The UN has released its report on extreme poverty in the United States, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America”. It is a searing and sobering indictment of poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. It points out that
“The United States is a land of stark contrasts. It is one of the world’s wealthiest societies, a global leader in many areas, and a land of unsurpassed technological and other forms of innovation. Its corporations are global trendsetters, its civil society is vibrant and sophisticated and its higher education system leads the world. But its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty. It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world’s highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries and the highest obesity levels in the developed world.
“The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality. The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries, and the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks it 18th out of 21 wealthy countries in terms of labour markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality and economic mobility. But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. 6 There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist. For almost five decades the overall policy response has been neglectful at best, but the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship.”
The report goes into detail about how race and gender affect the character of poverty in the US and how incarceration is used to disguise the extreme poverty in the country. It is a report that everyone should read.
The media has been totally fixated on the meeting between US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim. Some outlets call the meeting “historic”, and, in some sense, it was, since it was the first time that an American President has met with a leader of North Korea. We should keep in mind that Kim, his father, and his grandfather were all eager to be treated as leaders of a sovereign state, and that previous US Presidents had held that such recognition had to be earned. Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, forced the matter by developing nuclear weapons and Kim Jong-un made the matter of recognition urgent by developing a ballistic missile capability that threatened the US homeland. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama did not face the missile capability but all of them tried to reach an accommodation with North Korea. The Arms Control Association has an excellent chronology of previous agreements. Here are some key events in the chronology.
1992
“The two Koreas sign the South-North Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Under the declaration, both countries agree not to ‘test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons’ or to ‘possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.’ They also agree to mutual inspections for verification.”
1994
“The United States and North Korea conclude four months of negotiations by adopting the ‘Agreed Framework’ in Geneva. To resolve U.S. concerns about Pyongyang’s plutonium-producing reactors and the Yongbyon reprocessing facility, the agreement calls for North Korea to freeze and eventually eliminate its nuclear facilities, a process that will require dismantling three nuclear reactors, two of which are still under construction. North Korea also allows the IAEA to verify compliance through “special inspections,” and it agrees to allow 8,000 spent nuclear reactor fuel elements to be removed to a third country.
In exchange, Pyongyang will receive two LWRs and annual shipments of heavy fuel oil during construction of the reactors. The LWRs will be financed and constructed through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a multinational consortium.
Calling for movement toward full normalization of political and economic relations, the accord also serves as a jumping-off point for U.S.-North Korean dialogue on Pyongyang’s development and export of ballistic missiles, as well as other issues of bilateral concern.
2000
“Following a historic summit, North and South Korea sign a joint declaration stating they have ‘agreed to resolve’ the question of reunification of the Korean Peninsula. The agreement includes promises to reunite families divided by the Korean War and to pursue other economic and cultural exchanges. No commitments are made regarding nuclear weapons or missile programs or military deployments in the Demilitarized Zone.”
2001
“In a press release, President Bush announces the completion of his administration’s North Korea policy review and its determination that ‘serious discussions’ on a ‘broad agenda’ should be resumed with Pyongyang. Bush states his desire to conduct ‘comprehensive’ negotiations, including ‘improved implementation of the Agreed Framework,’ ‘verifiable constraints’ on North Korea’s missile programs, a ban on North Korea’s missile exports, and ‘a less threatening conventional military posture.'”
2002
“In his State of the Union address, President Bush criticized North Korea for ‘arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.’ Bush characterized North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as constituting an ‘axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.’”
2003
“North Korea accuses the United States of violating the spirit of the 1992 Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, calling the agreement a ‘dead document’ in a KCNA statement.
2005
“The participants in the six-party talks conclude a joint statement of principles to guide future negotiations.
“According to the statement, North Korea commits ‘to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.’ It also calls for the 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which forbids the two Koreas from possessing uranium-enrichment and plutonium-separation facilities, to be “observed and implemented.” Washington affirms in the statement that it has no intention to attack or invade North Korea.
