Donald Trump

In response to the U.S. State Department’s annual report to Congress on member voting practices in various UN venues, Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, has likely set back efforts to improve the U.S.-South African bilateral relationship, not to mention countless others. Ambassador Haley seems to be saying that if a country consistently votes against the United States in the UN, its bilateral U.S. assistance will be in jeopardy.  The report has been prepared annually since 1984. This year, it concludes that other UN member countries voted with the United States an average of 31 percent. This represents a drop of 10 percent since Donald Trump became president, likely reflecting the international unpopularity of the administration’s “America first” foreign policy.  Ambassador Haley is running a transactional riff on the data. She states that the United States pays 22 percent of the UN’s costs and that therefore, the 31 percent of the UN’s membership that votes with the United States “is not an acceptable return on our investment.” After the report’s release, Ambassador Haley said, “President Trump wants to ensure that our foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests, and we look forward to helping him see that he American people are no longer taken for granted.” In December 2017, shortly before the UN General Assembly voted against the United States with respect to the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Ambassador Haley warned that she would be “taking names” of countries that voted against the administration. The UN Voting Practices report, now published, makes that easy to do.  It identifies those countries that were least likely to vote with the United States. In order, they are: Zimbabwe, Burundi, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Bolivia, and South Africa. Threat’s by Trump and Haley aside, South Africa finds itself in bad company, a reality that should give many South Africans pause. Every other country on the list is to a greater or lesser extent a tyranny, which South Africa (and Bolivia) emphatically is not. Of course, South Africa does not set out deliberately to thwart the United States in its UN votes, even if some South African politicians might wish to. Rather, South Africa’s votes reflect the policies and goals of a democratically elected government in Pretoria at a particular moment in time on a particular issue. South Africa is the only multiracial country in sub-Saharan Africa and it has the continent’s most developed economy. It is a multiparty democracy conducted according to the rule of law and with among the most developed guarantees of human rights in the world—it is the only African country to permit gay marriage, for example.  There are myriad ties between the United States and South Africa involving civil society, academia, and a plethora of other human endeavors, but with respect to the official relationship, spokespersons on both sides are careful. They use words like “cordial,” diplomatic shorthand for “cool,” while insisting with little credibility that the bilateral relationship is good. The reality is that the official, bilateral relationship is not warm or close. This is mostly the result of history, unrealistic expectations on both sides, and the personalities of their past and present leaders. These deeper issues often exacerbate smaller questions, such as South Africa’s eligibility to take part in African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), an arrangement that provides participants with nearly unfettered access to the American market. The foreign policies of South Africa and the United States are also often out of synch because of different goals. For example, the South African government strongly objected to the NATO operation in Libya that led to the demise of tyrant and dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi.  Nevertheless, the emergence of pro-business Cyril Ramaphosa as chief of state in January 2018 raised the possibility of improving the bilateral relationship. In fact, irrespective of veiled American threats to cut assistance to South Africa, Zuma's ouster alone could very well result in significant change to South Africa’s UN voting behavior. However, Ramaphosa has not reached out to the Trump administration, at least publicly, and Trump has not yet appointed an ambassador in Pretoria.  Altogether, the United States provides less than $500 million in assistance to South Africa, mostly to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), a few other health programs, and small amounts of assistance to basic education and small enterprises. The amount is not large, and South Africa has been assuming a larger share of the costs of PEPFAR. Despite Ambassador Haley’s saber rattling, it would be difficult for the administration to cut drastically PEPFAR assistance; the American public would not respond well to pictures of South African children dying because they lost access to antiretroviral drugs. Serious cuts to U.S. bilateral assistance to South Africa are therefore unlikely. Nevertheless, South Africans are likely to resent deeply the Trump administration’s rhetoric holding bilateral assistance hostage to votes in the UN. For a government that is a descendant of an anti-apartheid and “anti-colonialism” liberation movement, the Trump administration’s threats have more than a whiff of neo-imperialism about them. If Ramaphosa does want a better official relationship with the United States, which he likely does, Trump’s transactional approach to UN voting makes it more difficult for him to muster public opinion within his party but also among the larger South African public.   

Iran could restart aspects of its nuclear program if President Trump declines to renew sanctions waivers this month, leaving major powers with few options for monitoring or restricting it.

