP of Ghana per capita. And they said, “Well, there’s really no way out of this unless we stopped listening to the consultants” — who come largely from the United States, on delegations sent by USAID and other organizations. “If we stop listening to them” — and their advice was, you should go with your comparative advantage. What is your comparative advantage, South Korea, at this point? Wigs — which was a major export for South Korea in the early 1960s — and later rice, raw materials, in other words. But if South Korea was ever going to rise higher in the development index, it was going to have to produce finished goods. And in order to do that, it had to basically deny the advice coming from outside economists and basically establish these tariff walls and encourage their own industries in this protected space. You could argue that what South Korea did was not just for South Korea’s benefit, but was really a signal to the rest of the world that this is how development can take place. That “It’s not going to happen out of the largesse of the United States and other great economic powers. It’s not going to come from receiving rice shipments from USAID. It’s not going to come from feeding hungry people with food grown in the United States. It’s going to come from our own efforts to create a manufacturing sector, to have our own industrial policy.” So the question of fairness? Well, you could argue that these efforts by South Korea and other countries really met the test of fairness. If we establish fairness as “every country has a chance to develop and achieve the kinds of sustainable advances that the United States has achieved over the years,” that’s fair. The United States trying to get back to its position of “first among equals,” so to speak, in the global economy? No, that’s fundamentally unfair. And the United States has to get used to this distribution of economic power around the world in the same way that colonial countries in Europe had to get used to the distribution of political power during decolonization. This is a form of decolonization in the economic sphere, if you will. And the Trump administration absolutely does not want to see that happen.

Collapse of trust and the future of US power

Atul Singh: So let’s go back to soft power. You now have a US president who says he’ll take over Greenland, who says Canada should be the 51st state. Says Panama, of course, should be controlled by the US. And actually, it is now, and they’ve managed to put pressure on Panama, which had joined the Belt and Road Initiative, and they now have pressured Hutchison Whampoa to sell its ports — which is a Hong Kong company run by Li Ka-shing — and the US has also talked about Europe raising its defense funding not just to 2% of the GDP, but to 5% of the GDP. The speech by JD Vance in the Munich Security Conference, shall we say, didn’t go down swimmingly well (laughs). It might be fair to say that. And his performance vis-à-vis Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t construed all that beautifully by any of the allies. And so what are the consequences of this newfound aggression against neighbors and allies?

John Feffer: Yeah, it is shocking to a lot of people, because the expectation was that many of the cornerstones of the American national security enterprise would remain intact. And in fact, the only one that really has remained intact is the desire to spend more on the military — and that Trump is boasting of his trillion-dollar Pentagon budget — and the desire to send and sell those arms overseas, in part as a way to offset the costs of domestic production for our war machine. Everything else has been under question — US involvement in NATO, its respect for sovereignty. Here’s a guy who insists upon sovereignty in the US context: the United States must defend its borders. But he has little concern for the sovereignty of other countries. And sovereignty being, of course, a cornerstone of the global system. The United Nations is a system of nations that will all respect each other’s sovereignty. And they have arguments about where sovereignty begins and ends — how far from the border, the coastline? How do we deal with contested territory — an island here or sliver of territory there? But that’s all handled within a UN system. When Russia invades Ukraine — boom — that’s beyond the pale. That should not exist within the UN system. When Israel commits war crimes on a daily basis in Gaza, that too should not exist within the UN system. Of course, these are not isolated examples. We’ve had plenty of examples of atrocities and the violation of sovereignty in the past. But what’s different today is that you have many major leaders not saying very much in protest to these violations. So you have a country like India, which you might expect to be very firm in its defense of the principle of sovereignty — at least in the abstract — has, of course, said some negative things about Russia’s invasion, but hasn’t really effectively observed sanctions, and indeed has taken advantage of trade with Russia to get cheaper energy imports. The United States now too, led by someone who cares little about the violation of sovereignty — and so, no surprise then that he doesn’t really care about Canada’s sovereignty and doesn’t care that Greenland wants a measure of independence from Denmark — he wants to absorb it into the United States. I think that this is an inflection point. I suppose it’s a common phrase used these days — an inflection point in the international system. Either we head back into a period of anarchy, essentially, in which countries have thrown out the principle of sovereignty, and there’s no longer an international system that establishes again the traffic laws about where one stops and where one goes in the international system. Or people realize before it’s too late, “Hmm, anarchy is not such a great arrangement for the international system,” and we’ll see the resumption of, say, pre-1815 Europe before the Concert of Europe. Or we’ll see World War I, World War II, when the international system also suffered a breakdown. And short of that catastrophe happening again, one might hope that countries will come to their senses and say, “Okay, yeah, we have to make certain compromises in terms of our own sovereignty in order to live in a community of nations with other countries.”

