Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, June 7, 2019
The Weekly Brief - June 7, 2019
There was A LOT of interesting stuff in my newsfeed this week. Too much, in fact, to put in this newsletter, so be sure to check out my Facebook page over the weekend and next week. I’ll be posting quite a few interesting things there.
Abortion and Democrats
With Joe Biden seemingly going from strength to strength in the early going of the Democratic primary, it would seem the center-left Democrats and more moderate independents had finally found their guy.
Earlier this week, Biden’s support for the Hyde Amendment (withholding of federal funds to directly pay for abortions) happened in parallel to Louisiana’s Democratic governor vetoing an abortion rights bill. The two events were notable counters to the generally more extreme positions Democratic lawmakers have taken on abortion rights.
However, by this morning (Friday), Biden had reversed himself and declared his opposition to the Hyde Amendment. What happened?
As Vox points out, it could be Biden opportunistically trimming his sails to the Democratic Party’s move to the left, but it could also be Biden realizing that trying appeal to the center at this early stage may not be a best strategy as the left-right attacks on his climate plan revealed.
Get ready for the peace plans
This month, we’ll see the launch of the latest American push for a peace plan in the Middle East at an economic conference in Bahrain.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is under pressure to not attend the conference as plans have largely been made without Palestinian consultation. Brookings argues that the plan is foredoomed to failure given its lack of awareness of context, history, and human nature in general.
More frustratingly still, this apparent lack of contextual thinking seems to be something that bedevils American diplomacy past and present, and may be threatening negotiating efforts with the Taliban as well as the Palestinians.
Tariffs: Trump’s only hammer?
As if tariffs on China were not enough, President Trump resorted to his favorite negotiation tool this week to threaten Mexico with tariffs if Mexico City couldn’t get control of migrants at the border.
The threat, while certainly serious, is difficult to reconcile with the apparently updated free trade agreement that is soon to be going into effect between the two countries. So why tariffs, and why now? The Council on Foreign Relations maintains that Mexico cannot meet Trump’s demands, which really seems like a Catch-22.
However, AEI notes that Democrat opposition to Trump’s border security efforts have given the President limited tools to work with. Politico draws a similar conclusion about Trump’s limited tools to address the border crisis, but spreads blame more evenly across the parties.
Algeria update
Last week, I shared that Algeria’s July 4 election was set with two candidates ready to vie for the presidency. However, that election has now been scratched in the face of popular opposition to the nomination process and the nominees it produced. While it certainly raises concerns as to the continuation of military rule, Brookings believes this is an opportunity for further democratization in the North African country.
What’s in an election?
In other election news, ruling elites are managing to stay in power in Thailand and are cracking down on opposition groups in Kazakhstan ahead of that country’s June 9 election. These stories demonstrate the difficulty of democratic transitions and underscore the point that elections alone do not a democracy make.
30 Years after Tiananmen Square
The 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square provided a new opportunity for verbal sparring between the United States and China this week with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacking China’s human rights record and China responding with a travel warning to its citizens warning them away from the US due to its gun violence.
The tit-for-tat war of words and diplomatic posturing between China and the US demonstrate how low relations have fallen with the renewal of the trade war last month.
Carnegie Endowment believes that this means the countries are caught in a prisoner’s dilemma that requires outside mediators to broker a deal. The Atlantic argues that America needs to look to its European allies for support before China gets there first.
China might be thinking that it needs similar mediation too as the National Review picks up on what I shared last week about President Xi Jinping's “Long March” approach to handling US relations. According to an article on War on the Rocks, President Xi may be up against a closing time window to get the upper hand as he is faced with internal pressures, including potential food shortages and famine.
An American Trump in Queen Elizabeth’s court
Two and a half years into office and President Trump finally made his state visit to the UK this last week. As with most things Trump, how well it went depends on who you ask.
Left-leaning Vox was quick to pick up Trump’s misstatements and rude comments as being a threat to the “special relationship,” but Brookings takes a more measured approach to argue that the relationship is sound, but certainly being tested.
And that testing to US-British relations is not all America’s doing, either, as Niall Ferguson argues that British politics are in some ways in a worse state than those in America.