Washington Post (March 27)
“North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has a way of reminding the world that he has not gone away.” North Korea’s launch of “its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile ever, in defiance of sanctions and prohibitions” is a reminder of a “foreign-policy headache for the United States and its allies.” The North’s “potential for trouble should not be underestimated.” Kim does not deserve “concessions for his unruly behavior. There is a need for some fresh thinking about how to resolve this long-festering threat.”
Tags: Allies, Ballistic missile, Concessions, Festering, Foreign policy, Fresh thinking, Intercontinental, Kim, Launch, North Korea, Prohibitions, Sanctions, Threat, Trouble, U.S., Unruly
Wall Street Journal (May 8)
“The new hard line taken by China in trade talks—surprising the White House and threatening to derail negotiations—came after Beijing interpreted recent statements and actions by President Trump as a sign the U.S. was ready to make concessions.” A resolution to the vexing trade dispute may no longer be near at hand. “A week ago, the assumption was that negotiators would be closing the deal. Now, they are trying to keep it from collapsing.”
Tags: China, Collapsing, Concessions, Derail, Hard line, Negotiations, Trade talks, Trump, U.S., White House
Washington Post (February 25)
“Trump’s delusional mind-set makes him a sitting duck for Kim to trade flattery (of Trump) for concessions (from Trump). Kim already achieved a level of respectability no other North Korean leader has attained—without a single meaningful and irreversible concession—simply by virtue of a summit that turned into a PR coup.”
Tags: Concession, Concessions, Delusional, Flattery, Irreversible, Kim, Meaningful, North Korea, PR coup, Respectability, Summit, Trump
Los Angeles Times (February 17)
“Persuading
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons will be a long
and grueling process that will require President Trump to make significant
concessions — and even then, the effort may fail.” Although Trump will want to “to
claim spectacular results,” it is likely that any real accomplishments will
only be found in “seemingly mundane details.”
Tags: Concessions, Grueling, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Results, Trump
Wall Street Journal (June 12)
“Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un both received what they most wanted from their one-day summit in Singapore on Tuesday…. Whether this photo-op summitry achieved anything beyond the bonhomie is a lot less clear.” There is little indication of real progress. In fact, “if the past is a guide, all of this will be subject to painful and perhaps endless negotiation, and the North will insist on concessions from the U.S. at every stage. Having committed to talks, Mr. Trump will be under pressure to make more concessions lest Kim walk away.”
Tags: Concessions, Kim, Negotiation, North Korea, Photo-op, Progress, Singapore, Summit, Trump, U.S.
New York Times (February 18)
“The eurozone ministers may find it difficult to make concessions to a nation they perceive as profligate and ungrateful. Nevertheless, they must still “come to grips with the fact that cutting Greece some slack now is the only good choice they have.”
Tags: Concessions, eurozone, Greece, Ministers, Profligate, Ungrateful
Bloomberg (October 6)
“Eleven days into the Umbrella Revolution, it’s clear Beijing won’t back down. President Xi Jinping won’t accede to the movement’s universal suffrage proposal or sacrifice Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to ease tensions.” Unless the students “face reality and plot an endgame,” they risk becoming “irritants” to average Hongkongers. If, however, they can win a few concessions, the students “can demonstrate that they gave Goliath a good fight and achieved something substantial.”
Tags: Beijing, Concessions, Endgame, Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, Risk, Students, Tensions, Umbrella Revolution, Universal suffrage, Xi Jinping
Washington Post (October 2)
In his negotiations on a nuclear agreement with Iran, “President Obama should resist the temptation to make further concessions in order to complete a long-term deal by November. In the absence of a dramatic change in its positions, Iran should be offered, at best, an extension of the existing arrangement, with the current sanctions left in place — and threatened with tougher measures if it does not accept.”
Tags: Concessions, Extension, Iran, Negotiations, Nuclear agreement, President Obama, Sanctions, Temptation
Bloomberg (September 30)
“The most violent protests in Hong Kong in almost 50 years pose a dilemma for President Xi Jinping: clear the streets and risk embedding anti-China sentiment in a city that has prized its relative freedom, or make concessions and appear weak at home.”
Tags: Anti-China sentiment, Concessions, Freedom, Hong Kong, Protests, Risk, Violent, Xi Jinping
Wall Street Journal (November 17)
Hostess, the maker of iconic American junk food like Twinkies, filed for bankruptcy. “On Friday it shut down its 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers and prepared to fire nearly 18,500 employees en masse and auction off its brand and recipe portfolio.” The bakers and other unions succeeded in killing “an American classic, and 18,500 of their own jobs” because they refused to make concessions which might have turned the enterprise profitable. Hostess lost $341 million on sales of $2.5 billion in 2011.
Tags: Bankruptcy, Concessions, Hostess, Twinkies, Unions
