Give John Bolton credit for one thing: He knows how to make an entrance. During his first week on the job, the new national security adviser has initiated a purge of the National Security Council staff, pushing several top aides to resign, with more departures likely on the way. This internal shakeup is fully within Bolton’s prerogatives, and it is surely intended to get a notoriously discordant administration singing from the same sheet of music. In reality, however, it may just exacerbate the

When the French government unveiled its plan to make the national railway company more competitive and curtail benefits for some workers, commentators in France feared crippling protests comparable to those in 1995, when Alain Juppe’s government had to backtrack on rail sector reforms. Early signs were that President Emmanuel Macron would escape a similar fate. Polls showed support for his approach and the rail unions were divided in their response.　Public support then started to fade, and the o

Central bankers have been dubbed “masters of the universe” for the tools and powers they have acquired since the financial crisis. Some of them now want to play a more active role in the fight against climate change.　Monetary authorities are right to be mindful of the way in which climate risk affects their mandate to ensure price stability and guard financial stability. But that is different from seeking to promote the shift to a “greener” economy, which is the role of government.　Last week, ce

Markets are quivering as fears of a US-China trade war ebb and flow. Thus far, they’ve mostly been focused on tariffs that President Donald Trump wants to impose on a range of Chinese goods, and China’s threats to retaliate. But investors may be overlooking a bigger risk in this dispute.　It’s true that duties on US imports would hurt -- hands are already wringing in farm country -- but there’s a limit to how much pain they can really inflict. The persistent worry that China will dump its mammoth

The tit-for-tat trade sanctions fight between the US and China may be getting the headlines and rocking financial markets, but some less-noticed recent flare-ups between the world’s pre-eminent powers may present more lasting, and perilous, complications for American policymakers.　The new National Defense and National Security Strategies produced by the Donald Trump administration made clear that Washington has a decidedly more pessimistic outlook on its future relationship with China. For years

In recent weeks, investors have witnessed a rare concurrence of market developments. Widespread concern about escalating trade conflicts has caused equities to plunge and US Treasury yields to decline. So far, the reaction has been a textbook case of investor behavior.　Yet, for all the turmoil, the dollar did not prove to be a safe harbor, and has remained weak against major world currencies. The new dynamic holds an important lesson for investors. As President Donald Trump ratchets up the rheto

As Bloomberg News reported this week, a key stumbling block in trade negotiations between China and the US has been Beijing’s extensive support for its technology firms. But if President Donald Trump’s administration thinks that will change any time soon, it hasn’t been paying attention: Far from reducing support for the tech sector, China is on the verge of nationalizing it.　By many measures, China’s tech companies seem unstoppable. Private equity and venture capital investment grew from $14 bi

Twelve years ago, the Chinese put my brother-in-law, Frank Williams, out of business. Frank was one of the last costume jewelry designers in Providence, Rhode Island, a city where costume jewelry had once been a major industry. His small company, which he’d owned since 1978, had been profitable for its first 20 years. But in the late 1990s, the profits began to dry up.　Frank soon realized what was happening: Customers who had once bought large orders were buying small orders, and sending every n

Here’s a prediction that is sure to annoy everyone: Now that he’s national security adviser, John Bolton will become more moderate.　Some extremists moderate when they take public office because of bureaucratic pushback from the middle. That’s not what I expect for Bolton. He’s made a career of fighting the bureaucracy from the right.　I predict Bolton will moderate for the opposite reason: In this stage of President Donald Trump’s administration, there’s almost no one left to push back at Bolton

The trade fight between the US and China is posing a dilemma to the European Union: Should the world’s largest trading bloc pick a side? And, if so, which one?　In theory, the US is the more natural ally for Europe: The two have cooperated closely since the end of World War II. And yet, Donald Trump’s slipshod approach to trade diplomacy risks pushing the EU into the arms of China. The EU’s main strategic interest in this fight is to ensure that the multilateral trading framework -- including the

The landslide victory of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in Sunday’s election in Hungary may have disappointed European liberals -- but it drives home an important truth: The limits of the acceptable on the right flank of European politics are moving further to the right.　Orban has often been described as Europe’s black sheep, an outsider challenging European values, setting a bad example for others, and emboldening parties of the far-right fringe in Western Europe. Indeed, French nat

The Trump Era began when the future president descended into Trump Tower’s lobby on June 16, 2015, aboard an escalator. He launched his campaign there with a speech in which he promised to build a “great, great wall on our southern border.”　Trump has clung to that idea ever since. On Wednesday he vowed to send the National Guard to the southern border to patrol the area until the wall is built.　Trump also vowed in that 2015 speech that “nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump,” referri

Not one to be outdone by any adversary, Donald Trump has upped the ante in a rapidly escalating trade war with China, threatening an additional $100 billion of tariffs on top of the initial round of $50 billion. In doing so, the Trump administration is failing to appreciate a crucial reality: The United States needs China more than China needs the US.　Yes, China is still an export-led economy, and the American consumer is its largest customer. But China’s export share of its gross domestic produ

Should coffee come with a cancer warning?　As a matter of policy, the answer seems obvious: Of course not. As a matter of law, it’s much more complicated, at least in California. A tentative judicial ruling in Los Angeles County last week suggests that when people go to the local coffee place, their morning ritual is going to be accompanied by a jolt of fear.　It could potentially turn into a fiasco, I think, and it tells us something important about how well-intentioned laws can go badly wrong.　T

Explanations of the Donald Trump phenomenon often start with conservatives versus liberals, the rural-urban split, or perhaps race and immigration. Those all play a role, but the accumulation of evidence is validating a hypothesis from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat: A big and very fundamental split in American electoral politics today is between different understandings of sex and gender relations.　I am struck by a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. Millennial women, defined as the

Donald Trump says he got a “great deal” in renegotiating America’s bilateral trade agreement with South Korea. This is the first trade pact Trump has successfully revised, and it reflects the intellectual core of his America First approach to trade: The US can use its great economic and geopolitical leverage to drive harder bargains with weaker powers.　That approach appears to have worked in the South Korea case, at least in a modest way. But limitations and dangers lurk should the president try

The press has been in a lather of late over reports that the Department of Homeland Security had discovered evidence that cellphone tracking tools were being used by “unauthorized” parties in and around Washington. Formally known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity catchers, and often called stingrays, these devices fool your phone’s baseband into believing it is in contact with a cell tower. IMSI catchers can use your phone’s signal to track your movements and contacts. In some cases th

Although trade tensions between the US and China show no signs of abating, there are some reasons for cautious optimism. One is that the Americans have finally gotten around to giving the Chinese a concrete list of demands -- and, on at least one score, China is prepared to deal.The Chinese financial market has long been closed to foreign ownership, despite widespread criticism from the US and others. In November, following Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing, China’s finance ministry announce

Not long ago I attended an informal session in San Francisco on, basically, how to make the world a better place. Most of the attendees were from the Bay Area, and the technology industry. I was struck by how their approaches and perspectives differed from what I am used to, living in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington.　Many participants announced visions of a better and very different future, such as letting top scientists operate without financial constraints. It was implied that we

The prices of industrial metals, oil and other commodities have risen significantly since the Chinese manufacturing recession ended in June 2016. But many have fallen from their highs in January 2018, first in reaction to the risk of higher interest rates and now, more critically, because of trade tensions and the potential for global manufacturing and growth to be slower than expected.　The potential for slower growth due to US and reciprocal tariffs was highlighted by the International Monetary