President Donald Trump should be very happy with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Unlike the recent visits of French President Emmanuel Macron, who criticized Trump’s policies before a joint session of Congress, or German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who continues to be critical of a range of Trump’s polices, Buhari praised Trump in ways that will be pleasing to him and his base.  Based on media coverage of the Nigerian president’s April 30 meeting with President Trump and a transcript of their press conference together, Buhari said a number of things in Trump’s favor: He elegantly side-stepped the insulting references by President Trump about the African continent earlier in his administration, taking the issue off the table (even though Trump put it back on the table). He praised President Trump for progress toward removing nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula: “President Trump deserves a great deal of credit for his statesmanly role in transforming so dramatically the cause [sic] of events in that region.” He congratulated President Trump for “the impressive performance of the of the United States economy on his watch.” He congratulated “the United States government” and, by implication, President Trump, on its leading role in the defeat of the Islamic State and for enhanced bilateral U.S.-Nigeria security cooperation. He thanked the administration for its assistance in recovering stolen Nigerian funds. The Buhari visit also provided a venue for President Trump to appeal to his own political base: He affirmed Nigeria’s leadership role in Africa and his support for the Buhari administration’s fight against terrorism. He focused on the killing of Christians by Islamist groups in Nigeria: “we are deeply concerned by religious violence in Nigeria, including the burning of churches, and the killing and persecution of Christians. We encourage Nigeria and the federal, state, and local leaders to do everything in their power to immediately secure the affected communities and to protect innocent civilians of all faiths, including Muslims and including Christians.” He called on Nigeria to reduce trade barriers, and linked them to corruption. (He returned to that theme several times during the joint press conference.) He tied “jihadist terrorism” to human trafficking, and also to his calls for U.S. immigration reform and a construction of a wall on the Mexican border. As President Buhari observed, security cooperation is limited. However, the day before the two presidents met, a senior special assistant to President Buhari, Malam Garba Shehu, said that President Barack Obama had failed to provide the support Nigeria needed for the fight against terrorism, likely referencing Obama’s decision to block the sale of Super Tucanos to Nigeria on human rights grounds. Trump, during the press conference, explained how he had unblocked the sale. Garba Shehu went on to say that, under President Trump, U.S.-Nigeria relations “had recorded remarkable progress.”   Among other things, Buhari’s visit may have at least partly defanged criticism of Trump that he is racist vis-à-vis his alleged derogatory remarks about Africa. However, the Buhari visit is likely to have only a limited impact on American domestic politics in the run-up to the mid-terms in November. For Buhari, the trip was a win in ways that are more concrete. President Trump reaffirmed Nigeria’s regional leadership role, promised security cooperation, and promised that the attorneys general of the two countries are looking for ways to return stolen Nigerian funds, estimated at $500 million, parked in the United States. His business supporters will be pleased that he raised the issue of trade barriers. As he regularly criticizes his presidential predecessor, President Trump is also likely to be pleased by Garba Shehu’s criticism of President Barack Obama. President Trump’s evangelical supporters also will likely be pleased that he raised explicitly the killing of Christians. So, too, was a Nigerian separatist group. According to Nigerian media, a spokesman for the Indigenous People of Biafra congratulated “the people of America and president Donald J. Trump for openly condemning the barbaric killings of Christians in Nigeria by the…government led by Major General Muhammed Buhari.” He went on to say, “President Donald Trump is a God sent to ameliorate the suffering of Christians in Nigeria.” (Nigerian spokespersons often delight in inflated English.)  

