Signal: Politics is garbage — Abe and Trump — Syrian geometry
Originally published by Ian Bremmer on LinkedIn: Signal: Politics is garbage — Abe and Trump — Syrian geometry
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THE GREAT ESCAPE? TRUMP AND ABE AT MAR-A-LAGO
Today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Donald Trump. The chance to commiserate over their shared love of golf and koi fish couldn’t come at a better time. Trump is reeling from an investigation of his personal lawyer and bracing himself for a battering of a book release, while Abe is embroiled in a corruption scandal that has sent his poll numbers tumbling to record lows. But relations between the US and Japan have been testy lately, and Trump’s distrust of America’s closest Asian ally goes back decades.
As Abe touches down in Florida, my fellow Signalista Gabe Lipton (@gflipton) sees three areas to watch:
Tariffs: Japan is the only major US ally that didn’t win an exemption to the Trump administration’s new steel and aluminum tariffs. The White House wants to use that as leverage to reduce the trade deficit between the two countries ($55 billion in Japan’s favor in 2016). So long as Abe can present concessions — for example, on autos or currency manipulation — that allows The Donald a “Tweetable” win, this is the area where we’re most likely to see some progress.
Trade Deals: President Trump pulled out of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) in his first days in office, dealing a blow to Japan both economically (about 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030) and politically — Abe had stuck his neck out in order to reach a domestically unpopular deal that Trump then blew up. When it comes to trade deals, the two countries simply aren’t aligned: Japan wants the US back in TPP, while Trump seeks a bilateral free trade agreement that gives Washington more leverage. So while both sides will try to pitch deeper economic cooperation, they have different visions of what that means.
North Korea: The most important issue for the Japanese prime minister will be making sure his voice is heard in any diplomacy between the US and North Korea. So far, the Trump administration has largely shut Japan out of its overtures to Pyongyang. A nightmare scenario for Abe would be a US-North Korea agreement that rids Kim of the long-range missiles that can hit the US, while allowing him to keep short and medium-range weapons that threaten Japan.
Deadly Sand Traps: On the other hand, high politics aside, not falling into a sand-trap would also be a basic win for Prime Minister Abe this time around.
SYRIAN GEOMETRY
As you are doubtless aware, over the weekend the US, France, and UK launched more than 100 cruise missiles at Syrian chemical weapons facilities in response to allegations that the Assad regime had used these weapons just days earlier.
What did they achieve?
The US-led operation imposed a distinct cost on the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program and sent a signal that the US is prepared to use force in certain circumstances to enforce the chemical weapons ban. Syria, after all, had signed it back in 2013.
But because of (very good) concerns about accidentally engaging Russians stationed alongside Syrian forces, the strikes stopped short of a broader barrage that would have shaken Assad’s grip on power or changed the strategic balance between his regime and the remaining rebel forces.
As a result, the longer-term deterrent effect on the Syrian regime (or others) is unclear. Assad may gamble on their use again if he figures the only thing he stands to lose again is his chemicals, rather than his grip on power. With Assad’s regime likely to set its sights on the remaining rebel strongholds in Idlib province before long, that calculus may soon matter.
More broadly, the strikes leave open the question of what, exactly, the Trump administration’s wider strategy is in Syria. The US lacks the troop presence or diplomatic sway to affect the broader course of the war or any peace that follows. The troops currently in Syria have been leading a fight against ISIS east of the Euphrates river, while Russia and Iran are still the bosses in the West.
Now, with ISIS largely routed, Trump has said he wants to pull out of Syria (see Willis’ fair assessment of that option here.) But both he and his national security advisor John Bolton also view Iran as public enemy number one in the Middle East. To bring the troops home without opening the way for ISIS or Iran is a tough circle to square. Cruise missiles are only so good at geometry.
COMEY-TRUMP: THE MOVIE!
You’ve read the excerpts. You’ve seen the interviews. Now, live the magic of the Comey-Trump saga, as imagined in this stirring new film from GZERO Media.
