President Trump vs. the West: Iconic picture out of the G7 summit, Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, June 8-9, 2018. The US President Donald Trump will be completing his first term with foreign-policy legacies, which, even detractors must grudgingly admit, are game-changing for world politics. Debris of monumental proportions surrounds him — Paris Accord on …
Trump’s China policy at a cul-de-sac
US President Donald Trump (R) and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (L) after signing the US-China trade deal, Washington, Jan. 15, 2020 This past week has been a catastrophic seven days that shook America. Some of the debris may have inevitably fallen on President Donald Trump too. Most important, the Trump administration has lost …
Covid-19 impacts global alignments
Russia-China partnership challenges US global hegemony The sluice gates have opened, as it were, on world politics after the ‘timeout’ through the past 2-3 months due to Covid-19. The spectacle of America’s epic war with Covid-19 under President Donald Trump’s watch creates a range of emotions in the world community — ranging from sympathy and …
India and the politics of Covid pandemic
World Health Assembly, decision-making body of WHO, meets in Geneva every May. This year’s is a virtual meeting. File photo The World Health Assembly’s virtual meeting on May 18-19 has brought into focus the politics of the Covid-19 pandemic in the international arena. The WHA is the decision-making body of the 194-member World Health Organisation (WHO). …
US lowers threat perception on Iran
The drawdown of US military presence in the Middle East, especially from Saudi Arabia, may not be an automatic open sesame — to borrow the magical phrase in the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”— leading to the hidden treasure of regional peace and stability, but it does open up a tantalising vista …
Trump’s vacillation on China is well-grounded
China cast the five-day Labour Day holidays as opportunity to ease pent-up travel demand within the country, May 1, 2020 The US President Donald Trump has tied himself and onlookers in knots by his alternating encomiums and diatribes against China over Covid-19 in the recent weeks. Only he can cut the Gordian knot and …
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Trump and Putin revisit the “Spirit of the Elbe”
Soviet officers and American soldiers met up at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany, 25th April, 1945 Unusual for a Saturday evening, the White House and the Kremlin upgraded their websites simultaneously to feature a joint statement by the two presidents on “Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Meeting on the Elbe” (here and …
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Covid-19 has a grandma, grandpa and great grandpa. Where are they?
The 76-day Covid-19 shutdown in Wuhan, China, was lifted on April 7, 2020. The search for the genesis of Covid-19 is developing into an epic story. Thanks to the insinuations by the US President Donald Trump — ‘China virus’, ‘Wuhan virus’, etc. — that were explosive in their political and strategic content, Beijing is now …
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Why the OPEC+ deal is a many-splendoured thing
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech proposing a summit in September of the “founder countries of the United Nations, the five states that hold special responsibility to save civilisation,” Jerusalem, Israel, January 23, 2020 A perfect deal is where all protagonists get something out of it. All oil-producing countries stand to gain if oil …
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We desperate Indians also need ventilators, Mr. Trump
President Trump’s crowded White House press conferences to discuss the coronavirus have become daily events, Washington, DC, March 13, 2020 It often puzzles me what transpires during high-level visits by world leaders. The substantive content of such events laced with pomp and glory impacting inter-state relations is generally handled by sherpas, quietly and unobtrusively. (Of …
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