Kim Jong-un walked across the line dividing the two Koreas at Panmunjom on cue into the international media spotlight and the warm welcome of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. They chit-chatted like good neighbors at a location that has been for decades the symbolic epicenter of inter-Korean confrontation. They planted a tree together and took a tea break when they were not declaring inter-Korean peace and unity in the Panmunjom declaration. The mood was evocative of the June 13-15, 2000, first-ever inter-Korean summit between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, which opened an era of inter-Korean cooperation but did not ultimately address military tensions between the two sides or halt the North’s nuclear weapons program. How will this opening be different, and why? The answer lies in the motives of the two Koreas and the circumstances they face. Kim Jong-un’s Coming Out Party As was the case with his father Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un has effectively utilized an opening with South Korea to present a human face to the world in contrast to the usual narrative of Kim defined by growing threats and ruthless demand for political loyalty from his population. Kim emphasized in his oral remarks with Moon national unity rather than unification and was surprisingly forthcoming on his country’s economic shortcomings in line with his priority on national economic development. Kim Jong-un presented a more flexible and pragmatic face than his father despite many shared motives. Motivations for Kim to dramatically ease tensions with South Korea are manifold: To evade the massive U.S.led pressure campaign To reopen economic flows that can assist North Korea’s economic development To use South Korea as a shield against possible escalation of a military conflict with the United States Moon Jae-in’s Bid for Peace Moon Jae-in has used the summit to hit restart on peace and reconciliation with North Korea. He has tried to draw out Kim Jong-un and to bind him to an institutional process for making progress on security. The Panmunjom declaration reaffirms the contents of all major prior inter-Korean declarations, including ambitious economic pledges contained in the October 4, 2007 inter-Korean declaration between Moon’s former boss, Roh Moo-hyun, and Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il. The Panmunjom meeting builds on prior declarations in seeking to bind North Korea by institutionalizing processes for improving inter-Korean relations. Through the Panmunjom declaration, South Korea has sought to regularize inter-Korean exchanges through resumption of family reunions and the establishment of an inter-Korean liaison office at Kaesong and to jumpstart implementation of an ambitious timetable toward establishment of a permanent peace. Although North Korea has traditionally reserved denuclearization as an issue for the United States, the Panmunjom declaration mentions denuclearization as a way of teeing up preparations for the Trump-Kim summit, which Moon desperately needs if his efforts to establish peace on the Korean peninsula are to succeed. Perhaps the most serious litmus test of whether Moon’s initiative will have immediate and lasting impact involves pledges of the two Koreas to reduce military tensions. Efforts to establish confidence-building measures through a maritime peace zone in the West Sea will turn on progress in inter-Korean military talks set for the coming weeks, which in turn will require support from the U.S. forces in Korea (USFK) to implement effectively. In addition, negotiations to replace the Korean armistice with a permanent peace regime will require close coordination with the United States and possibly also with China. Setting Up for Trump and Kim The Moon administration stressed in its pre-summit briefings the importance of simultaneous progress in inter-Korean relations and U.S.-DPRK relations. By setting the ambitious goal of declaring an early end to the war, Seoul has increased the pressure on North Korea and the United States to set an ambitious schedule for denuclearization. But the comprehensive inspections and verification process needed to assure North Korea’s denuclearization will likely take much longer than the Panmunjom declaration’s aspiration to conclude peace negotiations by the end of the year. There is a need to calibrate these two processes to ensure that they do not become a source of tension between Washington and Seoul. As attention shifts to preparations for the Trump-Kim meeting, there is considerably less experience and good will between the United States and North Korea that can be used to build atmospherics for such a meeting than exists between the two Koreas. Just as Kim Dae-jung found himself exposed by a dramatic shift in U.S. policy during the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations in early 2001, no one can say for sure where Donald Trump may go. Although Trump and Kim will both be tempted to go along with sweeping statements that mark an historic moment in relations, the two sides will have little to work with in the absence of further dramatic commitments by Kim Jong-un to embrace a process that expeditiously leads to denuclearization. For North Korea, any such steps are tied to improvement of relations with the United States, which will involve far more than just a meet and greet with President Trump. U.S. skepticism about Kim and distrust of North Korea runs deep, and will only be reversed in the context of tangible and concrete steps toward denuclearization. Moreover, the human rights issue would also likely emerge as an obstacle in Congress to full normalization of U.S.-North Korea relations that might provide North Korea with a pretext to renege on denuclearization and create fissures within the U.S.-ROK alliance.

The incoherence of Washington's Syria policy is a symptom of its failure to define a new role in the world.

