US President Donald Trump and his always enabling press secretary Sarah Sanders charged there was a “double standard” when a television network apologized for a racist comment made about a top aide to former President Barack Obama but didn’t apologize to the current president for its critical remarks about him.　This was sheer narcissism. There was no cause for an apology to Trump. But a double standard does exist in the political dialogue and media coverage. Sometimes it works against Trump. But

Poland is willing to spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion to entice the US to build a permanent military base there, according to a Defense Ministry proposal. The plan offers a strong incentive for the US to consider moving at least some of its forces from Germany, especially since the current deployment makes little military sense.　Placing US bases in Germany after World War II was a response to the need to deter a Soviet attack and prevent Germany from becoming a military threat again. The second

Like “gemutlich” (a German adjective describing fireside coziness), the Japanese word “omotenashi” is hard to define but easy to picture. It’s a cashier greeting you nicely rather than chatting with colleagues and tossing your purchase across the counter -- an all-encompassing focus on service and caring professionalism.　Long hailed as the epitome of Japanese quality, the concept is for the first time coming in for a beating. More and more Japanese are wondering whether human-scale omotenashi ma

On Tuesday, the Chinese government held a high-level conference to celebrate Chinese citizens who had received education abroad and then returned home to use them in service of the country. Chen Shiyi, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, declared that such returnees bore a responsibility to “boost China’s core technology research and development.”　Likely to the delight of Chen and the Chinese government, the administration of US President Donald Trump seems determined to contribute more

Trump has turned on longtime allies, labeling them a national security threat in order to levy 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. For neighboring Mexico, this will affect some $3 billion in exports. While not insignificant, it is just a speck of the $300 billion-plus the nation sends north each year (for Canada, steel and aluminum comprise $11.5 billion of more than $300 billion in US-bound trade).　 Yet the size of the tariffs belies their true import. They officially bury t

While the turmoil in Italy has died down, at least for now, the issue that set it off is sure to provoke more tumult ahead.　The populist coalition that won the last election had proposed to make Paolo Savona, an economist who has said Italy should have a “Plan B” to exit the euro, finance minister. Sergio Mattarella, the country’s president, vetoed the appointment. After initially insisting on Savona, the anti-euro populists have found a different job for him. Markets have calmed, and the new go

Pilot plans to test driverless cars on city streets have so far been little more than vanity research projects. But one tiny country has put the whole autonomous vehicle industry on a track to make money in real life.　Automakers, tech firms and new entrants the world over have spent the past few weeks racing to meet Thursday’s deadline for a so-called Request for Information that Singapore announced back in November. The city state plans to operate fleets of autonomous vehicles in three district

Like so much else that President Donald Trump does, the North Korea negotiations dance is all about breaking the unwritten rules. Past presidents would have never allowed themselves to be put in the position where they could appear to be jerked around by a tin-pot dictator. Trump genuinely doesn’t care.　But how far would Trump go in breaking the rules, especially if a Nobel Peace Prize were in the offing? Would Trump be prepared to sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War and freezing North Kor

China and the US are presenting themselves as exemplars of opposite models of political governance.China has laid out its vision for a rejuvenated nation: a socialist planned economy, built on data and analytics, that will displace market economies. The US is taking the opposite route: withdrawing government from the marketplace, deregulating the economy through executive orders, starving regulators of funds, and appointing agency heads with records of antagonism to their own agencies’ missions.