GLOBAL GARBAGE TIME
For several months now, residents of half a dozen towns near Moscow have been protesting against the local government, and the reason is total garbage. Literally. Toxic fumes from local landfills have sent dozens to the hospital and hundreds into the streets. In a country where nearly 90 percent of people say they’d never protest anything, that’s a big deal. But it reflects a broader global trend: global politics is littered with trash these days.
Countries as far afield as Colombia, India, Ghana, the Kurdish Regional Government, and Italy have all recently seen protest or political intrigue about whether the garbage is being picked up and/or where it’s being dropped off. In Lebanon, a trash crisis back in 2015 even gave rise to a national opposition movement called “You Stink” which is looking to shape upcoming legislative elections.
Trash is, in a sense, inherently political. Removing a society’s waste is a basic public service and uncollected trash is an immediate visual — and olfactory — signal that the social contract either doesn’t exist or has broken down. When piles of uncollected trash stifled Naples in 2008 , the Neapolitan novelist Elena Ferrante wrote that it had exposed “the precariousness of every sort of order.”
Setting and preserving that order is only going to get harder in the coming years as poor and developing countries continue to grow. Greater prosperity, urbanization, and consumption all mean more trash as well. The UN says low income cities in Africa and Asia will produce twice as much waste in the next two decades as they do now. Latin America’s trash output is set to rise 60% over the same period.
This puts governments — particularly local ones in emerging economies — in a tough spot: increased prosperity simultaneously generates more waste while also fomenting broader expectations about governments’ ability to perform basic services like waste collection. Globally speaking, it’s garbage time for governments.
Puppet Regime: Face to Face
MALAYSIA ELECTION: MALAISE OR MÊLÉES?
Malaysia, the advertisement croons softly, it’s truly Asia. The southeast Asian nation’s tourism board has long sold its ethnic mix as one of its most alluring traits. But as the country heads for national elections next month, that diversity has taken on a more divisive quality.
Prime Minister Najib Razak is seeking re-election despite his implication in a billion-dollar graft scandal involving the country’s state development fund. He faces an increasingly firm opposition led by jailed former Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and 92-year old former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, the authoritarian “father of modern Malaysia” who was once Najib’s mentor.
Only gerrymandering helped Najib’s UMNO coalition stay in power in 2013, despite losing the popular vote. This time around he’s taking fewer chances. He chose an election date that trims the campaign season to barely a month, giving him maximal advantages. The government has also ordered Mahathir’s party to dissolve, citing a registration technicality.
But most worryingly, Najib has played up the country’s ethnic divisions, pledging to extend affirmative action benefits for the country’s disproportionately poor ethnic Malay majority, and implicitly stoking tensions with a relatively well-off Chinese minority. He has also courted a once-hostile hardline Islamist party in order to profit from the growing appeal of conservative Islam in some parts of the country.
Malaysia’s economic prosperity and relative peace have always been something of an example to its neighbors in Southeast Asia. But as nationalist and sectarian politics begin to stir elsewhere in the region — Indonesia in particular — Najib’s victory may be a bellwether for a different sort of (truly) Asia.
DOES FACEBOOK NEED A SEC’Y OF STATE?
Last week, all eyes were on Facebook’s problems in the United States, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress about privacy lapses and election meddling. But as fellow Signalista @kevinallison points out, only a small minority of the social network’s 2 billion-plus monthly active users are American.
That means Facebook has to navigate an increasingly patchwork world of national regulations and popular expectations about privacy and content. And while building community is Zuck’s strong suit, diplomacy certainly isn’t. Here’s Kevin’s non-exhaustive list of Facebook’s other big foreign flaps at the moment.
Europe: The EU is already way ahead of the US on regulation. Firm privacy laws are about to get even stricter next month, imposing heavy fines on companies that mistreat users’ data. In addition, Facebook faces national-level German and UK investigations into the Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Topping it all off, a US-EU data sharing agreements that Facebook relies on to store data is on increasingly shaky legal ground.