“The statement commits the participants to achieving ‘the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner’ and says that the parties agree ‘to take coordinated steps to implement’ the agreed-upon obligations and rewards ‘in a phased manner in line with the principle of ‘commitment for commitment, action for action.’”
“The statement says that North Korea ‘stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy’ and that the other parties ‘expressed their respect and agreed to discuss, at an appropriate time, the subject of the provision’ of a light-water nuclear power reactor to Pyongyang. This issue had been controversial during the negotiations and the final agreement was the result of a compromise between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea insisted that the statement recognize its right to a peaceful nuclear energy program and commit the other participants to provide it with light-water reactors while the United States argued that North Korea should not receive any nuclear reactors.”
2006
“North Korea conducts an underground nuclear test near the village of P’unggye. Most early analyses of the test based on seismic data collected by South Korean, Japanese, and U.S. institutes estimates the yield to be below one kiloton. Russian estimates differed significantly, and Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov said Oct. 10 that the estimated yield was between 5 and 15 kilotons.
“North Korea’s Foreign Ministry states that its ‘nuclear test was entirely attributable to the US nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure,’ adding that North Korea ‘was compelled to substantially prove its possession of nukes to protect its sovereignty.’ The statement also indicates that North Korea might conduct further nuclear tests if the United States ‘increases pressure’ on the country.
However, the Foreign Ministry also says that North Korea remains committed to implementing the September 2005 joint statement, arguing that the test ‘constitutes a positive measure for its implementation.’ Additionally, Pyongyang ‘still remains unchanged in its will to denuclearize the peninsula through dialogue and negotiations,’ the Foreign Ministry statement says, adding that the ‘denuclearization of the entire peninsula was President Kim Il Sung’s last instruction and an ultimate goal’ of North Korea.
The chronology highlights the fact that there have been many contacts between the US and North Korea over the last 26 years. There have been many agreements and none has succeeded. Each agreement was greeted with a lot of hope. We should keep this chronology in mind as we assess the agreement reached between President Trump and Leader Kim.
Austria has closed seven mosques and expelled all Turkish-funded Imams. According to The Local, an English-language Austrian newspaper, the move comes after “an investigation by Austria’s religious affairs authority sparked by images which emerged in April of children in a Turkish-backed mosque playing dead and re-enacting the World War I battle of Gallipoli. That battle was between British and French forces against the Ottoman Empire and ended in a disastrous defeat for the Western allies at the hands of a Muslim empire. The Austrian government claimed that the act breached a 2015 agreement that included religious guidelines that required “a positive attitude towards the state and society”. The move also reflects a growing tension between Austria and Turkey as well as the hardening of anti-Muslim sentiment in many sectors of European society. Turkish President Erdogan denounced the move and declared that “these measures taken by the Austrian prime minister are, I fear, leading the world towards a war between the cross and the crescent.”
The United Nations is engaged in intense negotiations to forestall a Saudi Arabian coalition attack on the Yemeni port city of Hudeida. The port serves as the only access point for humanitarian assistance to the Yemeni civilian population which is suffering from high rates of malnutrition and cholera. The war began in 2014 as Houthi rebels, which Saudi Arabia considers proxies for Iran, took control of Yemen, and more than 10,000 civilians have died and 22 million civilians are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. At this time, the US military is mulling over a request from Saudi Arabia for assistance in conducting the assault on the port city, a move that would be disastrous for the people of Yemen and which would run the risk of a wider war in the region.
The Destructiveness of the War in Yemen
There were widespread protests in Vietnam over a proposed new law creating “Special Economic Zones” (SEZ) in some of the provinces in the country. The zones would offer investment incentives in an effort to stimulate economic activity, and one of those incentives would include 99-year leases for investors. The protests were ignited by fears that Chinese investors would dominate the SEZs and further empower Chinese influence in the country. The Vietnamese government is trying to tamp down the protests lest they frighten investors. The protests reflect both the historical mistrust of China in Vietnam as well as the strong economic nationalism in Vietnam at this time, a nationalism which is consistent with sentiments in other countries (think of “America First”). The protests also stem from the growing fear of Chinese hegemony in Southeast Asia.
