Tag Archives: foreign policy

“Bow Respectfully”

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That’s the latest demand from Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, which he made in response to rumors that President Donald Trump might be open to direct talks with the Iranian government.  Rouhani has said,

If you lifted all the sanctions, bowed respectfully to the Iranian nation, well then the conditions are different.

Conditions certainly would be different, but they would be even less productive.  The men of Iran’s government aren’t interested in discussions, serious or otherwise. Nor do they care about the people over whom they reign.  They just want nuclear weapons so they can destroy Israel.

Israel must be eradicated from the page of history.
—Ayatollah Khomeini

That’s Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s predecessor; the man has done nothing to move away from that.

Maybe, though—just maybe—Trump should hold out for talks with Khamenei. He won’t be any less obstructive than Rouhani, but he’s the one who’ll pass on any deal Rouhani might pretend to make, anyway.

Or not. Khamenei has said.

[W]e will not negotiate with this administration of the US under no condition, this is a lethal poison[.]

The only thing is to keep ratcheting up sanctions and isolation faster than Iran can respond and adapt. And firmer actions if Iran makes progress, anyway.

Standing Tall

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Great Britain has said that it will abide by British law regarding cross-border movement of persons. European Union law will no longer have applicability, with effect from 31 October, Great Britain’s departure date from the EU.  Unless the EU agrees, and begins concretely, to negotiate in good faith a serious departure régime.

Oh, the hoo-raw.  How dare those Brits follow through instead of kowtowing to their betters in Brussels?

Rebecca Staudenmaier, writing at the link, also mischaracterizes the move.

The move is a departure from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, who had said the government would end free movement “as soon as possible” if the UK left the EU without a withdrawal deal, suggesting the rules could be phased out.

This is no departure from May. On the contrary, this is a solidification of her position: it clearly defines what “as soon as possible” means.  Phase out? That phasing has just begun, if Brussels will get serious about negotiating the departure.  Indeed, that transition period has been going on, tacitly, since Great Britain made clear its intention to go out from the EU.  Phasing merely has been formalized with this announcement.

Indeed, here’s what the British Home Office actually has said on this subject [bold face emphasis added]:

EU citizens and their families are welcome to stay and there are no changes to the deadline to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.
This scheme covers all EU citizens and their families living in the UK by 31 October, and EU citizens have until at least 31 December 2020 to apply.
Here is a short explainer:
What is happening? Is freedom of movement ending on October 31?
We are leaving the EU on 31 October come what may. This will mean that freedom of movement as it currently stands will end on 31 October when the UK leaves the EU.

And

EU citizens will still be able to come to the UK on holiday and for short trips, but what will change is the arrangements for people coming to the UK for longer periods of time and for work and study.

Hmm….

Even though the transition period has begun, it will extend for 15 months after Great Britain leaves, and it’s quite a generous transition, to boot.  Much more so than Brussels’ departure demands and May’s meek acquiescence to.

Of course, there are problems with this.

In a phone call with the EU Settlement Scheme office helpline, activist and former Change UK candidate Nora Mulready said she was told that EU citizens would have difficulty reentering the UK if they hadn’t applied by the Brexit departure date.
Those who hadn’t applied “would no longer be entitled to [freedom of movement] rights to live and work and be in Britain,” she said the office told her.

That’s a very serious problem.  Mulready apparently thinks EU citizens are so grindingly stupid or otherwise incompetent that they can’t figure out that they need to make their applications—in the 71 days that they have.  That just isn’t enough time for an adult continental.  Wow.

Unnamed Liberal Democrats (here’s NLMSM policy again) claim this policy is reckless.

Not at all. What’s been reckless is the EU’s bad faith pretense of negotiation for a smooth exit, instead using the talks and outcome to punish the Brits for their effrontery and to serve as a warning to other nations contemplating the presumption of leaving.

Here’s hoping a Johnson government is good to its word.

Nice Things

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President Xi Jinping and his cronies in the People’s Republic of China government look like they’re settling in for a long trade war with us. The claim, too, is that deteriorating relations with us, and allowing them to deteriorate further, are a sign of Xi’s strength as a leader of the government and of the Communist Party of China.

This misunderstands, though: those deteriorating relations are a good illustration of Xi’s weakness as a leader, not his strength. It takes strength, mind you, to be willing to change course when the chosen one proves…inopportune.

There’s this, too, from Shi Yinhong, Director of the Center on American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing:

Trump’s actions have seriously agitated the Chinese leadership, who now realize that there’s no chance of reaching a fair deal with the US.

Right.  Because it’s unfair of us to demand the PRC stop stealing our intellectual property and our technological secrets. It’s unfair of us to object to the PRC extorting tech transfers and domestic “partnerships” and requiring backdoors into proprietary operating software, all as a condition of doing business in the PRC.

