Count the straws in the wind, and it looks like the trade tensions between the US and China could be moving closer to a resolution. Don’t relax just yet, though.　Beijing will delay by a decade some of the targets in its Made in China 2025 program to move into high-technology industries, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News last week. The news comes on the heels of a Reuters report that PetroChina Ltd.’s parent, China National Petroleum Corp., has suspended investment in Iran’s Sou

Suppose that within the next few months, it becomes clear that President Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses. Does the House of Representatives have discretion to decide whether to impeach him? Or does the constitution require it to do so?The simplest answer, and the best, is that the constitution requires the House to do so.To avoid political bias, let’s bracket all questions associated with President Trump, put current events to one side, and assume that some future president commi

The Trump administration has pulled out all the stops to attack the European Union. Realizing its relative weakness, the EU hasn’t tried a muscular response. Instead, it has used the same tactic as it did with Britain’s Brexiters.On Tuesday, the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, accused Europe of disregarding all the goodwill built up since the Marshall Plan and of frustrating US efforts to redress the trade imbalance.“What we have done for Europe since the end of World War II speaks for

When employees first learned of the Google project known as Dragonfly, there was an internal uprising.It is easy to see why. The project, a search engine for China, would not only help a totalitarian regime censor the web, it could also track internet users. Thousands of Googlers eventually went public with their opposition, signing an open letter in protest of the project. Is it any surprise that a company that canceled a contract with the Pentagon to sort through drone video images would be qu

I am concerned by Canada’s recent arrest and possible extradition of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. Meng was traveling in Canada, switching planes using a Chinese passport, when she was taken into custody. If sent to the US, she would face charges of trying to defraud US financial institutions, each carrying a maximum sentence of 30 years. And because of potential flight risk, she is not an obvious candidate for bail. It is quite possible that her life as she knew it simply has end

If you only scan the headlines, you could be forgiven for thinking that the US-China trade war is mainly about tariffs. After all, the president and trade-warrior-in-chief has called himself “Tariff Man.” And the tentative trade deal between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping was mainly about tariffs, especially on items like automobiles.　But the startling arrest in Canada of a Chinese telecom company executive should wake people up to the fact that there’s a second US-Ch

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been accused of killing German politics with her boa constrictor-like dominance and her contempt for electioneering fireworks. But on Friday, as she handed over the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union, it was clear that exciting political competition is alive even within the CDU, and that Germany’s next chancellor and Europe’s next de facto leader will be a star politician.　That star is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Merkel disciple and chosen successor.　The

As the cradle of democracy, Greece knows better than most countries what politics is all about. Yet, for the last eight years, any discussions between lawmakers from the left and right there have been overshadowed by the country’s economic collapse, and the string of rescue programs put together by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.Athens has been locked in permanent confrontation with its European partners, which culminated in the showdown of 2015 when Greece very nearly exited

If a diplomat truly is, as the old saying goes, “an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country,” then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has earned his pay. His speech in Brussels on “Restoring the Role of the Nation-State in the Liberal International Order” deserves a State Department Distinguished Honor Award for Intellectual Dishonesty.“Multilateralism has too often become viewed as an end unto itself,” said Pompeo. “The more treaties we sign, the safer we supposedly are. The more bureaucrats

The US is looking like the dog that caught the car. It needs to decide what to do next.Except that Wanzhou Meng is a person. She’s the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies as well as deputy chairwoman and the daughter of its founder. She’s in Canadian custody awaiting extradition to the US, and China is outraged.　With Huawei finally being fingered for alleged sanctions-busting, a charge already leveled at compatriot ZTE, the US Department of Justice and the Trump administration have an

As we approach the end of a long and complex year, and a turbulent election that saw a change of power in the House, it seems an appropriate time to hit pause and contemplate an approach toward a long-term global strategy for our country. We live in a highly tactical age, one that often seems categorized by the old saying, “the carnival moves on.” We seemingly have lost the collective ability to stop and consider where America needs to set its course.Strategy is actually simple: it is the ration

The top European court now is highly likely to rule that the UK can cancel Brexit unilaterally. For all the domestic political hurdles such a move would face, it’s intriguing to ponder how Europe would take it if the UK did cancel Brexit.Last year, a group of Scottish lawmakers asked a court in Scotland whether, having initiated an EU exit procedure under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, a country can revoke the decision without other member states’ consent. The court referred the question to th

Give Lindsey Graham credit. When it comes to regime change, at least he is consistent. The Republican senator from South Carolina has supported the removal of dictators from US adversaries such as Iraq and Libya, and now he wants new leadership for a crucial US ally: Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “is a wrecking ball,” Graham said at a press conference Tuesday after he and a small group of senators had received a CIA briefing on the October murder of Washington Post journalist Ja

Even as politicians in the US and Europe rage about foreigners supposedly swamping their shores, one of the world’s most insular countries -- Japan -- is on the verge of passing what might be its most sweeping immigration reform to date. Welcome as this would be, the plan isn’t sweeping enough.A bill approved by the lower house of the Diet would open Japan’s doors to two types of foreign workers. Lower-skilled laborers in 14 sectors would for the first time be able to apply for five-year visas a

As president-for-life, Xi Jinping is neither bound by rules nor limited by rivals. He has upended a careful political balance by concentrating power in his own hands, and overturned a cautious approach to foreign policy, while throwing in jail anyone he views as a threat. China’s most dominant leader since Mao Zedong now has 90 days to head off an all-out trade war with the US provoked, in part, by his own mercantilist policies. Can anybody convince him to make a U-turn?Strong-willed politicians

Investors may worry that the trade war will wreak havoc on Starbucks’ prospects in China, its second-largest market. The real concern isn’t any kind of patriotic boycott, but competition from a homegrown challenger.Luckin Coffee, which officially launched in January, already has more than 1,500 stores in 21 cities across China. Starbucks, whose mainland adventure began in 1999, has more than 3,400 outlets in 140 cities. Both are racing to expand further: Luckin is aiming for 2,000 stores by year

The liberating role social networks played during the Arab Spring and the Russian protests of 2011 and 2012 was widely lauded. Little of that enthusiasm is on display today amid the violent “yellow vest” protests in France -- even though Facebook is still doing what it does best: letting people channel their rage.In a 2011 paean to “the Facebook revolution,” Chris Taylor of the tech news website Mashable wrote that Facebook was “democracy in action.” Philip Howard of the University of Washington

Just because the US and China have agreed to call a truce in their trade war doesn’t mean that it’s over: This was a classic exercise in can-kicking. Nonetheless, most cans have quite a few kicks in them, and overall this is good news for the global economy. Instead of sweeping everything under the rug, as was the case before US President Donald Trump took office, America and China have found a new way of addressing conflict by talking openly.Let’s consider the announcement itself. The US has pl

The G-20 Summit in Argentina ended without fireworks involving the US, which was appropriate in a way, given the pall cast by the death of President George H.W. Bush.The US went along with a watered-down communique rather than stand in the way of a consensus, as it recently did at the APEC summit and the G-7. And rather than ending the meeting with a dramatic breakthrough or a loud breakdown, America reached an agreement to freeze trade tariffs with China that went somewhat beyond the one it rea

A crucial challenge for the Democratic Party is to formulate a foreign policy platform that goes beyond critiquing US President Donald Trump and lays out a compelling vision of America’s role in an increasingly dangerous world.Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who will likely be a leading candidate for the party’s nomination in 2020, offered up her vision in a recent speech at American University. That speech, and an accompanying article in Foreign Affairs, outlined a strategy of progressive internationali