US President Trump took the US signature off the joint communique issued by the G7 after he departed for Singapore to meet with Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Mr. Trump’s reason for the act was that he considered the statement by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be “dishonest” and a “betrayal”. Here is the statement made by Prime Minister Trudeau:
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We move forward with retaliatory measures on July 1st, applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that the Americans have unjustly applied to us. Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.
WALLACE: Well, President Trump responded with this tweet while flying here on Air Force One to Singapore. Trudeau of Canada acted as meek — so meek and mild during our G-7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left. Very dishonest and weak.
Question, Mr. Navarro, is that really how we want to deal with our second biggest trading partner?
PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: Chris, there’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That’s what week, dishonest Justin Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One.
And I’ll tell you this, to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history. All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win. President Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore, where you are now, Chris. He did him a favor and he was even willing to sign that socialist communique. And what did Trudeau did — do as soon as — as soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace, Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand.
We need to appreciate Canada’s position. Under the rules of the World Trade Organization, there are criteria used to define “national security” exceptions which are included in Article XXI of the Charter. Those exceptions are as follows:
(b) to prevent any contracting party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection
of its essential security interests
(i) relating to fissionable materials or the materials from which they are derived;
(ii) relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war and to such traffic in other
goods and materials as is carried on directly or indirectly for the purpose of supplying a military
establishment;
(iii) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations
One would be hard pressed to argue that the US-Canada relationship falls under any of these conditions. Thus, Canada does believe that the aluminum and steel tariffs imposed on it under the “national security” exception is “insulting”.
US Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow on Trudeau’s Statement
Mr. Trump’s advisers justified the harsh language by asserting that Trudeau made Mr. Trump look “weak” before his meeting with North Korean leader Kim. There might be merit in a show of solidarity before allies confront a mutual enemy. But that argument is considerably weakened by Mr. Trump’s earlier request that Russia be allowed back into the G7 even without demanding any concessions from Russia on the Ukrainian invasion. “Being tough” is often a good negotiating tactic, but only if one is consistently regarded as tough.
Satellite images have revealed the construction of a new radome (steerable parabolic antenna and its spherical enclosure) in Cuba. There are other radar stations in the area and they are used to eavesdrop on electronic transmissions in the US. The new tracking station is ideal for listening in on the US Central Command, the main operations station for US forces in the Middle East. We do not know who built the new station but both Russia and China have been investing in Cuba, and the Cubans have been known to sell captured information to states interested in US military activities. It is most likely that the US has known about the ongoing construction for some time, but it has not issued an official statement on whether it regards the new station as a threat. But the US has been historically sensitive about military activities in Cuba and now that the news is out, the US will probably issue some statement.
US President Trump has left the G7 meeting, but not before he issued what seems to be a threat to the main trading partners of the US. Reuters describes his comment:
“‘We’re like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing,’ he said at a press conference before making an early exit from the two-day summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, where he met with leaders of Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Japan.
“’This isn’t just G7. I mean, we have India, where some of the tariffs are 100 percent … And we charge nothing,’ he said. ‘And it’s going to stop. Or we’ll stop trading with them.’”
Trade currently accounts for about 30 percent of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) so it is unlikely that anyone takes the threat of ending trade seriously. But Mr. Trump also suggested that all tariffs, quotas, and subsidies should be abolished, a proposal that no one–least of all the US–will find credible. It is difficult to imagine what the other 6 world leaders are thinking about the US role in the world economy right now. French President Macron decided to test Mr. Trump’s mettle in a contest of handshakes. Mr. Trump is famous for pulling on a handshake to demonstrate dominance. President Macron refused to be pulled toward Mr. Trump and grasped Trump’s hand so tightly that photographs captured Macron’s thumbprint on Mr. Trump’s hand. Diplomatic games.