Everybody wants autonomous vehicles now: It’s the auto industry’s way forward and Silicon Valley’s latest preoccupation. China is no different.　Alibaba Group Holding is testing self-driving cars in China, and Baidu started trials of autonomous technology last year. BMW AG earlier this month was the first foreign carmaker to get a license to test its offering in China. In mid-May, Shenzhen-based Roadstar.Ai LLC raised a record amount from Chinese investors.　Meanwhile, Tencent Holdings and bigger-

In the last few weeks, the world has become a measurably more dangerous place. The apparent collapse of the North Korea talks, US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear pact, Russia’s threat to shoot down US planes over Syria, and China’s placement of anti-ship and anti-air missiles on its manufactured islands in the South China Sea have all pushed the needle one tick closer to the unthinkable: nuclear war.　So now, more than ever, is the time to think about it -- and plan for it.　America’s primary dom

US President Donald Trump thinks he’s a great negotiator, a brilliant bluffer whose gut instincts are so stellar that ignorance of history and refusal to deal with substantive complexities are irrelevant.　That’s why he bragged he’d win the Nobel Peace Prize for his genius in getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Except, of course, it didn’t. It’s good his Singapore summit with Kim Jong-un was canceled. The larger picture in this and other major issues is how the American president

Check your calendars. It‘s starting to feel like Jan. 19, 2017.　For all Donald Trump’s bluster on trade, global commerce today doesn‘t look dramatically different from the day before he was sworn in.　US prestige has certainly taken a beating, but Trump hasn’t dismantled the international trading system. That talk of de-globalization looks overblown. Although it‘s hard to keep track of who’s up and who‘s down on Team Trump, it’s tough to say that over the past 16 months hardliners like Peter Nava

From the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he has said he wants to make trade “fair.” For too long, he argued, American companies and workers suffered as trading partners used tactics that stole jobs, damaged US industry and widened deficits. The implication was that he’d work to strip away the remaining tariffs and other hurdles that tilted the playing field.　Now we’ve seen Trump’s policy in action, it turns out he’s doing the opposite. There’s hypocrisy at the core of his admi

On Friday, President Vladimir Putin assembled the most impressive panel ever seen at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which he’s used as a showcase for Russia and himself since 2006. He had a nonattendee to thank for the full house, Donald Trump.　Usually, one or two foreign leaders attend the forum to act as foils for Putin, who delivers a keynote address, pitching Russia as an investment destination. This year, however, Putin shared the stage with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Mi

In any “trade war,” the most important thing to remember is the limit of the martial metaphor. When a foreign company sells Americans something they choose to buy, it is not an act of aggression. Trade negotiations aren’t a zero-sum game in which one country wins and the other has to lose.　 The point is being forgotten right now, and not just by protectionists. Practically everyone is saying that President Donald Trump is losing, surrendering, caving or capitulating to China. But “losing” may be

Horrible bosses can cause misery in any kind of business, but in science, they wield uniquely destructive power. In a recent survey compiled by the journal Nature, a number of young scientists reported that they felt pressured to find “particular results” that would presumably please their bosses, as opposed to the truth. That’s a problem for society at large, since it degrades the integrity of research that we’re supporting.　 Last week, a number of experts weighted in for a special section of t

When is $227 billion greater than $606 billion? When comparing Chinese defense spending to that of the US -- and if Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley is the one doing the math.　At a hearing last week, the ranking Democrat of the Senate’s defense appropriations subcommittee, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said to Milley: “You tell us that one of our biggest threats, greatest enemies, is Russia; turns out we read recently that Russia spends about $80 billion a year on its military. So let me get this stra

In the waning days of Malaysia’s recent election campaign, then-opposition leader Mahathir Mohamad was investigated under the country’s anti-fake news law. Had he been charged and convicted, he could have spent as much as six years in prison. Instead, Mahathir was elected prime minister with a pledge to repeal the law.　 After his unexpected success, Mahathir initially seemed to back off his promise; other members of his government have since sent different signals. While Malaysians have many rea

Last month, I described an email that promised vast riches if I would adopt “The Millionaire Mindset.”　This is the sort of silly wishful thinking I hate:　Consider, instead, the Cartesian pitch as applied to self-help being sold today: Just think it and it will happen. This stuff, along with crystals and horoscopes, joins a long list of things that have never been proven to have much value beyond a placebo effect.　Wishful thinking alone is insufficient to get any job done. “All you need is a doll