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When organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the Heritage Foundation declare that Trump’s tariffs are a bad idea, they are on solid intellectual ground: All, and I mean all, economic experts agree. But they don’t have any credibility, because these same conservative institutions have spent decades making war on expertise.

it’s hard to pivot from “pay no attention to those so-called experts who say the planet is warming” to “protectionism is bad — all the experts agree.”

Similarly, organizations like Heritage have long promoted supply-side economics, a.k.a., voodoo economics — the claim that tax cuts will produce huge growth and pay for themselves — even though no economic experts agree. So they’ve already accepted the principle that it’s O.K. to talk economic nonsense if it’s politically convenient. Now comes Trump with different nonsense, saying “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” How can they convince anyone that his nonsense is bad, while theirs was good?

Much worse and scarier things may lie ahead, because Trump isn’t just a protectionist, he’s an authoritarian. Trade wars are nasty; unchecked power is much worse, and not just for those who are poor and powerless.

The point is that it’s not just world trade that’s at risk, but the rule of law. And it’s at risk in part because big businesses abandoned all principle in the pursuit of tax cuts.

Too many powerful interest groups have too much of a stake in the status quo for Beijing’s policy makers to force wrenching changes on the Chinese economy. But absent major reforms, the danger of a serious economic shock is growing.

China’s problems today are following this pattern. Pakistan, the largest recipient of BRI financing, thinks the terms are unfair and wants to renegotiate. Malaysia, the second largest BRI target, wants to scale back its participation since pro-China politicians were swept out of office. Myanmar and Nepal have canceled BRI projects. After Sri Lanka was forced to grant China a 99-year lease on the Hambantota Port to repay Chinese loans, countries across Asia and Africa started rereading the fine print of their contracts, muttering about unequal treaties.

But as Lenin observed a century ago, the attempt to export overcapacity to avoid chaos at home can lead to conflict abroad. He predicted rival empires would clash over markets, but other dynamics also make this strategy hazardous. Nationalist politicians resist “development” projects that saddle their countries with huge debts to the imperialist power. As a result, imperialism is a road to ruin.

The Belt and Road Initiative was designed to sustain continued expansion in the absence of serious economic reform. Chinese merchants, bankers and diplomats combed the developing world for markets and infrastructure projects to keep China Inc. solvent. In a 2014 article in the South China Morning Post, a Chinese official said one objective of the BRI is the “transfer of overcapacity overseas.”

China’s chief problem isn’t U.S. resistance to its rise. It is that the internal dynamics of its economic system force its rulers to choose between putting China through a wrenching and destabilizing economic adjustment, or else pursuing an expansionist development policy that will lead to conflict and isolation abroad

that with the right economic policies, a mix of rising purchasing power and international economic integration can transcend the imperialist dynamics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But unless China can learn from those examples, it will remain caught in the “Lenin trap”

“During the recent offensive, fighting, which is literally hot work, was hotter than usual, and the men on the firing line suffered great discomforts. Humorous as these pictures appear to be, it should be noted that they represent scenes right up at the front where the men were in danger of being killed while enjoying their baths. That is why they were still wearing their steel helmets, and not to produce a comic effect.”

An imminent free-trade deal between Japan and the European Union will add substance to her rhetoric (see article).

Mr Trump has grasped an inconvenient truth. He has admonished Germany for its trade surplus, which stood at almost $300bn last year, the world’s largest (China’s hoard was a mere $200bn).

put a stop to sales of German cars—may be self-defeating, but the fact is that Germany saves too much and spends too little.

this is not the result of a mercantilist government policy, as some foreigners complain.

the increase in national saving has come from firms and the government.

It is an instinct that helps explain Germany’s transformation since the late 1990s from Europe’s sick man to today’s muscle-bound champion.

There is much to envy in Germany’s model. Harmony between firms and workers has been one of the main reasons for the economy’s outperformance.

This is one reason why the populist AfD party remains on the fringes of German politics.

Exporters do not invest their windfall profits at home. And Germany is not alone; Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands have been piling up big surpluses, too.

For a large economy at full employment to run a current-account surplus in excess of 8% of GDP puts unreasonable strain on the global trading system.

Perhaps Germany’s bumper trade surplus will be eroded as China’s was, by a surge in wages.

the German instinct for caution is deeply rooted.

Germany’s structural budget balance has gone from a deficit of over 3% of GDP in 2010 to a small surplus.

The economy lags behind in its readiness for digitalisation, ranking 25th in the world in average download speeds.

Above all, it is long past time for Germany to recognise that its excessive saving is a weakness.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned "nobody wins" in a trade war, saying it would harm global economic growth.

n the three subsequent FISA renewals, the Justice Department provided information "obtained through multiple independent sources" that corroborated parts of what Steele reported about Page, the memo states, though many details of that section are redacted.

