WPR Daily Review

"Trump's tariff plans should stay in the history books."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 25 October 2024, 2006 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).

 

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October 25, 2024

Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering Donald Trump’s love of tariffs and the vulnerabilities threatening Ghana’s democracy.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a meeting during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao, China, June 10, 2018 (AP photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko).

India-China: The two countries have begun implementing a pact agreed to earlier this week to wind down the military standoff along their disputed border. Troops from both sides began pulling back from the last two remaining flashpoints where they had stood face-to-face since a deadly skirmish in 2020. (Reuters)

Our Take: India and China’s border has been undelimited for decades, but had remained relatively quiet until Chinese President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, after which Beijing began to deepen its presence on disputed territory. Still, it wasn’t until a skirmish in April 2020 left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead that the issue became a full-blown standoff. And since then, bilateral relations have been significantly hampered.

As a result, this deal represents a major development for both sides, paving the way for Xi and Indian PM Narendra Modi to hold their first formal talks in five years at the annual BRICS summit earlier this week. Neither India nor China has made the details of the pact public, but even a withdrawal to pre-2020 troop positions removes a substantial obstacle to repairing ties between two major powers in the region.

For Modi, the pact also puts to rest what had become a domestic weakness for him. In keeping with his nationalist brand, Modi has projected himself as a champion of a strong India in international affairs. But after promising a robust response to the skirmish in 2020, Modi had in many ways taken great care not to overly antagonize Beijing. New Delhi did freeze inward investment from China, ban some Chinese-origin apps—including TikTok—as security threats and suspend direct flights between the two countries. But hardliners in India have continued to criticize what they saw as a demonstration of weakness, even as Modi sought to keep the issue out of the spotlight.

Meanwhile, for China, the agreement represents a welcome offramp from what had become a distracting irritant in bilateral relations. And although it does not solve the broader territorial dispute with India—one of a half-dozen undelimited borders for Beijing—it does lower the temperature on a standoff that risked flaring up at any moment.

Moreover, for Beijing, this deal is also a boost to its regional soft power. Under Xi, China has more aggressively pressed its territorial claims, most notably in the South China Sea and in the waters around Taiwan. But that strategy has come at a cost, as its regional neighbors increasingly distrust Beijing, driving a number of regional powers—including India—to pursue closer security ties with Washington. Having been perceived as the aggressor in the June 2020 skirmish, China has now burnished its credentials as a good-faith partner in negotiations that could also restore at least some of its lost trust with other regional governments.

As for bilateral relations, even if they have not yet been fully normalized, the thaw opens the door to deeper engagement between the two powers in ways that have implications for global politics. Of course, it’s not a silver bullet for solving the other aspects of the India-China relationship that are inherently tense, like economic competition and New Delhi’s ties with the West. But it does show that the two countries are capable of managing their tensions, which is significant.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is a self-described “Tariff Man.” Time and time again while he was in office from 2017 to 2021, regardless of the foreign policy question, Trump turned to tariffs and trade restrictions as the answer.

In his campaign for this year’s U.S. presidential election, Trump seems to be doubling—and perhaps even tripling or quadrupling—down on the tariff tool. If elected, Trump has proposed imposing at least a 10 percent tariff on all U.S. trade partners. He has said that tariffs “are the greatest thing ever invented” and described “tariff” as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

Why exactly does Trump love tariffs so much? Columnist Paul Poast digs into that question, and explores what Trump’s tariff policies would mean for the United States:

Trump’s Big Tariff Plans Should Stay in the History Books By Paul Poast If he wins the U.S. election, Donald Trump will try to return U.S. trade policy to the 1800s. A lot has changed in the world since then.

*****

On Dec. 7, Ghanaians will go to the polls to vote for a president and 175 members of the national legislature. While there are 39 aspirants for the highest office, the real contest will be between the two political parties that have alternately run the country since the end of military rule in 1993.

Regardless of which one of them wins, Ghana will be heralded in Western capitals as a rare “model democracy” in West Africa, a region whose democracies are currently suffering from a series of coups and long-standing insurgencies.