In stark contrast to the high ceremony of French President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Washington, which featured the French Tricolour flying from lampposts around town, President Trump’s first state dinner, and the French president’s well-received address to Congress, President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit on Monday will be subdued. The visit by the Nigerian president is more likely to resemble the scheduled visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel today, which appears to be low-key. President Macron’s visit covered a range of compelling issues, including Iran’s nuclear capacity and climate change. Presumably, Chancellor Merkel’s trip will be similar. In the case of Buhari’s, however, the fact that the president of Africa’s most populous country is visiting Washington at all may be more important to strengthening the U.S.-Africa relationship than any discussion of policy during the trip.  Buhari’s visit is at the initiative and invitation of President Trump. It is apparently connected to President Trump’s telephone calls in the days after his inauguration to President Buhari and South Africa’s then president, Jacob Zuma, in which he invited both leaders to come to Washington at a mutually convenient time. (Zuma, however, resigned from office in February.) The program for President Buhari’s visit has not been made public, but there will be no state dinner or address to Congress. It is not clear why the visit is taking place on April 30, in the week after the Macron and Merkel visits, and following President Buhari’s participation in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London. (Timing is often significant for chief-of-state visits.) According to the announcement of the visit,  President Trump’s agenda with President Buhari is conventional and similar to those of past presidents. It includes strengthening the bilateral strategic partnership, fostering economic growth, and encouraging Nigeria’s democratic trajectory. (Nigeria has scheduled national elections for February 2019.) The Nigeria side has not released its agenda for the visit, but President Buhari is likely to request more security assistance for the fight against Boko Haram and further support in the recovery of funds looted by Nigerians that are now parked in the United States. Whatever the discussions, the fact that the visit is taking place is bound to enhance Nigeria’s leadership in West Africa. President Trump’s relationship with African countries in general was damaged by his alleged characterization of them as “shithole countries.” Adding insult to injury, Rex Tillerson’s visit to Africa as secretary of state was marred by his firing while in Nigeria. Further, there is still no assistant secretary of state for Africa, and numerous high-level positions that would focus on Africa have yet to be filled by the Trump administration. The administration may see the Buhari visit as an opportunity to make some amends, though they are unlikely to say as much. Public gaffes aside, the substance of the Trump administration’s relationship with Africa is more positive and shows continuity with past administrations. The Trump administration proceeded with the sale of light aircraft to Nigeria, which the Buhari administration wanted badly to go through, and has generally expanded America’s security assistance in Africa to those fighting violent Islamist extremism. Despite proposing cuts to development funding and the State Department more broadly—proposals that Congress scaled back—the administration has continued support of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other medical assistance programs, and it has encouraged economic development, foreign investment, and the continent’s democratic trajectory.

With U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un to prepare for a summit meeting went “very smoothly,” demands for a strategy for the direct talks become even more pressing. While the Iran nuclear deal contains technical constraints and verification provisions that provide important groundwork for a North Korea deal, there are five lessons from the deal’s shortcomings that should serve as the main pillars for developing President Trump’s strategy. 1. The leverage from sanctions is strongest now and difficult to rebuild. Go for a permanent deal. The Iran deal was the first major arms control deal of its kind, where tough, multilateral sanctions provided the leverage for the deal, and their removal was a central part of the agreement. At the heart of the concerns about the Iran deal is that it is not permanent. The sanctions were removed, but several of the most important provisions blocking the pathways to their nuclear weapons development expire within a decade or so. It took years to build a global consensus for Iranian sanctions. It would take a long time to rebuild that pressure after the constraints expire, longer than it would take for the Iranians to rebuild their program. The same would be true for North Korea. Among