WASHINGTON, April 19: U.S. President Donald Trump warned China on Saturday that it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic, as he ratcheted up criticism of Beijing over its handling of the outbreak.

GENEVA/WASHINGTON, April 16: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday he regrets U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull funding for the agency, but that now is the time for the world to unite in its fight against the new coronavirus.

WASHINGTON, March 12: President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is suspending all travel between the U.S. and Europe for 30 days beginning Friday as he seeks to combat a viral pandemic.

Tale of Two Demagogues

March 2, 2020 09:04 am

PARIS – “America loves India,” declared US President Donald Trump on his recent visit to the Indian state of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power base. Before a crowd of more than 100,000 in the world’s largest cricket stadium, the two leaders triumphantly celebrated the deepening friendship between their countries—or, to be more precise, between their brands of charismatic populism. Not even Trump’s repeated mangling of Indian names during his speech could dampen Modi’s glow.

Trump’s “Currency Manipulation” Con

February 24, 2020 10:20 am

WASHINGTON, DC – Would you believe the following story if you heard it? Imagine a small, rural town with one general store that sells to, and buys from, the farmers living in the surrounding area. Owing to their large families, the farmers have been running up a tab at the store, and they now owe the store a great deal of money. So, they organize a protest to demand that the store raise its prices on seed, fertilizer, and the like, while reducing the price it will pay for the farmers’ grains.

Paradigm Shift on Palestine

February 20, 2020 09:32 am

TEL AVIV – Nobody should be surprised that US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace proposal is heavily tilted toward the Israelis. What is surprising is that, rather than rejecting Trump’s proposal, the world has left the Palestinians largely on their own.

Comrade Trump

February 17, 2020 09:10 am

NEW YORK – “In just three short years,” US President Donald Trump declared in his recent State of the Union (SOTU) address, “we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny.” This baseless pronouncement—more propaganda than reality—recalled Joseph Stalin’s 1935 proclamation that “Life has improved, comrades; life has become more joyous.”

Re-Engineering China’s Economy

January 29, 2020 11:48 am

HONG KONG – On January 15, US President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed a “phase one” agreement aimed at containing the two countries’ long-running bilateral trade war. But no sooner had the deal been concluded than China was confronted with an emergency in the form of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

America’s Middle-East Obsession

January 28, 2020 09:30 am

NEW DELHI – “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” US President Donald Trump declared in his 2019 State of the Union speech. He had a point: military entanglements in the Middle East have contributed to the relative decline of American power and facilitated China’s muscular rise. And yet, less than a year after that speech, Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s most powerful military commander, General Qassem Suleimani, bringing the United States to the precipice of yet another war. Such is the power of America’s addiction to interfering in the chronically volatile Middle East.

The Assassin’s False Creed

January 13, 2020 09:22 am

MOSCOW – For an armchair warrior like US President Donald Trump, who received five deferments from serving in Vietnam, assassinations must look like a foreign-policy silver bullet. You take out your enemy’s leadership with a drone strike or a rifle shot and, presto, your problems are solved. In fact, there is no historical basis for believing that assassinations solve anything. But there are plenty of precedents that they make things far, far worse.

PALM BEACH, Fla. Dec 25: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have a signing ceremony to sign the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal agreed to this month.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, Oct 30: U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that Beijing commit to big purchases of American farm products has become a major sticking point in talks to end the Sino-U.S. trade war, according to several people briefed on the negotiations.

China’s 70 years of progress

October 2, 2019 08:56 am

BEIJING – The celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1 will be an exuberant affair, involving glitzy cultural events, an extravagant state dinner attended by Chinese and foreign luminaries, and a grand military parade in Tiananmen Square. And, at a time of high tensions with US President Donald Trump’s administration, it will be imbued with an extra dose of patriotic enthusiasm. But while China has much to celebrate, it also has much work to do.

Britain after Trump and Brexit

June 9, 2019 01:05 am

LONDON – After three days of pomp and ceremony that presented an image of a seemingly unchanging Britain, US President Donald Trump has now departed London. But beneath the veneer of pageantry, Britain is consumed not only by a stalled Brexit and the unending debate about it, but also by a far more profound crisis of identity: a struggle to rediscover what it is to be British.

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China’s feet of clay

April 7, 2019 02:05 am

CAMBRIDGE – Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to be on a roll. He has sent a rocket to the dark side of the moon, built artificial islands on contested reefs in the South China Sea, and recently enticed Italy to break ranks with its European partners and sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s unilateralist posture has reduced America’s soft power and influence.