Atul Singh: And where do you think we are headed on current trends? Do you think the pendulum can swing back, or do you think the loss of US soft power now is perhaps permanent? And also, a follow-up question: Does Donald Trump represent — and because I’m sitting in Silicon Valley, I’ll use the Silicon Valley lingo — a feature or a bug?

John Feffer: Yeah. Well, definitely he was a bug in his first administration. And the Biden team did everything it could to resume the status quo. It absorbed some of the changes that Trump had made — of course, they kept the sanctions against China, for instance, or the tariffs against China and some of the export controls. But in general, they tried to reassure the international community that the United States is back. In other words, it is going to play a cooperative role. I’m not so sure that a subsequent administration — if voters turn Trump out of office and put someone else in from a different party — I’m not so sure that it will be possible to persuade the international community that the United States is back again. I think there’s just a fear that the United States can’t be depended upon by anybody, frankly. Even if you’re a far-right leader, the United States can’t be depended upon. You might have a personal relationship with Trump, but obviously, if he decides he doesn’t like you anymore, as he decided with a number of leaders, then all bets are off. So that means that countries are going to look either to their own resources — Europe, of course, spending more on their military; Canada, beginning to look for other places to export their products to; Mexico, the same — and a lot of countries, especially in the Global South, are going to look to China. And China has — if you look at some of the speeches that Xi Jinping made during his recent trip to Southeast Asia — what did he emphasize? He emphasized stability, security, predictability — everything that the United States is not. These countries are going to say, “Hey, why should we hitch our wagon to a country like the United States that is so volatile, that it changes completely every four years, when we could hitch our wagon to China, which fundamentally hasn’t changed?” Of course, China has changed — its economy has changed rather dramatically — but at least for the last ten or 15 years, China has consistently promoted its Belt and Road Initiative and various infrastructure deals with countries. So my guess is that, at least in terms of the US role in any stable international community, people are just not going to look to the United States any longer for leadership. The role of the United States as a research hub — a hub of soft power, if you will — I think that that era also is over. Hollywood is now but one of many film industries, including Bollywood, including the film industry in Nigeria, the European film industry, the Mexican film industry. Yes, Hollywood obviously still has a lot of cachet, a lot of power, a lot of money. But I think it is now operating in a multipolar world. The same, obviously, for educational institutions. When it comes to scientists, they’re looking at — and I have friends who are in universities around here in western Massachusetts who are on tenterhooks because their grant focus for scientific research either has been canceled or they don’t know what the status of them are. They don’t know what the future is. They don’t know if their graduate students will be able to continue their research. Everything is up in the air. And a lot of scientists, at least I hear, are asking this fundamental question: Should I stay in the United States if I cannot expect in the next several years to have my research funded? And I’m getting these offers from institutions in Europe and around the world that promise me not just funding for a year, but funding for the entire life cycle of my research project. So let’s put it this way: When it comes to soft power, the United States, over the last ten years especially, has seen a significant decline. And the Trump administration, thinking that it’s restoring the greatness of America, has in fact done the opposite by destroying the very foundations of what made American hegemony so powerful, especially its soft power elements. Military power — that’s all that’s going to be left to the United States. It will increasingly resemble Russia — a country that is militarily powerful because it has nuclear weapons and has invested a lot of money in its military. Russia, of course, 6% of its GDP recently, the United States aspiring to increase it to 5% here—

Atul Singh: With a much bigger denominator, John.

