China’s trade surplus with the US reached a record high in June as the two countries sought and failed to prevent the start of their tit-for-tat tariff dispute. It is estimated that the trade surplus in June equaled $28.9 billion on the back of a 12.6 per cent rise in China’s exports to the US.
Mr. Trump, who has demanded Beijing cut the trade surplus, could use the latest result to further ratchet up pressure on China after both sides last week imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s goods. Washington has warned it may ultimately impose tariffs on more than $500 billion worth of Chinese goods — almost the total amount of US imports from China last year.
‘The dispute has jolted global financial markets, raising worries a full-scale trade war could derail the world economy. Chinese stocks fell into bear market territory and the yuan currency has skidded, though there have been signs in recent days its central bank is moving to slow the currency’s declines. The record surplus will not help already sour relations and escalating tensions,’ writes Jonas Short who is Head of the Beijing office at Everbright Sun Hung Kai.
President Erdogan was recently inaugurated for a new term today in a move that will mark Turkey’s transformation from a parliamentary system to that of an executive presidency. On the eve of the inauguration, the government fired some 18,000 state workers for alleged links to terrorist groups, the latest purge amid a state of emergency in place since a July 2016 coup attempt. The emergency decree issued yesterday brought the number of people who have lost their jobs in the crackdown to 130,000; it also shuttered 12 nongovernmental organizations and three media outlets.
‘Erdogan and his party have irrevocably altered Turkey; there is no going back. Turkey’s political trajectory is an exemplary case of a country permanently rolling back democratizing reforms,’ Steven A. Cook writes for Foreign Policy.
‘Erdogan’s first order of business will be to concentrate on Turkey’s troubled economy. He owes his 16 years of power to the AKP’s economic success. Restoring market confidence is crucial, and lifting the state of emergency, now that he has formally acquired the powers it has afforded him, is an easy give,’ Amberin Zaman states in an article for Al-Monitor.
‘Save for some other unforeseen circumstances, Erdogan is not going anywhere for many years. Washington and the Europeans have little choice but to accept that reality, which could lead to a new framework for political, security and economic relations with Ankara,’ Iyad Dakka opines for World Politics Review.
Ethiopia and Eritrea on Monday formally declared an end to their ‘state of war,’ a two-decade-long standoff that followed a brutal war over their shared border in which more than 80,000 people lost their lives.
The official end of hostilities is expected to bring some stability to a part of the world better known for its enduring conflicts, and to a region that abuts one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world even as war rages on in Yemen, just across the Red Sea.
‘No one claims that Isaias, the “hard and rigid” ruler of Eritrea since 1991, has much in the way of new ideas. A nation of about 5.1 million people, Eritrea is the only African country where elections are not held. The entire history of [Isaias] is as a ruthless Marxist-Leninist. Economically, his position has always been: we are completely self-reliant. Is this guy going to become a happy-clappy liberal? It is possible he wants to be Eritrea’s Mandela but seems unlikely,’ says Martin Plaut who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
US President Donald J. Trump met UK Prime Minister Theresa May after publication of an interview in which he criticized May’s handling of Brexit talks and praised her political rival. Trump also said May’s Brexit policy could kill a potential trade deal with the US. He also said that the London Mayor Sadiq Khan has done a ‘terrible job’ with regard to terrorism and crime.
At a press conference following their meeting, both Trump and May expressed their interest in a bilateral free trade agreement following the UK’s exit from the European Union. Trump also disputed that he had criticized May’s leadership. Trump’s comments follow a turbulent week in UK politics, which saw resignations of several members of May’s cabinet, including former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis.
‘Both Brexiters and Trump channelled dissatisfaction with the status quo and capitalized on the emotional draw of a clean break with an established order. But both movements lacked a workable vision of a new order,’ Therese Raphael writes for Bloomberg.
‘There is no gain in treating Trump as ally; his instinct is to keep friends and enemies alike at a similar distance,’ says Thomas Carothers in his piece for Carnegie Europe.
‘Many Brexiteers greeted the referendum by insisting that a competitive Britain — freed from Brussels’s regulatory shackles — would strike deals all over an eager world; there was nothing to fear from the cold, fresh breeze of competition. Instead, Britain faces a protectionist president in the US and a growing world trade war that looks a rather less enticing prospect,’ Robin Oakley states in an article for Foreign Policy.
The Western Australian Liberal Dean Smith says moderating the immigration intake would give Australia ‘time to breathe’ and space to develop a population policy to allow proper planning while maintaining social cohesion. According to him, Australia would reach a population of 25 million in the first week of August, when the first intergenerational report produced by the Howard government forecast Australia hitting 25 million by 2027.
Smith said it was critical that governments ‘maintain public confidence and public endorsement in our population growth benefits’, and moderating current immigration levels would ‘perhaps give ourselves some time to breathe, some time to pause and reflect, to make sure the predictions are the best they can be and, if they are not, let us correct that’.
President Trump and other NATO leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the alliance as they concluded a Brussels summit on Thursday, appearing to bring an end to unusually public tensions over member countries’ defence spending levels.
Trump said that countries have agreed to up their spending and that he now believes the US is being treated ‘fairly’. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said that members had not agreed to increase their commitments beyond current spending targets. The flurry of discussion over spending came after the alliance said it will continue to provide support for the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan through at least 2024.
‘While European defence spending has fallen in recent decades, the US has also drastically reduced its own military commitment to NATO since the Cold War. Europe was largely de-militarized in the 1990s, and every NATO member, including the US, took advantage of it,’ Stephen Sestanovich states in an article for Axios.
‘The two per cent goal relays almost no useful information about what countries spend money on and the value of their purchases in contributing to collective defence. For instance, Greece makes the threshold, but most of its spending is on salaries and pensions,’ Seamus Daniels and Kathleen Hicks opine for War on the Rocks.