A Trilogy of Introductory Thoughts…that are all connected (you decide how)
1. Last week we were in Italy, Sicily, to be precise. The International Need to Know Spouse and I were married many years ago on Friday, September 13th and honeymooned in Italy. So whenever a year contains a Friday, September 13th we return to the country, and this year chose the southern region where the weather was still warm, the olive oil fine and the sights endearing. Throughout our trip, tour guides and other tourists told us about the town of Corleone, famous as the namesake in The Godfather films. We did not make it there, unfortunately. Perhaps if the town had made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.
2. We returned earlier this week to Seattle to what the meteorologists and the media were calling a “bomb cyclone.” Have you noticed there are many new terms for old weather patterns? What was once a heavy rainstorm is now an “atmospheric river.” Or this week’s medium windstorm with a bit of rain is now this so-called “bomb cyclone.” We admit, however, that “bomb cyclone” is more concise and sexier. The winds knocked out our power which came back on shortly before we had to hit send on this missive so please excuse its raggedness. We weren’t surprised but annoyed that the power went out for us and so many other Seattleites though wind gusts reached only 40 miles per hour. It is all evidence of badly managed localities that such modest gusts caused significant infrastructural damage. But, of course, this was not commented on in any of the media we heard or read. Rather, only breathless stories from “survivors” of the great bomb cyclone of 2024 were reported.
3. Try as we might, it was impossible to avoid American news while we traveled overseas—and so we learned of celebrities, miscreants and crazies being named to various posts in the upcoming Trump Redux.* We worried throughout the campaign that a second Trump administration would wrought far more damage than the first. Many counseled that the worst outcomes would be contained, just as they were in the first Trump administration. But these counselors are fighting the last war. Trump and his cabal learned from experience. It is quite evident from these personnel picks that Trump means to do what he said during the campaign—and so political opponents, worriers for our democracy, and freedom fighters abroad should all be more than concerned. Dangerous times are upon us and this is no time for apathy. Which is why we plan how to preserve democracy at home, while eyeing the American election’s impact abroad, what this means for Europe, and China’s salivating. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, eating at a Suriname restaurant in Amsterdam on our way home while dishing up global data and international information.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
International Consequences
When Americans decided to elect a man who tried to overturn the 2020 election, was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting a woman, and over a long career has said and done so many crazy and abhorrent things it would take an Encyclopedia Trumpcania to catalog them*, it not only has consequences for their own country but for the world America is a part of. First and foremost is that American leadership in the world, which already waned in recent years, now rests in the catacombs of history. Some of our readers celebrate this fact. But although America made plenty of mistakes in its global leadership years, it was the best global leader in human history. Far better, of course, than the Romans or the British or Ottoman Empires, in fact America is not an empire at all. America’s leadership occurred during, and probably helped cause, the most prosperous, peaceful era in human history. What will take its place is not yet known. As we write below, China wants to be the new global leader. But many countries will resist that. Perhaps the most important question of this century is how will India evolve economically, politically and as a global steward? What India becomes and does will have a huge impact on whether the coming 75 years will be as beneficial as the previous.
*Every time we criticize Trump in these here parts we always lose a few subscribers. If you are about to pound the “unsubscribe” button we hope you pause. Feel free to send us something that represents your beliefs—we promise to read and consider it, just as we hope you will read and consider the above.
Europe Needs To Get Its Act Together
As we noted, our first trip to Italy was in 1989 to Rome and since 2003 have been traveling to different parts of Italy every five to seven years. The biggest change we see is the increased number of tourists. But in so many ways Italy remains the same. And that’s not good. We’ve been going to Asia since the late 1980s too. And much of where we travel there is unrecognizable from what it was 35 years ago (gulp, can it really have been that long ago? You all are getting old, we, like Italy have not changed at all). A simple but telling example during last week’s trip is how often we were requested to use cash rather than a credit card much less paying using our phone. Europe has coasted under the warm protection of the American security blanket. America’s leadership allowed Europe to act like The Dude in The Big Lebowski, clothed in a ratty old robe, sloshing white Manhattans and listening to old Credence Clearwater Revival while only occasionally diverting from bowling to crack an important case. From lack of economic development to rules and regulations preventing the development and use of technology, Europe is increasingly a backwater, an ossified museum to past greatness. Perhaps that is good for those of us taking quaint vacations to see castles and churches but it is neither good for Europeans nor the world. Europe must step up their game or they will soon be trod upon.
China Corner: The Man Who Would Be King
You can’t swing a dead rat (we refuse to swing cats, whether dead or alive—they are too cute and have domesticated humans so thoroughly) without seeing an article about China working to take a leadership role in the world since Trump’s electoral victory. At the APEC meetings in Peru, Xi said, “we should keep pace with the times and reform the system of global economic governance.” China has been working for nearly a decade to assert itself more strongly on the world stage. It will increase its efforts even more so as America retreats from its leadership role even as Trump confronts countries, including China, with tariffs and other economic hammers. One of the ways China exercises its global leadership is by helping Russia to defeat Ukraine. China continues to try to divide Europe. It will work even harder to cow Asia, including Southeast Asia to bow to its will. The Vietnamese people tend to favor Trump. But the Vietnamese government knows it is likely more on its own in dealing with China under Trump II. And what will Vietnamese think if and when Trump imposes tariffs on goods coming from there? Transactional Trumpism, sympathetic to authoritarianism, could not be a better milieu for China to operate in as it pursues its global leadership goals. Of course, regardless of Trump, China’s trade policies and territorial ambitions will create challenges to its ambitions.
List of Countries Imposing or Considering Imposing Tariffs In Retaliation to China Trade Policies