Karen DeYoung has written an op-ed for The Washington Post on the aftermath of the G7 meeting. DeYoung quotes the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk:
“‘What worries me most . . . is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged. What is surprising is that the challenge is driven not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.
“‘Trump’s actions’, he said, ‘play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist.’ Tusk’s usual suspects certainly include China and Russia, the latter suspended from the group after its 2014 annexation of Crimea. As Trump left Washington early Friday, he said Russia should be invited ‘back in’ to the club.”
The world order fashioned by liberal states after World War II is not self-regulating–there are constant challenges to it by a number of states who seek advantages by breaking the rules. When the strongest power in the system chooses to break the rules, the system has little chance of surviving.
Before taking off for the G7 meeting in Canada, US President Trump suggested that Russia should be asked to rejoin the group. Russia was excluded from the G8 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. Because of that hostile act, the leaders of the states in the group (the US President was Obama at the time) decided that Russia betrayed the values underlying the group’s commitments to liberal values. There was no support for the suggestion by any of the other six states. Trump also alienated some of the leaders by tweeting the night before the meeting:
“Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers….The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.”
Mexico has a national election on 1 July and the current front-runner is Andrés Manuel López Obrador who ran unsuccessfully for the office of President in 2006 and 2012. Mexico has been plagued by violence and charges of corruption recently and the trade uncertainties associated with the renegotiation of NAFTA have unsettled the economy. López Obrador, if elected, will complicate those negotiations since he is generally hostile to the US. But the polls indicate that the Mexican people are generally in favor of a significant change from previous politics.
In retaliation for US tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, a number of countries have announced that they will impose tariffs on a number of US exports. Notably, the countries have singled out bourbon whiskey which is made primarily in the US state of Kentucky, home state of the Senate Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell. So far, Senator McConnell has yet to break with President Trump on the issue of trade, but I suspect that many of his constituents are not pleased with the new US trade policy. Perhaps the tariffs may induce a change to other kinds of whiskey. The tariffs are likely to be a top agenda item at the G7 summit meeting, where the US will stand alone on the issue of tariffs.
Miranda Carter has written an essay comparing Donald Trump to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German leader who famously told German soldiers in August 1914: “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” The comparison is spookily accurate:
“The general staff of the German Army agreed that the Kaiser couldn’t ‘lead three soldiers over a gutter.’ He had neither the attention span nor the ability. ‘Distractions, whether they are little games with his army or navy, travelling or hunting—are everything to him,’ a disillusioned former mentor wrote. ‘He reads very little apart from newspaper cuttings, hardly writes anything himself apart from marginalia on reports and considers those talks best which are quickly over and done with.’ The Kaiser’s entourage compiled press cuttings for him, mostly about himself, which he read as obsessively as Trump watches television. A critical story would send him into paroxysms of fury.”
Let’s hope that the comparison does not include a tragic world war.
Kaiser WIlhelm II
At one point, US President Trump claimed that French President Macron was “perfect”. During their meetings in Paris and Washington, DC, it appeared as if the two had a good relationship. The French, however, did not think too highly of the relationship.
“A new poll from Odoxa shows that 55 percent of French people disapprove of Macron’s relationship with Trump. The firm also found ‘that the words ‘sycophantic,’ ‘painful’ and ‘failure’ were among the most frequently used on social media to describe the Macron-Trump relationship.’”
However, the Macron-Trump relationship appears to have crumbled in the wake of Trump’s trade decisions. The Hill quotes President Macron in a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau prior to the beginning of the G7 meeting in Canada:
“The six countries of the G-7 without the United States, are a bigger market taken together than the American market…..There will be no world hegemony if we know how to organize ourselves. And we don’t want there to be one…..Maybe the American president doesn’t care about being isolated today, but we don’t mind being six, if needs be.”