John Feffer: Yes, absolutely.

Atul Singh: Really big denominator. The American military is extraordinary. The American Navy basically is much more powerful than the British Navy ever was. It’s a colossus.

John Feffer: Absolutely. And this commitment to military power, but also old-fashioned fossil fuel power, which is, again, something it would share with Russia. And abandoning the efforts to go beyond the fossil fuel era. So the United States under Trump, yes, it’s going back to the 1950s. And the world is not going to go back to the 1950s with it.

Atul Singh: I see. Again, do you think it’s irredeemable, or do you think the political climate can change, will change, and the pendulum will swing?

John Feffer: The political climate will change, there’s no question about it — unless Trump short-circuits the democratic process and runs “for a third term” or declares martial law and takes over all institutions of society, which is — alas — not a completely unknown possibility. But yes, I think it’s very likely that, if democracy continues to exist here in the United States, there will be a pendulum shift. But I don’t think that is sufficient to restore US soft power. The boulder is rolling down the hill. We, the next party, could set up brigades to arrest the motion of that boulder downhill, but it’s going to be tough. Again, this is a powerful country, so it’s not going to be overnight. We’re not going to see the United States turn into Easter Island, or the Mayan civilization, from one day to the next.

Atul Singh: Or even Great Britain.

John Feffer: Or even Great Britain, yes. But we could become a nation of shopkeepers (laughs) within a generation, within 20 to 25 years — a well-armed nation of shopkeepers, to be sure — but still, not the power that we were previously, i.e., a power that was projecting — was holding together in many ways — the international community. Not through its actual moral leadership — because, as you say, there are lots of reasons why the US was immoral in its leadership around the world — but at least in theory, the United States was acting in this fashion. And now the mask is off, and there’s no pretense that the United States has any moral leadership left in it.

Atul Singh: On that somber note, John Feffer, thank you so much for your time, and we’ll have you back very shortly for a number of other discussions.

John Feffer: I look forward to it, thank you.

[ edited this piece.]

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The post FO° Talks: Why US Soft Power Is Now Declining Dramatically appeared first on 51�Թ�.

1. Tariffs and the New Donald Trump Economic Revolution
2. Pakistan’s Deadly Islamist Terror Attack, India’s New Water War
3. Mark Carney Leads Liberals to a Fourth Consecutive Victory

So there we go. Let’s start with number one: “Tariffs and the New Donald Trump Economic Revolution.” US President Donald Trump has announced Liberation Day. So what is Liberation Day? Tariffs on trading partners. Why? Because these trading partners, in his eyes, have been cheating, whilst the US has opened up its markets. These partners have followed protectionist policies — they use tariff and non-tariff barriers — and once he brings tariffs, this will lead to an economic revolution which he is confident of winning. He has echoed Steve Bannon, who has said repeatedly that the rest of the world has not played fair with the US. So this is the politics of grievance, it is the politics of protectionism. And the essence of the argument is very simple, as I said, and there’s an element of truth to it: For decades, the US kept its market open, others did not. And as I said, the others used tariff and non-tariff barriers to keep American goods and, indeed, other foreign goods out of their markets. The argument of the Trump administration is that these countries depress their currencies to gain unfair trading advantages. As a result, honest working-class Americans lost their jobs. They suffered from an opioid epidemic. In fact, China and some other countries exported opioids to the Rust Belt — in the eyes of many in the Trump camp. And of course, China exports fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and causes the deaths of the very workers whose jobs it has stolen. So we’ve heard this complaint from numerous young Republicans, many of whom work on Capitol Hill and the Trump administration. And they provide a compelling and legally defensible narrative for the new belligerent US trade policy.

The Japan argument recycled for China

Atul Singh: Now, Glenn, you’ve pointed out many a time that Donald Trump used to say the same things about Japan in the 1980s.

