Americas

Argument

If Anyone Can Bankrupt the United States, Trump Can

Donald Trump has done the United States a peculiar favor. By campaigning on promises to cut taxes and raise government spending, which economists agree will ...

Voice

Trump Appointments Send an Ominous Signal

What a long, strange week it’s been. The slow-motion nightmare of last Tuesday night as the election results came in is still as fresh as ...

Voice

Could There Be a Peace of Trumphalia?

The big question following Donald Trump’s “victory” in the Electoral College (but not the popular vote) is this: Does he do what he said he ...

Exclusive

Trump Should Tread Carefully With Russia: Top Republican lawmaker

A senior Republican lawmaker has some advice for President-elect Donald Trump on dealing with his Russian counterpart: “proceed with caution.” In an interview with Foreign ...

Best Defense

A word of warning about all these Trump transition stories you are seeing

Journalists have to write stories about people running presidential transitions. It is part of the job description. They are only following orders. But that doesn’t ...

Argument

The Trump Explosion and the Fallout in Mexico

With the stunning victory of Donald Trump, the tremors of the political earthquake in the United States are being felt and absorbed around the world ...

Argument

Donald Trump Will Dramatically Realign America’s Political Parties

By the numbers, the 2016 election was not very different from the 2012 election or the 2008 election. Donald Trump won because he did slightly ...

The Cable

Under Trump, U.S. Allies in Asia May Look to Themselves for Security

For years, American allies in East and Southeast Asia have been quietly preparing to rely less on the United States for regional stability and security. ...

Democracy Lab

Let’s Face It: The U.S. Constitution Needs a Makeover

The experts have been throwing around a lot of numbers in the wake of the U.S. presidential election. But there’s one statistic that hasn’t been ...

The Cable

By the Covers: How the Foreign Press Sees the U.S. Vote

On Tuesday (remember Tuesday?), Foreign Policy’s Elias Groll wrote up what some of the foreign newspaper covers had to say about the American presidential election. ...

Argument

When Corruption Can’t Be Fixed

As President Obama prepares to leave office, his mission to stabilize and reconstruct Afghanistan is failing. Violence has surged as troops have been drawn down. ...

Best Defense

War Dog: Comforting the wounded, 1944

There’s a lot of people feeling wounded this week. Photo credit: ♪_Lisa_♪/Flickr

Report

When Trump Takes Control of the Justice Department, Be Afraid

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump threatened to sue those who crossed him: the scores of women who accused him of sexual assault, the journalists ...

The Cable

Main Street Champion Trump Turns to Wall Street to Fill Treasury Post

President-elect Donald Trump won the White House by promising supporters he was an outsider who was not beholden to special interests on Wall Street. But ...

Argument

Trump Won Because Voters Are Ignorant, Literally

OK, so that just happened. Donald Trump always enjoyed massive support from uneducated, low-information white people. As Bloomberg Politics reported back in August, Hillary Clinton ...

The Cable

Trudeau Tells Trump He’s Ready to Renegotiate NAFTA

Well, Donald Trump did vow to rip up trade deals. It may be starting even before his inauguration. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today ...

Shadow Government

Trade Under Trump

The just-concluded presidential campaigns casted trade in an unflattering spotlight. So what will happen under President-Elect Donald Trump? We have arrived a moment when President Barack ...

Voice

Trump and the Shibboleths

The most optimistic candidate wins. Nobody gets elected running against the troops. There are agreed boundaries of social discourse we would not allow our leaders to ...

Voice

The Plot Against America

Perhaps I shouldn’t be sitting down to write this at midnight. I am, I admit, in a bad state. I can’t help feeling that America ...

Argument

Why a Trump Presidency Might Not Be as Awful as We Fear

In 1777, when Britain received words of the drubbing its forces had suffered at Saratoga to the American rebels, a friend of Adam Smith’s exclaimed ...

Shadow Government

A Good Start

Donald Trump's very first steps as president-elect were about the best that could be hoped for. He gave a gracious acceptance speech, one that included ...

The Cable

On This Day In History the World Watched the Berlin Wall Crumble. Now Will They See Donald Trump’s Wall Rise?

Some 27 years ago today, the world was stunned: On the night of Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall, the living symbol of Cold War divisions, ...

The Cable

Markets Recover From Lows After Unexpected Trump Victory

Donald Trump is president-elect of the United States. Global markets aren’t quite sure what to make of it. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell as ...

Voice

What Happened?

The woman I love — who is much wiser than I will ever be — walked with me through the eerily quiet streets of Manhattan ...

Shadow Government

Can Donald Trump Be a Good President?

Donald Trump shocked the pundit class, the media, Washington, D.C., the United States, the world, and yours truly tonight. We were wrong about Trump’s electoral ...