He said those convicted of killing just one person in shootings and stabbings at times face the death penalty or life in prison without parole. But, he said, someone can "kill 5,000 people with drugs because you're smuggling them in and you're making a lot of money and people are dying," and go without serious punishment.

"Our new slogan, when we start running, in -- can you believe it, two years from now -- is going to be, Keep America Great, exclamation point," Trump said.

the administration is gradually making the program a little more restrictive overall. (This appears to have had little impact thus far on the number of people who have applied for H-1Bs—as Bloomberg Law noted, more than 201,000 people put in for the 85,000 visas issued this year, a 6 percent increase over the previous year’s figures.)

in the Immigration Act of 1990. That original legislation did two things: It expanded legal immigration by increasing the number of green cards awarded each year, and it updated a 1950s-era program for temporary workers of “distinguished merit and ability” by capping the number who could obtain the visa at 65,000. (The cap has varied over the years.) This new program, the H-1B, was designed for skilled, temporary workers in certain occupations.

what came next: the global tech boom and the birth of the outsourcing industry. Suddenly, what had begun as a temporary solution to address a labor shortage became a device through which hundreds of thousands of IT professionals from around the world, especially India, came to the United States. The program became a de facto path to permanent residence and, ultimately, American citizenship.

Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., who studies the impact of the visa, says the H-1B prioritizes outsourcers, sets wages too low, and doesn’t address the problem it was created to solve—filling labor-market gaps.“The program has been flawed from the inception,” he told me. “My primary complaint is that it’s used for cheap indentured workers.”

cation process is expensive, costing upwards of $2,400 (not counting lawyer’s fees), and has become cumbersome, they argue, so no American company would voluntarily seek to hire a foreign worker when simply hiring an American one is far easier.

Previous administrations tried to walk the line between these competing interests, but the Trump administration, through its actions, is making the H-1B far more difficult to get—especially for Indian software companies, whose visa applications were rejected in record numbers last year.

all of the changes so far to the existing system have introduced an atmosphere of uncertainty for people like Mahoney-Steel. Johns Hopkins decided not to seek to renew her visa. She told me that her supervisors were trying to rewrite her job description, but that the position she occupied was deemed by her employers too generic to be a specialized skill.

Filling in more details of an ambitious multi-part strategy Macron floated at Tuesday’s White House news conference, the French president said he is trying to create a new, smaller coalition to build on the JCPOA and make the nuclear ban permanent, ban Iran’s ballistic missile program, and contain Iran’s aggression in Syria, ultimately leading to political negotiations to end the civil war.

And on Friday, Germany’s Angela Merkel will meet with Trump for a few hours to add support for Macron's arguments to Trump on Iran, steel and aluminum tariffs and Syria policy.

"All I can tell you is we didn't initiate this discussion," Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, told NPR's Ari Shapiro on Tuesday before Jackson withdrew his nomination. "This discussion came when we were notified by folks who work with Adm. Jackson, folks in the military."

Shulkin had clashed with other administration officials and says he was pushed out by people who wanted to privatize VA health care and allow big corporations to profit from treating veterans. Shulkin's critics say ethics problems did him in.

As if he were teasing the next episode of a reality TV show, though, he wouldn't give a name, saying only that it will be "somebody with political capabilities."

In a December New York Times interview, Trump claimed that "[We lost] $17 billion with Canada — Canada says we broke even. But they don't include lumber and they don't include oil. Oh, that's not. ... [Inaudible] ... My friend Justin [Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister] he says, 'No, no, we break even.' I said, 'Yeah, but you're not including oil, and you're not including lumber.' When you do, you lose $17 billion, and with the other one, we're losing $71 billion."

President Trump, who was critical of China’s trade practices well before he entered the White House, appeared unperturbed about the possibility of a trade war. He asserted Wednesday the annual $500 billion U.S. trade deficit with China means “you can’t lose,” and that intellectual-property theft was costing the U.S. another $300 billion.

At the moment though, American consumers needn’t worry, Kennedy said, because “the products that the Americans have put penalties on and those that the Chinese have responded with aren’t primarily products that American consumers are going to miss on their shelves.”

But, he added, the trade threats initially resulted in a broad decline in U.S —and global—stock markets. “The primary way American consumers are going to feel pain in the short terms is in their portfolios,” Kennedy said. “So, it’ll affect folks’ savings, and that, in turn, affects their discretionary spending. So it’s that indirect effect that in the short term has the bigger effect.”