Glenn Carle: This is the thing: I’m going to struggle today because endlessly repeated stupid arguments just kill me. And they do others — which is possibly why we now have the government we have. But it’s true that Donald Trump has been very creative. He has changed one word in his vocabulary in the last 50 years: He has replaced “Japan” with the word, “China.” But otherwise, he truly has made the exact same argument verbatim for 46 years at least, which is that the world plays America for suckers. They’re cheating, blah blah blah. “They’re laughing at us,” is the expression.

Atul Singh: Hey, that’s consistency! Forty-five years of consistency! (Laughs)

Glenn Carle: That is correct, that’s right. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and we’re dealing with a very little mind. But yes, he is consistent. He does see the world as one of exploitation — everyone exploiting the United States, which is weak and a sucker. It’s, as you said, politics of grievance and resentment, of trying to justify why others have influence and you, in fact, never attended a course at either of the two institutions that you’ve bought your way into and aren’t accepted because you’re vulgar — and thus drives the nation. But carry on.

Mercantilism vs. free market thinking

Atul Singh: So, taking a step back, Donald Trump represents an economic philosophy that predates Adam Smith, and that is called mercantilism. In fact, there’s a video with music which a former student of mine sent, which explains the various facets of this philosophy. But we will not get into too much of it. Suffice to say that mercantilists believed that balance of payments — or, let’s say, a trade surplus — more importantly, trade surplus represents the health of an economy. And they believed that exports should exceed imports, and if that is the case, then the country is stronger. Remember, this was at a time when kings paid their soldiers with gold. And therefore, if exports exceeded imports, you got more gold. And if you could pay more gold to your soldiers, you had a bigger army. And of course, later, this was supplanted by Adam Smith’s philosophy, a Scotsman. Mercantilists were the Spaniards, the Portuguese and the French — all the economies that eventually got superseded. And there was another British economist, curiously, with the name David Ricardo. David, of course, is English, but Ricardo sounds suspiciously Italian. And he, again, extended this theory.

Glenn Carle: He was a smart man seeking the freedom of free markets and free discourse in liberal England, as opposed to mercantilist Europe.

Atul Singh: Exactly. There you go. Anglo-Saxon flame flickers strong in your heart. Winston Churchill would be proud of you.

Glenn Carle: Well, I am a quarter French, and my current masters — America’s leaders — would have done well to read a little bit about French history. You know, France was the leading nation in Europe — economically, culturally, politically, militarily — every way in the first half of the 17th century. That’s 400 years ago. And what happened was the king’s chief counselor — who was both foreign minister, intelligence chief and economics minister rolled into one — was Colbert. And he wanted to make France great again, and greater forever, and perennialize French leadership. So he did two things. He centralized the economy and nationalized many industries, essentially, by a ruthless industrial policy. And he centralized the state and brought all power into the hands of the chief executive — who was the king then. And what happened was that France became an also-ran over a period of a couple of generations. Not the leader; he destroyed the basis of French leadership, which was a dynamic, open, decentralizing economy which was industrializing. And he killed it. He killed the goose that lays the golden eggs, and we now have another poultry butcher doing the same thing.

