The Korea Herald

[Eli Lake] What Trump can learn from Madeleine Albright about North Korea talks

Mar 11, 2018

The next few episodes of the Donald Trump show should be riveting. Last week, the South Korean national security adviser announced North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un invited Trump to meet to negotiate his nuclear weapons. The “dotard” may face off against “little rocket man” face-to-face. Stay tuned.　If indeed the unprecedented meeting comes to pass, it will be historic. That does not mean though that it will be wise. And unless Trump comes to these talks to negotiate the terms of Kim Jong-un’s
[Leonid Bershidsky] The US milks Europe, not the other way around

Mar 11, 2018

US President Donald Trump’s plans for a trade war aren’t ostensibly focused on Europe, but Trump himself appears to think they are. He said on Tuesday that “the European Union has been particularly tough on the United States,” making it “almost impossible for us to do business with them.” Fact-checking Trump on this is pointless, but it’s worth pointing out that the US is on the verge of poisoning its favorite well for no obvious reason.　There is talk that Canada and Mexico could be excluded fro
[James Gibney] A summit failure would hurt Trump more than Kim

Mar 11, 2018

President Donald Trump has upended expectations and interrupted the drumbeat toward war on the Korean Peninsula with his agreement to meet Kim Jong-un at “a time and place to be determined.” But what happens if talks with “Little Rocket Man” blow up on the launching pad?　The odds are high. Few analysts expect Kim to give up North Korea’s nuclear deterrent, which he sees as vital to his regime’s survival. (See: Moammar Gadhafi, 1942-2011.) Kim’s existential stakes and Trump’s mercurial brinkmansh
[Bloomberg] To deal with Kim, Trump must be less like Trump

Mar 11, 2018

Donald Trump’s decision to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is in character. The US president loves outlandish plot twists that confound critics and supporters alike.Agreeing to this meeting was questionable. It’s something previous presidents have refused to do, and with reason: It’s a concession that demanded something valuable from the other side. Trump has not secured that, and he appears to have acted impulsively. This isn’t encouraging -- but the decision has been made and wha
[Andrew Polk] Any trade war is going to be tactical

Mar 9, 2018

With moderate economic adviser Gary Cohn set to exit the White House, and US President Donald Trump reportedly mulling broad curbs on imports from China, fears of a 1930s-style trade war are spiking. Indeed, for the past several months, a potential US-China trade battle has ranked as one of the key macro investment risks of 2018. Given Trump’s predilections and China’s leverage, however, the conflict to come may look very different than most are imagining.　For one thing, it’s important to rememb
[David Ignatius] America ignores Russia at its peril

Mar 9, 2018

In his chilling account of the Romanov dynasty, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore quoted Peter Stolypin, who was interior minister for Nicholas II, the last of the tsars: “In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness.”Montefiore explained that in the 300-plus years of Romanov rule, power had been an instrument not simply of governing, but of survival. He cited the aphorism of the French writer Madame de Stael: “In Russia, the government is autocracy tempered by
[Eli Lake] It‘s Too Soon to Take North Korea’s Offer Seriously

Mar 8, 2018

It‘s tempting to interpret the news from Pyongyang on Tuesday with relief and hope. Last November, North Korea’s tyrant Kim Jong-un was testing missiles that could reach the continental United States. President Donald Trump was promising “fire and fury.” And the world looked on in terror.Now envoys for South Korean President Moon Jae-in report that the Kim regime is willing to negotiate away its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees. Eagles fly with doves. Peace demands it be given
[Stephen Mihm] How the US squandered its steel superiority

Mar 8, 2018

Donald Trump wants to help the steel industry in the US, and he’s announced plans for protective tariffs. By way of explanation, Trump claims that the steel industry has been “decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy.”　He’s correct about one thing: This has been a problem many decades in the making. But it’s a problem rooted in disastrous decisions made by the steel companies themselves when Trump was still in elementary school.　At the end of World War II, American steel had no real c
[Michael Schuman] Can autocrats outdo democrats?

Mar 8, 2018

Even since China’s Communist Party revealed that it would scrap term limits on the presidency -- meaning the post’s current occupant, Xi Jinping, can now serve for life -- there has been much hand-wringing over what one-man rule could mean for the Chinese economy. Autocracies, we’re told, never end well, leaving economists and the business community concerned that the reforms the economy requires to return to solid footing, already slow in coming, may never be implemented.　There’s cause for worr
[Faye Flam] Trump’s understanding of war is outdated

Mar 8, 2018

Of all Trump’s departures from tradition, none holds such potentially grave consequences as his decision to build up US nuclear weapons. After a decadeslong trend toward disarmament, Trump’s estimated $1.2 trillion upgrade would not only make current nuclear bombs more lethal but would add new long-range missiles to the US arsenal.　　The rules of the game of war changed in the mid-20th century, when the US and the USSR both acquired the ability to instantly destroy the world hundreds of times ove
[Dahleen Glanton] Strange times in Gunland America

Mar 8, 2018

In the weeks since a deranged gunman walked into a high school in Parkland, Florida, and slaughtered 17 people with an AR-15 assault rifle, some bizarre things involving guns have happened in America.　A teacher in Georgia barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a gun, leading to a frantic lockdown and evacuation of the school.A suburban Chicago man heard a woman screaming in his apartment building and went to her rescue with an AR-15, and later boasted that the attacker was “a half a breath
[Pankaj Mishra] There’s nothing shocking about Xi’s rise

Mar 7, 2018

In a season of political shocks, President Xi Jinping’s assumption of supreme power has still managed to startle many longstanding observers of China. The Economist magazine dramatically declared, “The West’s 25-year bet on China has failed.” Instead of moving towards democracy, these voices suggest, China is sliding further into authoritarianism.　It’s worth asking, if for no reason than to avoid more such shocks in the near future, why the “West” placed this bet on China at all.The expectation
[Noah Feldman] James Madison would like a few words on trade wars

Mar 7, 2018

President Donald Trump says trade wars are easy to win, but that hasn’t always been true in US history. To the contrary, for the first 40 years of the republic, the founders struggled desperately to establish international trade agreements that Americans would find acceptable. The need for trade leverage was the first factor motivating James Madison to call for a new Constitution. And trade wars had a way of turning into shooting wars. The War of 1812, the first declared war in US history, was t
[Virginia Heffernan] Ivanka makes the shoddy look cute

Mar 7, 2018

On July 27, 2017, near the end of one of the most compelling hearings yet on the Trump-Russia affair, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) offered an extraordinary insight. 　“Corrupt kleptocrats and international criminals make themselves rich in criminality and corruption,” he said. “Then at some point they need the legitimate world in order to protect and account for their stolen proceeds.”　The Whitehouse sketched a new bipolar world order, in which the so-called legitimate world, which in
[Ferdinando Giugliano] Italy takes a step back from Europe

Mar 7, 2018

There are two ways to look at Sunday’s Italian general election results. 　One is simply to focus on the arithmetic. From that perspective, the outcome is really not that different from what was expected. There was no outright winner: Neither the center-right coalition, nor the center-left nor the anti-establishment Five Star Movement managed to win a majority of seats. The vote produced a hung parliament, which will make it very hard to form a government. That means a period of instability lies