The U.S. and China need each other. Trade between the two countries was worth $648.5 billion in 2016. And the trade dispute could ultimately affect companies like Apple, which makes its iPhone in China. Tech companies not only need China to make their products, but also China’s massive consumer market to sell them.

onaway said he hopes to conclude the House Intelligence Committee probe quickly, talk that angers Democrats who believe Republicans are trying to rush the panel’s investigation to a premature conclusion. "The sooner I can get this thing done, the better," he said. "The American people deserve an answer to these questions."

Democrats were also furious earlier this month when Grassley, joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), suggested the FBI consider criminal charges against the author of the Fusion GPS dossier, Christopher Steele, whom they said may have lied to federal officials. Feinstein had been especially angry about the move, and many observers believed her decision to release Simpson’s transcript was an act of payback that suggested a downward spiral for the committee’s leading members. Another Democrat on the intelligence panel, Ron Wyden, offered a more direct warning Thursday as he pushed back against "this idea that gets bandied about" that the committee's Russia investigation should wind down by any certain date.

The Oregon Democrat insisted that Trump’s son-in-law and eldest son should make return appearances before the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer what he called unresolved questions about the Trump organization's finances. “For me, I’m going to push back with everything I have if somebody tries to say this is over without Jared Kushner or Donald Trump Jr. coming to the committee to answer questions,” Wyden said.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘trade war,’ but I can’t say how this wouldn’t be warlike behavior.”

Promising to “defend European jobs,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said

that it would retaliate against any metals tariffs, saying it had put together a package of penalties that would affect a total of $3.5 billion in U.S. exports, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and denim

The U.S. imported $20.5 billion in German passenger cars in 2017. The U.S. charges tariffs of 2.5% on most cars from countries with which it doesn’t have a free-trade agreement, and 25% on pickup trucks. The EU has a tariff of 10% on car imports under WTO rules.

Mr. Trump on Saturday also criticized the global goods deficit of more than $800 billion that the U.S. ran up last year, faulting the nation’s “very stupid” trade deals. “Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years.

It remains unclear which countries may be hit by the metals tariffs. The president said he would provide more details next week.

he said. Shares in BMW, along with Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG , fell in the wake of Mr. Trump’s comments. Mr. Trump didn’t follow through on that threat.

Canada said tariffs would cause disruption on both sides of the border. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slammed the tariffs as "absolutely unacceptable".He told reporters in Ontario he was "confident we're going to continue to be able to defend Canadian industry".It is one of several countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Japan, that have said they will consider retaliatory steps if the president presses ahead with his plan next week.

Most countries believe that negotiations are best carried out and disputes settled through a rules-based system. Introducing trade barriers on a tit-for-tat basis has the potential to harm companies on both sides.

“This is par for the course,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a supporter of the president who is writing a book about Trump’s America.

Gingrich said the normal concerns that presidents and other politicians have about their legacies and reputations don’t seem to apply to Trump

Former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana legislator David Duke said on Twitter that the president “restores a lot of love in us by saying blunt but truthful things that no other President in our lifetime would dare say!”

Last March, at a meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Trump asked his guests if they knew Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, the only African American in his Cabinet, NBC News reported Friday, citing sources who were in the room.

Steele called it “disappointing as hell” that Republicans in Congress have not had “a more forceful rhetorical response to the president

But since the mid 1990s research journals and books that are multi-regional or global in scope are common. Jared Diamond’s provocative Guns, Germs, and Steelis the best known. Accordingly, new textbooks have incorporated the major arguments from this research into their pages. So has the high school course that gives college credit - Advanced Placement World History.  

The creators of the proposed world history standards for Massachusetts have chosen to ignore these changes in the field of world history.

To put it in a US history context, this would be like teaching the history of the New England states to 1945, followed by the Mid-Atlantic states to 1945 so on and so forth and then having a majority of the course before and after 1945 focus on those two regions. This would not fly in a US history course. The regional approach could not work in an AP World History course. Yet, somehow in the Massachusetts standards it miraculously persists. 

The result of teaching a not so world history where “civilizations” don’t meet until 1800, where a student can take an entire course (World History I c. 500CE-1800CE) and not see any documents outside of the Western Civilization canon, and finally where the global era is much too focused on the West will lead to students who see the world from outdated, Eurocentric, and racist views. And the fault of this would be the standards makers and the teachers who teach them. We can do better. We need to do better. 

Although many of the world’s other leaders have expressed their disappointment with Trump’s decision, they have also underscored their commitment to solving the problem of global warming, with or without American participation

To date there are only two other countries that have not yet signed on to the Paris Agreement: Syria and Nicaragua. Syria, which remains in the throes of a destructive civil war, noted that it was not in a position to sign such agreements because of ongoing sanctions from Western countries. The government of Nicaragua, however, refused to sign on for different reasons. Nicaragua believes that the Paris Agreement does not go far enough to reduce emissions, arguing that wealthy countries such as the United States should have been forced to make deeper commitments.