Trump 2.0 is in full swing, and tariffs are emerging again as a policy of choice for the president. Trump has imposed or threatened tariffs against all of the US’s top trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. (more…)
Category: USA
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Musk – a perfume on the nose
Elon Musk may not have fallen out with Donald Trump just yet, but he is definitely on the nose with the American public. (more…)
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An open season on Palestine
Since the inception of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century, its policy towards Palestine has been, still is and will continue to be about land theft, dispossession and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (more…)
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America and the forgotten memento mori (remember you are mortal)
In recent decades, the West has witnessed a growing trend among increasingly hubristic US leaders to proclaim the United States as “indispensable.” This rhetoric reflects a mindset often seen in declining empires: the belief that their peak is yet to come, despite mounting evidence of decay. (more…)
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Media avoid drawing line between Trump’s ‘Gaza plan’ and ethnic cleansing
When Donald Trump proposed recently to “clean out” Gaza of its entire population, you might have thought what you heard was a plan to “ethnically cleanse” Palestinians from their lands – I mean, it’s right there in that word. But not according to most of the media. (more…)
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The rules based order – is it over? What’s next?
It is becoming much clearer, if it ever was, that President Donald Trump doesn’t much believe in the “rules based system”. If he does or did, he wouldn’t be firing off salvos of tariffs as if they were missiles intended for another purpose.Which, of course, they are. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). Independent journalist Richard Medhurst has been detained by Austrian police and intelligence services. The late John Pilger reminds us what Julian Assange uncovered about media, while Juice Media pulls the rug from under Dutton’s nuclear plans. Another week in our world. (more…)
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North-South Korea relations – missed opportunities
While confrontations continue in Seoul between right and left-wing factions over the fate of Yoon Suk Yeol following his ill-conceived declaration of Martial law on 3 December 2024, it is instructive to look back at the many attempts to improve North-South relations when things seemed not quite so hopeless. Can they be revived? (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
The world reacts to President Trump’s proposal to take over Palestine. A crime of forced displacement that will create more conflict and bloodshed. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and global journalists respond. (more…)
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Roaming charges: Manifest Destiny’s child
There was a messianic fervour in Donald Trump’s Second Inaugural speech that wasn’t evident eight years ago. As dark as the 2016 American Carnage diatribe was, there was still the sense that Trump was a salesman pitching a vision he didn’t quite believe in, but thought he needed to sell in order to legitimise himself to his own ragged ranks of followers. Mainly, he seemed surprised to find himself where he was. The man who returned to power this week seemed sterner, surer of how to leverage his authority and who to use it against, more confident of his own invincibility. Was this hubristic exhibition infused by the bullet that grazed his ear, or his close encounters with incarceration, and the Supreme Court anointing him with an almost Divine-like cloak of immunity to do whatever he wants for whatever venal reason? Likely, all of the above. (more…)
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Trump’s decision to withdraw American support for WHO is a huge mistake
It only took a week for Donald Trump to have America looking like Belarus as a dictator, helped by totally subservient politicians, put governing in the hands of unqualified, unintelligent loyalists. As one commentator asked this week “When did brains go out of fashion!” (more…)
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Trump floats US takeover of Gaza – after ethnically cleansing Palestinians
Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip,” which would be emptied of Palestinians. (more…)
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Ending the US alliance: America first means Australia last
The foundation of Australia’s alliance with the US is that there is a shared commitment to the rule of law and constitutional democratic government. We are faced with the choice of waiting until there cannot be a shred of doubt that the US is committed to a dictatorship or beginning the process of cutting our ties with this latest incarnation of American democratic government.