the approaches that are being publicly debated is that the administration should take a phased approach ― first seek to achieve a freeze and then pursue follow-on negotiations to achieve denuclearization. This would be a grave mistake. A phased approach will only kick the crisis down the road, as the consensus to maintain sanctions diminishes after a freeze. The U.S. has the economic leverage now and should remain steadfast on demanding a permanent deal that requires North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program and return to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The U.S. removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in the 1990s. South Korea and North Korea’s other regional neighbors are permanently bound by the nonproliferation treaty. North Korea is the outlier in the region. 2. Include verifiable constraints on ballistic missiles. The last-minute rush to include ballistic missiles in the Iran talks led to an ambiguous solution. Ballistic missile constraints were not included in the deal itself, but rather were addressed in a weak provision in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the deal, which only “called upon” Iran to not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In diplomatic parlance, that is not a clear prohibition and one the Iranians have not felt obligated to abide by. The result has been the erosion of trust in the overall deal. The threat of the North Korean ballistic missile program includes the significant threats the missiles present to our allies in the region and to our homeland. Ballistic missiles are also a central part of North Korea’s destabilizing black market proliferation, from which it derives important economic benefits. Given the rapid advancement of the North Korea ballistic missile program, these missiles need to be constrained quantitatively and qualitatively, and the proliferation of missiles and missile parts need to be halted by carefully considered, verifiable provisions. 3. Get congressional approval. As the past couple of years have underscored, domestic support is essential for the U.S. to be able to fulfill its obligations under the Iran deal. A nuclear deal with North Korea will need to have domestic support, and that can only be successfully achieved with congressional approval. The Iran deal was concluded as an executive agreement that did not require the approval of Congress. Although a compromise was eventually reached to consider a resolution of disapproval, the spadework was not done to build and ensure domestic support for the agreement. President Trump will basically have two options for congressional approval: Submit the deal as a treaty to the Senate for advice and consent, or follow President Richard Nixon’s model of submitting the interim agreement of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Tready (SALT I) as an executive agreement that requires an up-or-down majority vote in both houses of Congress. While the former is preferable on constitutional grounds, the latter is at least a better option than circumventing Congress and leaving the domestic support unattended and vulnerable to erosion. 4. Let China provide the carrots. The U.S. is better at sticks. As the struggle with waiving sanctions in the Iran deal demonstrates, the U.S. is better at putting sanctions on an authoritarian regime than it is at taking them off and providing economic benefits. This will be equally as difficult, if not more so, with the Kim regime, which has one of the worst human rights records globally and whose economy is built on black markets. While the U.S. will have certain responsibilities to enforce the terms of a deal if negotiated, the responsibility for the longer-term incentives should shift to China. It has a lot to offer: security guarantees, by strengthening its 1961 mutual assistance agreement; more investment in North Korean industry and infrastructure; membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; and integration into its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, among others. 5. Get the support of our allies. A significant achievement of the Iran deal is that it was negotiated by a coalition of partners ― the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, Germany and China. Nonetheless, its main shortcoming is that it did not have the support of regional allies ― most importantly, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The lack of regional support, dramatically demonstrated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress against the deal, has contributed to the erosion of America’s commitment to the deal. A North Korea deal will ultimately fail without the support of our regional allies ― most importantly, South Korea and Japan. If our regional partners do not feel secure, there are many ways the agreement could be undermined, including, perhaps, most importantly, with the dangerous conclusion that their security is at risk under the agreement and that they need to develop their own nuclear weapons.

