Washington Post (March 30)
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s is facing his biggest threat in years. He has tried to stack the deck for his candidate in the Istanbul election, “but this ploy appears to have backfired. Some polls are predicting a serious loss for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its nationalist allies.”
New York Times (February 11)
“Before the fear of being blown up on a plane, or a train, or a sidewalk gave millions of people sleepless nights, before the threat of global climate disaster stirred dread, nuclear annihilation was the stuff of nightmares.” Then the U.S. and Russia took a step back. With the end of the INF Treaty and the Start Treaty set to expire, the nightmares may return. They shouldn’t. “Outspending Russia on a nuclear arms race, as Mr. Trump has bragged he would do, or abandoning an arms control regime that has helped forestall nuclear war for decades, is a foolish game of chicken, with no possible winners.”
Tags: Climate disaster, Fear, INF, Nightmares, Nuclear annihilation, Plane, Russia, Sleepless nights, Start, Threat, Train, Trump, U.S.
Washington Post (January 15)
“China’s drive to acquire cutting-edge weaponry and establish itself as a global military power poses an increasing threat to American defense superiority.”
Tags: China, Cutting edge, Defense, Military power, Superiority, Threat, U.S., Weaponry
Wall Street Journal (May 25)
“President Trump wants everyone to know he is a master trade negotiator, but this week his volleys look more like a mess than mastery. His China policy is all over the place, Nafta is in jeopardy, and his new threat to impose a 25% tariff on auto imports undercuts his foreign policy and economic goals.”
Tags: Auto imports, China policy, Economic goals, Foreign policy, Jeopardy, Mess, Nafta, Tariff, Threat, Trade negotiator, Trump, Volleys
The Economist (May 19)
Unless European “companies or their governments take the fight all the way to the White House, they have little choice but to abide by the long—and sometimes wrong—arm of American law.” America’s threat of sanctions on companies doing business with Iran impacts major players including Total, Airbus, Peugeot, Renault and SWIFT. Still, it remains to be seen if “there is the stomach for such a battle.”
Tags: Airbus, European, Fight, Governments, Iran, Law, Peugeot, Renault, Sanctions, Swift, Threat, Total, White House
New York Times (March 26)
Rather than “a sign of rising self-assuredness,” President Trump’s recent actions reveal the president to be “growing increasingly irascible as his sense of desperation surges. The world is closing in on Trump and he is in an existential fight for his own survival. This is precisely what makes him so dangerous.” He is becoming a growing “threat to the country.” The U.S. presidency brings “awesome power, and Trump will harness and deploy it all as guard and guarantee against his own demise.”
CNN (March 23)
“The thickening legal morass around the President involving the three sex-related lawsuits threatens to deepen his legal exposure and add to the incessant chaos that whirls around the White House.” If the suits “are allowed to go forward they could eventually force the President to provide depositions. Given his demonstrated tendency not to always tell the truth he would potentially risk perjuring himself under oath, thereby taking a case from the civil to the criminal realm.”
Tags: Chaos, Criminal, Depositions, Lawsuits, Legal exposure, Morass, Perjury, Sex, Threat, Trump, Truth
Bloomberg (February 23)
“Beijing’s interventions in the economy don’t always merit applause, but the government’s unprecedented seizure of Anbang Insurance Group Co. deserves a round. Anbang was a toxic threat to China’s financial system.” With total assets estimated to be “a staggering 3.4 percent of China’s GDP,” Anbang had the potential to deliver a shock “comparable to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. or American International Group Inc. in the U.S.” Chinese authorities have “nipped a potential disaster in the bud.”
Tags: AIG, Anbang, Assets, Beijing, China, Economy, Financial system, Interventions, Lehman Brothers, Threat, Toxic
Harvard Gazette (January 18)
“What’s new in the current phase of the ongoing North Korean nuclear crisis is the Kim regime’s early stage capability to put the continental U.S. at risk…. North Korea is no longer viewed mainly as a threat to U.S. allies and interests in Northeast Asia. If diplomatic efforts collapse, we’re likely to see a dramatic increase in U.S. military pressure on North Korea, with the goal of compelling the regime to rapidly denuclearize.”
Tags: Allies, Capability, Continental U.S., Denuclearize, Diplomatic efforts, Kim, Military pressure, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear crisis, Regime, Risk, Threat
Bloomberg (November 6)
With the U.S. “hobbled by Trump,” China clearly has the “upper hand” in the upcoming negotiations. The stakes are potentially “huge, including the threat of nuclear conflict in North Korea,” as Trump sits down with China’s President Xi. The situation reminds many of 1961, when JFK was outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. “Today’s two superpowers are coming from different directions. President Xi, consolidating his hold, probably is the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.” Meanwhile, the American president heads a new administration “beset by chaos.”000
Tags: 1961, Chaos, China, Hobbled, JFK, Khrushchev, Mao, Negotiations, North Korea, Nuclear conflict, Stakes, Superpowers, Threat, Trump, U.S., Vienna, Xi
