May 30: Back to Gaza
In which, the most recent attempt at a ceasefire in Gaza gets torpedoed by Hamas, and a judicial attempt to hit the brakes on Trump’s tariff diplomacy loses on appeal.
Back to Gaza
This week, Trump’s chief emissary, Steve Witkoff, expressed optimism that a new Israel-Hamas ceasefire was about to go into effect.
In a mistake oft repeated by the Biden administration, Witkoff spoke too soon after getting an Israeli greenlight on the deal. Hamas, on the other hand, pulled out of the deal.
Why?
Well, given an attempted firebombing on the US embassy in Israel by an American citizen, a broad chunk of the British celebrity and literati class calling for an end of British arms sales to Israel and an end to the “genocide”, continuing protests against Israeli operations in Gaza, condemnation in the UN, and highly publicized chaos erupting on aid distribution sites, I think it’s safe to say that Hamas is playing its old game of leveraging humanitarian suffering, which is very real (not least because Hamas ensures it remains and gets publicized), in the hopes of bringing international condemnation down on Israel.
Where do we go from here? As the war in Gaza passed the 600-days mark, and hostages and Gazans alike continue to suffer under deplorable conditions, the only option the US really has is to continue to keep trying to get to a ceasefire deal. However, like in Ukraine, the US is dealing with two warring sides who are not convinced they’ve gotten all they can out of fighting.
The US could try recognizing a Palestinian state, as some have suggested, but that is unlikely to do anything to alleviate the immediate situation. It certainly won’t heal the divide between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. If anything, it’ll give both Palestinian factions a new prize to fight over.
China attempts counter diplomacy in Mid East
Given the Trump administration’s efforts to drive a wedge between the EU and China, and Trump’s week of wins in the Middle East last week, it would be silly to think Beijing would take that lying down.
China used the forum of ASEAN’s Malaysia summit this week to make its own set of deals with the Gulf States, including offering visa-free travel to several of the Arab countries in a clear effort to contrast itself with the US move to start restricting visas for Chinese students. The message to the Gulf States was clear: With China, you can get access, with America you could get denial at any time. We’ll see if the message gets taken to heart. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, it’ll take some time to see if Trump’s tactical wins add up to strategic wins in the region. Here’s a rival’s first attempt at a counteroffer.
The judicial brakeman on the Trump Train
The last couple of weeks, it seemed as though the economic Trump Train was barrelling towards achieving its key objectives. With the budget bill moving towards the Senate floor and markets stabilizing with the reduction in China tariffs, the only thing that could really upset the apple cart would be someone or something arresting the further deployment of tariffs.
At least one court in the land appeared ready to comply this week, handing down yet another injunction halting a key aspect of the Trump agenda. That injunction was quickly overturned on appeal, but I suspect that the opposition strategy of slowing President Trump with injunctions may be nearing its backfire point, especially if all the administration’s appeals against injunctions get bundled together for SCOTUS to rule on.
For now, the judicial brakemen are certainly slowly the Trump Train, but don’t appear to be having much success in halting it.
Called it! Tariffs as diplomacy
It’s rare that I give a whole section in the newsletter to highlight one particular article, but if you’re going to click through on a linked article in this newsletter, make it this one:
“Trump’s 50% tariff threat bodes ill for EU-China ties.”
While the American media is focused on the domestic economic effects of Trump’s tariffs, or the judicial tug of war discussed above, this European perspective on the on, then off EU tariff pulls back the curtain a little bit on what appears to be the Trump administration on adapting their trade negotiation strategy to better position the US for a renewed China trade war while also deepening the geoeconomic divide between China and the EU.
Such a handling of trade negotiations as an adaptive tools of diplomacy would be right in line with my recent article for Providence Magazine where I outline the grand strategy perspective of the Trump administration.
Called it! Trump gets testy with Putin
Being an international relations and geopolitics expert, I like being right on those fronts because accurate prediction is hard work. So, I felt pretty good this week when President Trump did exactly what I said he would do if Putin were to continue his cruel airstrikes in Ukraine while slow walking ceasefire negotiations: Trump lashed out at Putin.
Now, granted, calling Putin “crazy” is pretty tame by Trump’s standards, but it is its own escalation ladder in the highly personalized world of head of state diplomacy.
The Kremlin appeared to brush off Trump’s comments and even return fire, but again, somewhat cautiously by Kremlin standards, and it does appear as though Moscow is dragging its feet back to the table so one would be hard pressed to say Trump’s rhetoric had no effect.
Still need to get to that ceasefire, though.
The AI transition
I think we’re getting close to a big step in AI development. Artificial intelligence, its ups and downs, is a regular part of the newscycle at this point. However, I couldn’t help but notice that there was something of an AI story cluster in my news feeds this week exploring the growing footprint of AI in school and in the workplace.
It may be because there have been a few viral interviews by Google and Anthropic CEOs indicating that AI is coming for the white collar workforce faster than expected, or because Nvidia is getting set to announce the introduction of powerful new processors. Maybe it was just a quieter news cycle in general, but it begs the question, have you thought about AI lately?
Left wing violence: Pervasive and socially acceptable
Last week, it was news of left wingers carrying out a suicide bombing and a double homicide. And, if you’ve been inclined to believe that my coverage of left wing violence in the US has overgeneralized from such isolated attacks by individuals, then let me put that concern to rest.
This week, in Seattle, we saw the many threads of left wing violence come together to paint a full picture of what I’ve been talking about for the last few years.
When a group of local Christians met for a worship service in a public park, they were attacked by Antifa foot soldiers who then turned their ire on police officers who intervened to separate the two groups. The result was dozens of arrested Antifa thugs.
I wish it had stopped there.
The next day, the mayor of Seattle issued a statement blaming the Christians for the violence and labeling the worship service a “far-right rally”. Didn’t even mention the words “Christian” or “worship” or “religious”. This was the dog whistle.
When Christians sought to stage a peaceful protest at city hall in response to the mayor’s hostility, Antifa attacked them again!
This was not an individual act. This was an organized attack aided and abetted with a wink and a nod from the city’s highest authority. The FBI is investigating the series of incidences, but that will take time. In the meantime, it’s apparently a TikTok trend to encourage people to assassinate the President.
On the political Left, in America, violence is not just normalized and pervasive. It’s socially acceptable, and that’s very dangerous.
Called it!
A couple of weeks ago, I commented that Trump lifting sanctions on Syria was likely going to be part of some deal to get to normalizing Syria-Israel ties. Looks like that’s exactly the direction the Trump administration is pushing in.
Circle backs
President Trump escalated his feud with Harvard University by threatening to redirect $3 billion in federal funds to trade schools.
Looks like that “conspiracy theory” about dangerous Covid vaccines was a conspiracy theory because the Biden administration was hiding data demonstrating the vaccine (at least the Moderna one) was/is, in fact, dangerous.
Field notes
Rough day at the office for France’s President Macron.
As a former native of Seattle with family in the area, I’m sad to see the political violence towards Christians increasing