Indonesia: The world’s fourth most populous country recently threatened to ban Facebook unless the company gets a handle on privacy and “fake news.” The government may be worried in particular about squelching fake accusations about President Joko Widodo’s alleged communist sympathies ahead of next year’s elections. Either way, Zuckerberg’s got a big content management problem in a huge market.
Myanmar: Facebook has come under fire from both UN investigators and local activists for serving as a platform for anti-Muslim hate speech that has helped fuel genocidal violence against the country’s Rohingya minority. A personal apology from Zuck (his specialty!) has done little to quell the uproar.
Cambodia: Facebook is coping with allegations from an exiled opposition leader that strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen has used the social network (where he somehow has amassed nearly twice as many followers as Cambodia has people) to “deceive Cambodia’s electorate and to commit human rights abuses,” as part of a broader crackdown on the political opposition and media.
GRAPHIC TRUTH: IF FACEBOOK WERE A COUNTRY
Facebook is a global platform that is increasingly running up against the prerogatives of national governments. But what if the company’s users were its own “citizens.” How would Facebook-istan stack up population-wise against other countries large and small?
BIG STORIES IN SMALL COUNTRIES: MACEDONIA(S) EDITION
For nearly three decades now, a tiny Balkan country north of Greece has been fighting with Athens over something very basic: its own name. The country in question — known internationally as the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” — wishes to be known simply as “Macedonia.” But the Greeks object — they say that would imply a territorial claim on the northern Greek region of the same name.
As a result, Athens has consistently blocked the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s” path to joining both the EU and NATO.
In recent weeks, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (pictured above) and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev have signaled the possibility of a deal that hinges on a modified version of “Macedonia.”
Both Washington and Brussels would love a breakthrough here — they see the country’s accession to the EU and NATO as a boon to Balkan stability and a bulwark against Russia’s growing influence in the region.
For Tsipras a deal would curry favor with Brussels at an opportune moment. Athens is about to exit its financial bailout plan but still has to negotiate next steps with the EU. And being in Washington’s good graces ought to help him as tensions with perennial foe Turkey continue to rise.
But Greeks are overwhelmingly opposed to any concessions to Macedonia, as is Tsipras’ nationalist coalition partner. Mishandling the issue could backfire terribly.
Alas, if only Alexander the Great (of Macedon!) had held his empire together — none of this would matter.
HARD NUMBERS
10,000: Tomorrow, China will hold live-fire naval drills in the Taiwan Strait that include 10,000 people, 48 ships and submarines, and 76 fighter jets. The drills, China’s largest ever, are sure to further inflame already-rising tensions with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers part of China.
5,000: Venezuela’s acute political and humanitarian crisis is now driving out some 5,000 refugees a day, according to the UN. At that rate, some 1.8 million people — or more than 5 per cent of Venezuela’s population — will depart this year. They are straining the ability of neighboring countries like Brazil and Colombia to cope, in ways that could become politically significant soon.
68: Back in the late 1980s, some 68 percent of Americans polled said they thought that the world’s leading economic power was… Japan. Only a quarter said the US was top dog, even though the US economy was almost twice as large as Japan’s at the time. Today, 44 percent of Americans give that title to China, while 42 percent say the US still rules the roost (Japan clocks in at a modest 4 percent.)
11: The share of Russians who view the US positively has fallen 11 points to just 26 percent since Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Despite early hopes that Trump would improve US-Russia ties, his administration and Congress have hit Moscow with several rafts of fresh sanctions. Meanwhile, 70 percent of Russians view China positively.
2: Only two subgroups of voters currently favor President Trump’s threatened tariffs on China: non college-educated whites and rural voters, according to a new poll. Trade policy is always about tradeoffs — and Trump’s tariff approach is designed to appeal directly to the base of voters that put him in office and who, he hopes, will keep him there in 2020.
This edition of Signal was written by Alex Kliment (@saosasha) and prepared with editorial support from Kevin Allison (@KevinAllison), Leon Levy (@leonmlevy) and Gabe Lipton (@Gflipton). Spiritual counsel from Willis Sparks.
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