America-first rhetoric omits two important causes of middle America's economic woes: technology and automation. Democrats could use this to their advantage in the 2020 presidential election.  

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will return to Florida tomorrow to meet with President Donald J. Trump. Much has changed since Abe’s first visit in February 2017, just a month into the new Trump administration. The Abe-Trump relationship has blossomed over the president’s first year in office, largely at the prompting of a growing showdown with North Korea. The sensitive task of how to manage Trump’s desire to renegotiate the terms of U.S.-Japan economic ties remains incomplete, however. Both leaders have been hobbled by political scandals at home and will want to avoid a summit that highlights their difficulties. Many in Japan believe that the personal relationship that has anchored the U.S.-Japan alliance throughout the tumultuous transition into the Trump administration has frayed, and Japan’s media will be paying careful attention to how Trump treats Abe and whether the relationship is resilient enough to negotiate some of the harder issues where the interests of Tokyo and Washington may not align.  To be successful, this summit needs to accomplish three things. First and foremost, Abe and Trump will need to talk about Kim Jong-un. Japan’s prime minister will want the United States and Japan to be on the same page on North Korea, and he will want assurances that President Trump will represent Japan’s interests when he meets with Kim. The surprise announcement that Trump will meet with the North Korean leader was a bit of a body blow to the Abe cabinet. Tokyo had worked throughout 2017 to ensure the U.S.-Japan alliance was militarily prepared to respond to a missile attack, at times synchronizing exercises with those of the U.S. and South Korean militaries. Pyongyang’s relentless stream of missile launches in 2017 were all aimed in Japan’s direction, and they revealed Tokyo’s vulnerability to a missile attack. Deterrence and defense were bolstered as the alliance sought to respond. Now that Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump have agreed to meet, however, Tokyo must also consider its stake in any potential negotiations over the future of the Korean Peninsula. This is a more difficult task for Japan’s prime minister. While the United States focuses on denuclearization, Japan must also consider the missile threat emanating from North Korea. Today, Kim’s missile arsenal may be the greatest immediate threat to Japan and one that Tokyo is unprepared for should conflict break out. Ballistic missile defenses will need improving, and even then, it would be hard to claim that Japan is fully protected from North Korea’s missiles. As important to the Japanese public will be President Trump’s willingness to work on behalf of those Japanese abducted by the Kim regime. Abe has been one of the most outspoken advocates on the issue of Japanese abductees, critical of the inability of past governments to get Pyongyang to account for the missing. Already, President Trump met with the families of the abducted during his November visit to Japan. Earlier this month, after the Trump-Kim meeting was announced, U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty met with the families to promise that President Trump will raise the issue of the missing Japanese in his discussions with Kim Jong-un. Second, we should expect a statement on how Tokyo and Washington see the future of the economic relationship. This is perhaps the most difficult topic of the meeting. Washington and Tokyo have yet to find a way forward on their trade relationship, as President Trump and his advisors continue to focus in on the bilateral trade deficit. While in Tokyo last fall, Trump seemed to chastise Abe for his economic accomplishments and noted that Japan would be buying more American weapons to help fix the deficit and provide more jobs for American workers. In February, Vice President Mike Pence visited Tokyo on his way to the Pyeongchang Olympic Games, but he did not hold consultations with Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, his counterpart in the U.S.-Japan Economic Dialogue. Rumor has it that the Trump administration was growing increasingly frustrated with meetings that had no outcomes. In March, Japan was conspicuously not given an exemption from the United States’ Section 232 sanctions on steel and aluminum, unlike other close partners, such as Canada, Mexico, and South Korea. This struck another blow to the idea of a special Trump-Abe relationship.  Coming into the summit, therefore, Abe will need to find a way to address these economic irritations, yet there is little evidence that Tokyo is interested in a bilateral free trade agreement. Instead, Abe is likely to offer a framework for the United States and Japan that looks a lot like what was negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Only this year, the TPP has evolved, largely because of Abe’s leadership, to become a Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)—otherwise known as the TPP-11—agreed upon without the United States. Intriguing in the run up to this week’s summit was the president’s instruction to Lighthizer and the new director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, to review the U.S. interests in the TPP, although Trump continued to tweet about the need for an agreement on trade with Japan. Finally, both Abe and Trump need a political boost. The Abe cabinet’s approval rating percentages have dipped precariously into the thirties after new discoveries about the government’s handling of two suspicious cases of favorable treatment involving the prime minister and his wife. One scandal has it that a rightist kindergarten was given a discounted rate in a government land deal. The school claims political backing from Abe’s wife, who has denied knowledge of the details of the land sale. In the other, a friend of the prime minister’s was supposedly given preferential treatment to open a veterinary school in Ehime Prefecture. Neither of these cases has produced evidence of direct involvement by Abe, but both have exposed corrupt practices by bureaucrats trying to court favor with the prime minister’s staff. The Ministry of Finance doctored documents once the scandal broke in the land sale to the kindergarten, and the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology was responsible for the alleged favoritism displayed in the veterinary school case. The prime minister has repeatedly stated that he will take full responsibility should it be proven that his office was involved. President Trump, on the other hand, has his own ongoing political tempest, and his own approval ratings at about 40 percent are only marginally better than Abe’s. Coinciding with the release of former FBI Director James Comey’s new book and the President’s Twitter response to it, the summit will likely be overshadowed by Trump’s distractions at home. There are also other foreign policy priorities for Washington. The air strike in Syria has set off a round of questioning of the Trump administration’s strategy in Syria, particularly its increasingly confrontational approach to Russia. Simmering in the background, of course, is the administration’s rising threat of a trade war with China. Abe will want to talk about these foreign policy challenges and will have thoughts of his own on how Japan sees both the Syrian civil war and the possibility of a trade war with Beijing. Worsening U.S. relations with Moscow also limit Abe’s ability to negotiate a peace treaty with Russian leader Vladimir Putin—a project that has stalled as Russia’s relations with Europe and the United States have worsened. Once again, the golf course beckons. Abe will want a success story at Mar-A-Lago to bolster his approval rating back home and to ensure that the alliance with the United States is still Japan’s best bet for security. He will urge caution with Kim Jong-un and a broad-minded approach to regional trade. President Trump too might like a bit of positive news. He will need to listen carefully to Abe’s worries about the summit with Kim, and he will need to find a good approach to claiming victory on trade with Japan. Both will want to spend time away from cameras, trying to resolve their differences and putting a strong statesman-like face on as they struggle through this increasingly fraught era.  

Trump right to reconsider TPP even if allies resist renegotiation bid.

Military threats to deter chemical attacks have so far failed to restrain the Syrian regime, and they risk escalating the horrific conflict even further.