Industrial strategy and trade deficits

Atul Singh: Well, speaking of industrial policy, core members of the Trump administration believe that the loss of the American industrial base is a national security issue, given China’s spectacular rise as the workshop of the world. Now, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Steven Miran both see deindustrialization as the biggest risk facing the US and want the country to reindustrialize. The two policy tools that they’re using are tariffs and a devalued dollar. So once you have tariffs, then you can basically have a hedge against the cost advantage. It makes all the foreign goods more expensive. And once you have a devalued dollar, then your goods get cheaper and you can export. Now, Miran wrote a 41-page paper. And that paper, in some ways, is a revolutionary paper. It’s a plan to reform the global trading and financial systems. We cover this in our FOI Geopolitical Risk Monitor. Those of you who want it, email us — we’ll send you a complimentary copy. But the important thing is: Miran believes — and there’s an element of truth, again, to Miran — that the current system fails because export-oriented economies such as China, Japan and South Korea impose not only tariff and non-tariff barriers to market access, but also engage in currency manipulation, subsidies for preferred industries, forced technology transfers and outright theft of intellectual property. Our sources in the Trump administration see tariffs as short-term pain for long-term gain. They believe that the US has the market size, the innovative technology and the talent pool to prevail over other economies. Now, the important thing here to note is: A lot of the people in the Trump administration think China is weak. They think President Xi Jinping overreached with his wolf warrior diplomacy, failed in his zero-Covid policy. They think that the collapse of their real estate sector, the huge amounts of bad debts on the books of Chinese banks and the squeeze on private businesses — coupled with high unemployment, coupled with an aging and declining population — make this an ideal time for the US to ratchet the pressure, turn on the screws and break China’s back. And they think: If not now, then when? If not us, then who? And they really do believe this. And therefore, hey ho, there we go — you have this new economic policy. And curiously, this has actually caused bond yields to go up. The dollar actually has gone down for the first time in forever. Because generally, when you bring in tariffs, the dollar recedes. But markets have been losing confidence in Donald Trump’s economic policies and protectionism. And, as he himself admitted, the bond markets have turned a bit yippy. Now, I’m going to share my screen with you and show some of the graphs that the managing partners—

Glenn Carle: So the reality, apparently, in the view of the world — and there’s a wisdom in crowds, as we all know — is that Donald Trump’s true name is Liz Truss. He wears a dress and he has no idea what he’s doing.

Atul Singh: Maybe so. But here you can see very clearly that the US has run a trade deficit for almost 50 years. This is something Sanjay Acharya, a managing partner at FOI, made. Of course, this is our Geopolitical Risk Monitor. It tells you how China has responded. And of course, China has rolled out tariff and non-tariff barriers. It has restrictions on seven medium and heavy rare earths, which are particularly useful for fighter jets, submarines, radar systems, drones. And they think they’ve actually cut down their deficit. Look at this: There’s been a $19 billion fall in the annual trade deficit. Of course, the deficit has increased when it comes to Mexico, EU, Vietnam, Taiwan, even India and, of course, South Korea. Some people would argue it’s just Chinese companies reexporting from Vietnam. And something to watch is consumer sentiment. It has plummeted. That’s alarming. Look at what the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is still forecasting: falling GDP. And I think I’m not going to bore you more with graphs and figures, but the bottom line is that the tariffs have had an effect on markets, on bond markets, on consumer confidence, on the global economy. We can all expect a recession for the next 12 to 24 months. Over to you, Glenn.