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Paul Keating says Trump may avoid a major war
Donald Trump’s “snatch-and-grab” foreign policy rejects the belief in US primacy and exception that was sliding towards a military confrontation with China. (more…)
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“Game of narrative”: Prof Sachs on dictatorship vs democracy and phoney wars
Cambridge Union
I don’t believe the US has any right or any ability to put in place a democracy in any other country. Nor do I believe, by the way, that American democracy functions as a real democracy anymore on the life and death issues… This is not democracy. This is a game. And it’s a game of narrative, writes Professor Jeffrey Sachs. (more…)
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Trump’s MAGA and the new Pax Americana
In the short period since his election, President Trump has started to tear down the edifice of western rules-based law and international order. Ironically this is the international political and economic system of which the USA has been its main beneficiary, definer and enforcer, and over which it has engaged in conflicts and wars around the world since the end of the second world war. (more…)
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Where have all the liberals gone?
The new liberal consensus, born of a shared “exhaustion,” is that it is time to “tune out,” or “take a break,” or simply close one’s eyes and ears. (more…)
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DeepSeek’s success challenges assumptions about Chinese tech companies – and the US-China competition
The release of the new DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model has shocked the tech world. (more…)
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A massive mandate?
Donald Trump and the MAGA gang point to the ‘massive mandate’ he obtained to justify any policy he may implement. (more…)
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Is America marching in the final footsteps of the British empire?
Yu-Book Lim used to head a Singapore think tank and was Executive Chairman of IMC Plantations before that. He has just published an extended, thought-provoking essay: “Xi Jinping’s “Once-in-a-Century Upheaval” Prophecy. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
The West Bank attacks continue since the Gaza ceasefire. In India, poor Muslim’s shops are being bulldozed. In the US, Caroline Kennedy speaks of her concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr leading the HHS. (more…)
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Trump’s Greenland for Odessa deal
In late February 2022, I was walking on a street in Irkutsk (in the middle of Russian Siberia) when I met a former female student of mine who had just come from her work office. She was upset by the invasion of Ukraine but even more so by the attitude of some women in the office. The main topic of discussion was speculation on “how many new provinces we will get”. (more…)
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How the Chinese beat Trump and OpenAI
The hype around Artificial Intelligence, the now failed U.S. attempt to monopolise it, and the recent counter from China are a lesson in how to innovate. They also show that the U.S. is losing the capability to do so. (more…)
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Donald Trump at the National Cathedral Washington
Addressing Donald Trump at the National Cathedral’s inauguration service, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, looking the incoming president in the eye, pleaded with him: “to have mercy on people who are scared and help those facing persecution”.
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1st call between Marco Rubio and Wang Yi
Neither State Department nor MOFA is gonna like this piece.
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I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
Pearls & Irritations have graciously published the many articles I have written over the last five years on Donald Trump. I’ve written about his inciting the insurrection on 6th January 2021; examined his lack of moral virtue using Aristotle’s taxonomy as a template, contrasted him with other world leaders; and critiqued his negative influence as a pseudo-transformational leader. I’ve spent time and energy thinking about this man, and the possible implications for leaders elsewhere apart from the good olde US of A. However, from now on, I’ve decided to go ‘Trump sober.’
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Donald Trump’s return: gloves off reset
Donald Trump’s return to power for a second term has sent ripples across the globe. On his first day in office, he wielded executive authority with vigour, signing many executive orders, including withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time. This move reversed the country’s climate commitments yet again, signalling Trump’s prioritisation of energy dominance and domestic interests. (more…)
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How stupid is America’s ruling class?
Yes, there is an American ruling class, and we’ve now got the photos to prove it. (more…)
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Democracy promotion, regime change and US foreign policy: the case of Bangladesh
The deeply entrenched authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina was toppled by a student-led movement on August 5 2024. The global community cheered the moral courage and the phenomenal organisational skills of the student leaders. The redoubtable Economist magazine voted Bangladesh as ‘the country of the year’ (2024) because students led a movement that ‘toppled a tyrant’ and paved the way for a brighter future. (more…)
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US “blunt force trauma” trade strategy treated with Chinese acupuncture
At this time it seems impossible to avoid discussing President Trump and his approach to China. What is less often discussed is China’s approach to Trump. (more…)