Argument

China Just Won The U.S. Election

The election of Donald Trump will be a disaster for anyone who cares about human rights, U.S. global leadership, and media freedom. That means it’s ...

The Cable

Surprise: Canada’s Immigration Site Has Crashed

Aaand the Canadian immigration website is down for the count. Apparently the poor thing just couldn’t keep up with anxious Americans grasping late Tuesday for ...

The Cable

Prospect of a Trump Win Send Global Markets Into Tailspin

Global economic indicators are beginning to tremble at the thought that Republican Donald Trump could pull off the improbable and win the American presidency. The ...

Report

If Clinton Wins, Her Hawkish Wings Will Be Clipped

Hillary Clinton appeared poised to win the presidency on Tuesday after a bitterly divisive campaign in which she vowed to take a tougher stand against ...

Voice

What Kind of President Will Hillary Clinton Be?

George W. Bush believed in the magic of America. Barack Obama believed in the magic of his message. Hillary Clinton does not believe in magic. ...

The Cable

French Women Walked out of the Office Early to Protest the Pay Gap. What If American Women Did the Same?

Liberté, égalité, equal pay. On Monday, the French groups Les Glorieuses, Les Effrontées, and Osez le Féminisme organized a nationwide workplace walkout by women ...

Argument

Donald Trump’s Peace Through Strength Vision for the Asia-Pacific

In 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced with great fanfare in Foreign Policy that the United States would begin a military “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific. This beating ...

The Cable

Could Hillary the Hawk Have a Dove to Thank for Control of the Senate?

Wisconsin, of all places, attracted a heaping helping of star power in the waning days of the 2016 election. And while Republicans hope the state ...

Argument

The United States Needs a Post-Election Peace Plan

For the first time in its modern history, the United States is going to need a post-election reconciliation plan — something typically reserved for countries ...

Argument

This Lifetime GOP Voter Is With Her

Every four years since 1988, I have voted for the Republican presidential candidate. That streak will now be broken. For the first time in my ...

Argument

Nicaraguan Voters Are Getting Ready to Follow Daniel Ortega’s Script

People in the United States are understandably preoccupied with certain domestic matters at the moment. It’s a pity, though, that they aren’t paying attention to ...

Shadow Government

From Now On, Let’s Hold Intelligence Briefings After the Election

Next Wednesday, or shortly thereafter, the U.S. president-elect will sit down with the leaders of our intelligence community to review global hotspots, inventory current threats, ...

The Cable

Shoving Matches Break Out as Japan Ratifies TPP

U.S. President Barack Obama is desperate to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal among a dozen Pacific nations, before he leaves office. Japan ...

The Cable

What, Pray Tell, Is Mexico’s Donald Trump Contingency Plan?

Mexico Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens is nothing if not prepared. So he says, anyway. Late Wednesday, Carstens announced on Mexican television, "If the adverse ...

Shadow Government

Venezuela’s “Dialogue” Delusion

Under fire both domestically and internationally for its decision to arbitrarily cancel a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan government has pirouetted out ...

The Cable

Nervous World Markets Signal a Real Possibility of a Trump Win

Six days ahead of the U.S. presidential election, and with Republican nominee Donald Trump surging in the polls, world markets are getting a bout of ...

Shadow Government

No Time to Lose: Why the Next President Must Move Quickly to Reassert U.S. Power

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. That’s true in life, of course. But it’s also an adage that the next ...

The Cable

China Chides Trump for Vow to Abandon Paris Climate Agreement

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has promised to pull out of the Paris climate accord, an agreement that comes into effect this Friday among almost ...

Argument

President Trump Would Be a Disaster for Women in the Military

The culture of the U.S. military fundamentally represents who we are as a people and what we value as a nation. Sworn to defend the ...

The Cable

Washington Redskins Fumble the Transatlantic Relationship

The NFL is having a bad year. The quality of play is down. Fewer people are watching games. Concussions remain a major worry. To combat ...

The Cable

FBI Is Reviewing New Emails in Clinton’s Private Email Case

Just when Hillary Clinton thought the controversy over her use of private emails was done, the FBI has pulled her back in. FBI Director James ...

The Cable

Prosecutor: Putin’s Former Press Secretary Died in D.C. Hotel Because He Was Drunk

It was a story straight out of the Cold War, or a John le Carré novel. Mikhail Lesin, 57, former press minister to Russian President ...

Yelp Opens Its East Coast Headquarters In New York City

Passport

These 1-Star Yelp Reviews of Embassies Make Us Question the Future of Diplomacy

For every time you may have traveled internationally and been irritated by some visa problem you encountered along the way, there are people who had ...

The Cable

Putin Denies Trump Support Before Heaping Praise On the GOP Nominee

American officials have accused Russian-backed hackers of trying to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election by leaking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails. On ...

Dispatch