Historic parallels and economic fallout

Glenn Carle: Yeah, what we’re experiencing is unique in American history in a number of ways. And Trump — I agree with the view of the intelligentsia, or the commentators in general — that the first 100 days of Trump’s administration have been as significant, as historic — I’ll use the word, “consequential,” which I know I use a lot — as any since Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. So that makes him one of the two or three or four most significant presidents in his first three months in history. One of the differences that’s critical is that Franklin Roosevelt was creating things, Donald Trump is destroying things. That’s not a political statement, like some of the others I made earlier today are — that’s a fact. It’s pretty easy to break stuff, it’s very hard to build things. The administration, however, is not new in much of what it’s attempting to do. When I was working during the Bush son administration — I worked under both, but I’m referring now to the president from 2001 to 2008 — my focus near the end of my career was on terrorism, transnational threats, and I would frequently brief the White House or the executive office and so on. And this is literally true, what I’m now going to say: Whatever the topic that I was briefing on or attending a meeting about, the first question asked when it came time for the Q&A period after the briefing would invariably be by the Office of the Vice President’s representative — Vice President Cheney’s representative. And the question would be: “But what about China?” You know, I might have been talking about the Houthis, or I might have been talking about the water table in Bolivia. Literally, the first question was: How does this affect how we can destroy China? That was not verbatim the wording, but that was the objective. And the belief was that the United States had a unique moment: the unipolar moment of strength when China was not yet strong, and we could, for time immemorial, destroy China as a threat and perennialize American supremacy. Other great nations have had similar thoughts in the past. And this never works against a state that has intrinsic characteristics that underpin its economic, political, international and military strength. You can defeat someone momentarily. If I’m in a boxing match with someone who’s two meters tall and outweighs me by 40 kilos, maybe I can hit him on the head and knock him out momentarily. But he will still remain two meters tall and 40 kilos heavier than I am. And when he wakes up, his capabilities will resurge and return. So this is nothing new. It is similarly — not just by historical example, but by an objective assessment of capabilities, potentials and objectives — an impossibility, short of self-destruction simultaneously. What are the consequences, though? As I said flippantly, but also accurately — referring to Louis XIV’s economics minister and what happened then — this is what’s happening now. Now, the argument is coherent, as Atul laid it out from the administration. It’s coherent, but it’s also delusional. And anyone who studies — this is literally true, and again, I’m not being facetious — basic economics will understand that tariffs increase costs and lower the availability over time of capital for investment. And if there’s less investment, you can have less research and development, you will have less growth, you will have lower GDP rates and so on. So what have been the consequences of the policies? They have destabilized the markets. That will lead to lower profits, therefore less investment, less R&D, less long-term growth. The businesses in the United States and internationally are anxious about Wall Street, but they’re also anxious on Main Street and about Main Street. Meaning: The businesses that will supposedly profit from this — they’re not just anxious, but are going to have less capital to use to conduct business, fewer workers because of the immigration policies and economic policy in this instance, higher costs, lower growth and less cutting-edge technology. America continues to progressively antagonize its allies. Allies are a leverage. They enhance one’s influence and power. They have emboldened our enemies and turned allies into adversaries. “They,” being the policies, are increasing inflation. They are weakening the dollar, which has been historically a unique advantage that the United States has had — because the dollar has been the basis of the global economy. And they will lower long-term GDP growth. I could continue on with the negative effects that are empirically already starting to be verifiable. So the policies are, frankly, delusional and are leading to the relative destruction of American supremacy.

Atul Singh: One quick note before we leave: Tariffs have had their uses. We can’t be completely negative about them. Generally, they lead to disaster over the long term, but sometimes for your core industries, it’s good to have a small garden and a high gate. And the first act after American independence was a protectionist act — it was tariffs. Because the Northeast of the US decided it would industrialize, and unlike Latin America, it would not just supply raw materials to industrial Europe, particularly England. So we don’t want to sound doctrinaire on anything — that’s something we have to be intellectually fair and admit. And then the other thing is, the Trump administration is inspired by Richard Nixon. On the 15th of August, if I remember correctly, 1971, basically, Nixon announced a 10% import tariff and the suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold. That killed the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system. The Nixon Shock ended the 1944 gold-backed dollar. And people thought the dollar would go down — and it did, to some degree, but it certainly did vis-à-vis gold. It also inaugurated a new era of trading floating currencies, rapid credit creation and unrestricted capital flows that have lasted until now. The dollar replaced gold as the repository of value. Now note that Nixon’s Treasury Secretary, John Connally, once said, “The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.” And the Trump administration takes the opposite view: The dollar is everyone’s currency, but an American problem. The US comprises only 25% of the global economy, but 57% of the world’s official currency reserves are in dollars. Foreigners hold an estimated $19 trillion of US equities, $7 trillion of US Treasuries, and $5 trillion of corporate debt.

Glenn Carle: The critical difference between what Nixon did and what Trump is doing was that, fundamentally, Nixon’s policies opened the international economic system and were based upon economic production and dynamism, rather than determining by fiat exchange rates and guarding economic sectors.

Atul Singh: He’s inspired also by the 1985 Plaza Accords, wherein the US forced its trading partners to appreciate their currencies and thereby devalue the dollar. So all of that is going on. But we will now move on to India and Pakistan.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Exclusive: Tariffs and the New Donald Trump Economic Revolution appeared first on 51�Թ�.