Even the PRC’s wartime decision to devalue its currency, intended to counter the effect of tariffs on its exports to the US, cannot work well over the intermediate- to long-term. That devalued currency serves to make imports into the PRC—things like oil and natural gas both as energy for production and as fuels for home heating, transportation, marine shipping and things like components for assembly into larger components or finished products in PRC factories—more expensive, it lowers the return on US and other dollar-denominated debt instruments, and through those, it drives up the cost of domestic products that depend on those imports.

It also encourages capital flight into a host of suddenly more valuable currencies—primarily dollars, but yen, won, euros, and pounds, also.

And: whether tariffs cost us more than the PRC’s counters cost them remains to be seen. However, that’s not a matter that can be assessed solely in dollars or yuan. Our economy is much larger, wealthier, and more diverse than is the PRC’s; we can absorb more such costs than it can.  And I haven’t gotten to the costs of military buildups.

Finally, there’s this on the PRC’s trade war: as companies continue to move their supply chains away from the PRC in response to the stress of this war, as sellers (including farmers) find other markets than the PRC for their goods and services (and crops), the PRC’s war is weaning these enterprises off the PRC market, which can only work to the PRC’s long-term detriment.

All of this illustrates why the good citizens of the PRC can’t have nice things.

Germany…Dithers

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…on the matter of helping protect freedom of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and, presumably, up into the Arabian Gulf.

Great Britain, in an effort that parallels the US’ efforts, is proposing a European naval mission to the region to protect European oil tankers.  Germany isn’t sure.  On the one hand, Norbert Röttgen, Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman, says

Our prosperity lives on free shipping.  And we have to make clear that we stand alongside our British friends, partners and allies who are affected. There must be joint European action.

But the US might be involved, so he dithers:

Unfortunately, there are fundamental differences in Iran policy with the US, which is why we can’t cooperate with the US just like that.

No, can’t have that.

The Social Democrats are more open about their reluctance to participate. Karl-Heinz Brunner, SPD member of the Bundestag Committee on Defense:

A German participation is currently neither necessary nor opportune. Of course, securing free trade routes is extremely important, but I am convinced that this would also be possible by diplomatic means. In the current situation, military options could contribute to further destabilization.

Yeah, Iran is open to diplomacy—so long as everyone does exactly what Iran diplomatically says.  Besides, if we took concrete action to defend German or European interests, we might angrify the pirates.

Can’t have that, either.

‘Course, Germany really doesn’t have a dog in this hunt, anyway—it gets most of its oil from Russia.

Update: Germany has decided not to join any coalition ensuring free sea navigation in the Strait of Hormuz or the Arabian Gulf.  Foreign Minister Heiko Maas:

“Germany will not take part in the sea mission presented and planned by the United States,” Maas told reporters during a trip to Poland.
The German government said it remains in close consultation with France and the UK over a European approach to the freedom of navigation crisis in the Persian Gulf.

Close consultation. Chit chat. I’ve already pointed out whence German oil comes.

Trade Talks

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The People’s Republic of China wants to slow-walk these negotiations in the expectation that their delay will get them better terms.

Beijing, while wanting to appear willing to negotiate, thinks it can extract better terms by not hurrying into concessions, according to Chinese experts and others briefed on the talks.

The PRC’s attitude, though, seems counterproductive.

Since negotiations faltered in May, Chinese officials have said that for any eventual trade deal, the US must be reasonable about the amount of goods China can purchase and must remove all the tariffs placed on Chinese exports in the dispute.

“Being reasonable:” we can remove tariffs when the PRC stops subsidizing its domestic production to yield artificially low prices on its exports.  We can remove tariffs when the PRC stops stealing our intellectual property and technologies and stops extorting technology transfers as a condition of doing business with/in the PRC.  We don’t have to sell anything to the PRC, and the PRC doesn’t have to purchase anything from us.  They constitute a very large market, to be sure, but what’s the value of that market when they’re just going to rip us off with those practices?  And then threaten us and our allies and friends militarily and politically—and economically—with the result of those thefts?

But sure, the PRC can go slow. After all, the longer the PRC stalls, the more time there will be for producers to move their PRC production facilities to other, cheaper and more flexible venues.  The longer the PRC stall, the more time there will be for sellers—like our farmers—to sell into markets other than the PRC.

The longer the PRC stalls, the more time there will be for its economy to slow.

The longer the PRC stalls, the more PRC governance failures—Hong Kong, PRC concentration camps for Uighurs, overt threats against the Republic of China, seizure and occupation of other nations’ South China Sea islands and of the Sea itself are just a few—will dominate the public discourse, exposing PRC government “trustworthiness.”

And the harder the terms from the US will become.