“We are all engaged in conflicts in Syria, in Iraq, in the Sahel, in different places in the world. We are allies. Our soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder to defend liberty and our values……You can’t, among allies in this international context, start a trade war. For me it’s a question of principle.”
This G7 meeting will be more interesting than usual. We will see how President Trump is received.
Further evidence of the loss of expertise in the State Department. At the Press Briefing yesterday, the State Department Spokesperson, Heather Nauert was asked a question about the controversial statements made by the US Ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell, which seemed to indicate that he would actively support conservatives in Germany. In her response, Ms. Nauert made an interesting comment about the strong relationship between the US and Germany:
“When you talk about Germany, we have a very strong relationship with the Government of Germany. Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the Government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government, and so we want to reaffirm the strength of our relationship with Germany.”
Ms. Nauert should be reminded that the D-Day invasion was a US and British invasion of France to fight Germany. The US and Germany were at war on D-Day.
On another issue, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called US President Trump to find out the “national security” justification for the tariffs imposed on Canadian steel. In response, President Trump asked: “Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” The British burned down the White House in the War of 1812 (the British troops were deployed from Bermuda, not Canada, and the British noted the act in 2014). Canada did not become self-governing until 1 July 1867. And, by the way, more than 40,000 Canadians troops have served along side US troops in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014–I think we can rely upon the Canadians if there was a genuine national security problem.
Despite the best efforts of veterinarians, a pilot whale, which washed up on a beach in Thailand, has died. An autopsy was performed and 17 pounds of plastic were found in the whale’s stomach. The findings highlight the extraordinary contamination left by discarded plastic. Last year, scientists found that the highest density of plastic waste anywhere in the planet was on a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. According to the report:
“The density of debris was the highest reported anywhere in the world….An estimated 37.7 million debris items weighing a total of 17.6 tons are currently present on Henderson, with up to 26.8 new items/m accumulating daily. Rarely visited by humans, Henderson Island and other remote islands may be sinks for some of the world’s increasing volume of waste.”
And scientists have found plastic contamination in Antarctica although there is also a massive campaign to declare the world’s largest wildlife sanctuary in and around the continent. Plastic does not degrade–it simply breaks down into tiny parts and enters the food system as animals feed.
Brazil has endured a 10-day trucking strike which essentially brought the economy to a complete standstill. The strike was partially in response to the setting of gasoline prices by the state-owned oil company, Petrobrás, but there are a vast number of unsettled issues in Brazil today. The strike was ultimately resolved by offering economic subsidies to pay for gasoline, but the resolution simply opened up other economic questions. According to The Guardian:
“Amid a growing sense that Brazil is adrift, a poll by the Datafolha polling institute found that 87% of Brazilians supported the strike – but rejected tax rises or spending cuts to pay for the fuel subsidies that eventually resolved it.
“The cash-strapped conservative government of Michel Temer found the money by cutting investment elsewhere, including for health and education – a move likely to increase social tension in a country where poverty is on the rise.”
The lefty journal, Jacobin, has a very good analysis of the turmoil in Brazil. Although the strike has come to an end, the economic discontent remains.
There are signs that the alliance of convenience between Russia and Iran in Syria seems to be fraying now that their common enemy of ISIS seems to have been defeated. The division between the two countries seems to be caused by the different interests each side has in the perpetuation of the Assad regime. Iran wants Assad to remain in power so that its ally, Hezbollah, can receive its support. Russia wants Assad to remain in power so that it can maintain a presence in the Middle East. But Russia has been quietly courted by Israel, which wants Iran to have no influence in Syria, and Russia is well aware of the US resistance to an Iranian presence. Moreover, Russia wishes to court Saudi Arabia, which is also opposed to the Iranian presence in Syria, and Russia wants Saudi cooperation in propping up oil prices. Iran has some support from Qatar and from Iraq, but the balance of power seems to be against it. We will see how Iran uses its oil power to redress the imbalance.