In some ways, this is understandable and deserved. Ghana’s two leading parties have a solid record of peaceful transfers of power between them since the return of democracy. However, under the surface, fragility fueled by Ghana’s political and electoral system is threatening the foundations of the country’s democracy.

James Courtright, Paul N.K. Aborampah-Mensah and Kars de Bruijne write:

Ghana’s Democracy Is More Vulnerable Than It Looks By James Courtright Ghana is lauded in the West for its stable democracy. But under the surface, fragility is threatening the country’s democratic foundations.

In a WPR briefing this week on Hamas’ prospects, Khaled Hroub described a possible scenario in which Hamas emerges from the war in Gaza as a “disarmed” and “nonmilitary organization” that functions as a “political-religious movement similar to other Islamist parties in the region.”

This week, we asked: Should a demilitarized Hamas be allowed to participate in an eventual postwar governance plan for Gaza?

The results? 52% of respondents said “No,” compared to 48% who said “Yes.”

Three Indian soldiers and two civilians were killed yesterday in a rebel ambush in India-controlled Kashmir, officials said. Rebels reportedly attacked a military vehicle carrying troops near the militarized line of control that divides the territory between India and Pakistan.

Violence in Kashmir had seemingly declined after 2019, when the Indian government stripped the region of its semi-autonomous rule, but recent months have seen a rise in militant attacks there. As Shweta Desai wrote last year, the apparent post-2019 calm had been enforced by an extraordinary level of state surveillance and intimidation, making it inherently unsustainable.

India’s Crackdown in Kashmir Has Brought Calm, but Not Peace By Shweta Desai Jan. 18, 2023 | India’s BJP government is cracking down on Jammu and Kashmir after revoking Article 370, thereby removing its semi-autonomous status.

*****

At the summit of Commonwealth leaders, King Charles of Britain acknowledged the “painful aspects” of the country’s history, repeating a phrase he commonly uses to refer to the U.K.’s colonial past. Many leaders at the summit, which is largely made up of former British colonies, have called on the U.K. to directly issue an apology for colonization and slavery, and to engage in discussions about reparations.

Many European dignitaries now follow a familiar script—in Charles’ case, quite literally—when engaging with former colonies: apologies and expressions of “regret,” followed by a desire to “turn the page.” As Chris O. Ògúnmọ́dẹdé wrote in 2022, this language does little to respond to the growing desire in postcolonial states for former colonial powers to take more significant steps toward restorative justice for historical and contemporary grievances.

Belgium’s King Followed the European Script for His Congo Visit By Chris Olaoluwa Ògúnmọ́dẹdé June 17, 2022 | King Philippe’s “landmark” six-day visit to Congo was characterized by Brussels as an attempt to grapple with its brutal colonial past.

Election Results

Daniel Chapo won Mozambique’s presidential election, according to the national electoral commission. The opposition disputed the results, which extend the ruling party’s 49 years in power.

Upcoming Elections

Georgia votes tomorrow in parliamentary elections. The result could play a pivotal role in whether the country moves closer to joining the EU—as the vast majority of Georgians want—or not.

Japan votes Sunday in parliamentary elections. The snap vote was called by new PM Ishiba Shigeru, who took office earlier this month after winning the ruling party’s leadership election. His party now faces its toughest electoral test in a decade.

Bulgarians head to the polls Sunday for the country’s seventh general election in three years. Read about Bulgaria’s fraught media environment, which could worsen based on Sunday’s results, in this recent briefing by Viktoria Ivanova.

Uruguay votes in the first round of a presidential election Sunday. Read about the implications of the vote, which will result in a new president due to term limits, in this breakdown by Laurence Blair from July.

More from WPR

Carolyn Nash on the dark past of Indonesia’s new president. Yanliang Pan and Miles A. Pomper on the U.S. nuclear energy revival. Alberto Tagliapietra on Italy’s migration policies. Alexander Clarkson on geopolitical paralysis in the Middle East.

Read all of our latest coverage here.

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