Mexico has imposed tariffs on a wide list of goods in retaliation for the US tariffs imposed on its steel and aluminum. The move follows a comment made by one of President Trump’s advisers that there was a chance that the negotiations on the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) would be changed from one among the US, Canada, and Mexico into two bilateral negotiations between the US and Canada and the US and Mexico. Mexico has targeted products produced in crucial congressional districts. According to Reuters:
“Mexico’s trade negotiators designed the list, in part, to include products exported by top Republican leaders’ states, including Indiana, where Vice President Mike Pence was formerly governor, according to a trade source familiar with the matter. Bourbon-producing Kentucky is the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.
“The new tariffs could also have political implications in some hotly contested races as the Republicans seek to maintain control of both chambers in Congress in November’s election, illustrating the potential perils of Trump’s aggressive efforts to set right what he sees as unfair trade balances with allies and rivals.”
The Republican Party has traditionally been strongly in favor of free trade. President Trump’s tariff decisions represents a serious challenge to the identity of the Party.
Richard Grenell is the US Ambassador to Germany who was interviewed by Breitbart and made the following statement:
“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders. I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left.”
The quote was greeted with disbelief by many in diplomatic circles since trying to influence the domestic politics of a state is considered taboo. But this is not Grenell’s first misstep. After US President Trump’s decertification pf the Iranian nuclear agreement, Grenell tweeted: “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately”. Ambassadors do not make good friends by threatening business executives in the country with which they are supposed to be cultivating good relations. Grenell is sabotaging relations with one of America’s most important allies.
Today marks the 29th anniversary of the clampdown of the Tiananmen Square protests in China in 1989. The year was a heady one as the Berlin Wall fell in the same year and there was a sense that the movement for more democracy in the world was inexorable. There was an especially gripping moment in the protests as a single man stood in front of the advancing tanks that were sent to repress the protests, preventing them from taking up positions. The protests were remembered in Hong Kong, but not in China as a whole. Similar protests now in China seem impossible, but they were also highly unlikely in 1989. Next year should be an important anniversary–we will see if there still is a pro-democracy in the age of Xi Jinping.
Philip Alston is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, an initiative undertaken by the United Nations as a mandate consistent with its responsibilities governing human rights. He has been conducting an investigation into the problem of poverty in the US, focusing particularly on the status of children in the US. His most recent report outlines the grim statistics on the US:
18% of American children – some 13.3 million – were living in poverty in 2016, making up almost a third of the total poor;
more than one in five homeless people are children, including 1.3 million school students who were without a home during the academic year;
infant mortality, at 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, is almost 50% higher than other advanced nations;
the US ranks 25th out of 29 industrialised countries in terms of the amount it invests in young children.
These findings are consistent with a recent report by Save the Children. Save the Children does an annual ranking of 175 countries, measuring many indicators of child welfare such as mortality, nutrition, and education. In its most recent ranking, Singapore, Slovenia, Norway, Sweden and Finland are the five countries with the highest ranks and “The U.S. ranks 36th, between Belarus and Russia, and well behind other developed nations, including the United Kingdom and Canada.”
The Slovenia Democratic party (SDS) has won the Parliamentary elections with about 25% of the vote, a percentage that will require a coalition government. The party is led by Janez Janša, a former Prime Minister, and its platform is populist and anti-immigrant. Janša was supported by Viktor Orban of neighboring Hungary and the election is consistent with others in Europe, including the most recent one in Italy, as populist parties become more popular. Slovenia was a transit point for many refugees fleeing the violence in Syria, and the vote signals a backlash against that movement of people. The sentiment is also reflected in the recent statement by Alexander Gauland, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party in Germany who was quoted as saying: ““We have a glorious history and it, dear friends, lasted longer than those blasted 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”
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