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This Economist article looks at India-China relations and the Wuhan Summit between prime minister Modi and president Xi Jinping. It sees India's reluctance to follow a containment strategy in an historical light from the period in which India followed a non-alignment policy in the early post independence period under prime minister Nehru. During the period of the Eisenhower administration with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles India adhered to a strict nonalignment policy avoiding choosing sides in the Cold War. As a result U.S. policy tilted towards Pakistan during the Eisenhower administration. A balance was restored under president Kennedy, with Adlai Stevenson a close friend of India.  The short Sino-Indian war of 1962 led to a situation in which the U.S. backed India and improvement of relations. A semblance of non-alignment in foreign relations continued under Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi. By 1990 with the opening of the Indian economy to foreign investment, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the integration of China into the global economy, a new period of good bilateral relations with the U.S. and Europe was maintained. In 2017 the potential for a conflict in Doklam, Bhutan revived fears from 1962 in India. In 2018 After the U.S. administration of Donald Trump and Trade Representative Lighthizer imposed trade tariffs on China and restrictions on export of advanced technologies China pursued a policy of conciliatory relations with India. China's relations also improved with Japan and South Korea as the U.S. policy was unanticipated and seen as a significant change that would seriously affect China's economy. India's response was to pursue a policy of good relations with China and the U.S., even as the economies of the U.S. and India were drawn closer in India's pursuit of modernization.  ...

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Mexico's GDP decreased slightly in each of the 4 quarters in 2019. GDP growth was 2.1% in 2018. Cancellation of some infrastructure projects and policy changes lead to lower private and public investment and decline in industrial production of 1.8% for 2019.  Foreign investment held steady at $33 billion and the passage of the new North American trade agreement signed by president Trump is expected to lead to better growth in 2020.

Under Mr. Obrador revision of energy contracts, and cancellation of some projects due to budget constraints, led to decline in public and private investment of 5.1% through November 2019. 

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The Biden administration policy is similar to the Trump administration. The response is to send migrants back to their home countries. One of the lessons for the European Union and for the US of the last few years is that the US and EU cannot have migrants issue create discord within public opinion, when so much needs to be done for infrastructure, competition with Asian countries such as China, and the needs for recovery from the pandemic. With wars, natural disasters, smuggling of migrants, new waves of migrants required a different approach. Promoting development and providing help to the economies of these countries is seen as a more effective approach, and the best way to do this is to help strengthen America and the European Union by building a consensus on development and infrastructure investment.

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Krugman says there is cause for concern from May's U.S. jobs report of only 38,000 jobs added- low even with Verizon strike jobs added back in- compared to the 200,000 a month average since Jan 2013. One cannot read too much into one months report, yet the political uncertainty in a election year adds to the problem. The low interest rates near zero offering little possibility for rate cuts, make it difficult to come up with a policy response. Under a Clinton administration the infrastructure spending option would face Republican resistance.  It is not clear how a Trump administration would respond. Krugman says the jobs figure reflects a stronger dollar- a result partly of the Fed's plan to raise rates- that is hurting U.S. exports.

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A NATO summit has tension and uncertainty with president Trump pushing forward his idea that Europe should take on a larger share of the burden for its own defense. Some of this goal was achieved with the jawboning style of Mr. Trump- NATO plans to increase military spending and increase EUropean governments share of defense spending. A European Defense Fund with 13 billion euros of funding is being set up to develop military capabilities. This is also what Mr. Trump hopes to accomplish by using this approach where other approaches were resisted by Germany in previous American administrations from Bush to Obama. It is also why Mr. Trump says he thinks NATO is now stronger than before, even though his approach throughout is unorthodox from Korea to NATO. Europeans see a divergence between the U.S. and EU on issues- such as Iran, Middle East and Israel, and Mr. Trump's efforts to maintain good ties with Russia meeting Mr. Putin after the Summit. This leads to a sense that the U.S. cannot be depended on in the face of threats to the EU. Mr. Trump's policy suggests the U.S. has no permanent friends or permanent enemies, will follow its own interests independently of its transatlantic partners, says one expert. At the root of the problem lies Trump's conviction that the European nations benefit economically by spending less on defense and thrusting more of the burden on the U.S. -even after 2 costly wars have diminished American desire to take on responsibility especially as other economies have prospered better than the U.S. ...

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WHite children born in 1992 fared worse in income levels than white children born in 1978. The reverse is true for black children- the income gap narrowing for black children born after 1992 and widening for white children born after 1992. In this unusual twist lies some of the angst about social divisions in America in 2024 where income mobility is a major issue. The Biden administration has achieved a lot with bipartisan legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, cancelling student loan debt or reducing it, creating 16 million jobs, bringing supply chain disruption inflation down from 9% to 3%, and yet more action is needed. Inflation in housing that for 25% of apartment renters takes 50% of household income is a challenge. Biden proposed a 5% cap on rent raises, Harris proposed capping rent payment at 30% of household income and  government aid for amounts above 30%. By contrast Trump program promises little to help with housing costs, and economic policy is limited to tax cuts heavily skewed to wealthier households. ...

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US president Biden created the largest boom in manufacturing since the space race in the 1960's. It is now at risk because of failures early in 2021-2022 in the Biden administration trying to be humane in migrant policy, but in reality also because of the bigger issues of the pandemic, vaccine skepticism, the economy, the Ukraine war in Feb. 2022 that delayed action till 2023, and the unanticipated complete collapse of Venezuela's economy leading to migrant surge. The Border was closed in 2024 by president Biden. When Trump blocked passage of Republican legislation supported by Biden, senior Republicans asked Biden to block migrant entry by executive order, Biden acted and the Border was closed. Will it now reverse the biggest manufacturing boom the US has had since 1960? How much blame should Biden take when he acted forcefully on all fronts- the pandemic, vaccines, manufacturing, and on no. 4 by closing the southern Border in 2024 by executive order? ...

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This opinion by Mr. Swain, editorial page writer at the Wall Street Journal says it is regrettable that the expert class in America has failed to acknowledge its errors or conduct self-criticism. A new generation of journalists, think tank authors, and experts, will soon replace the old. They, he says, will make a fair assessment of the Trump years and look at their forerunners as acting in crucial moments, as idiots. He offers an alternative view of lockdowns as hurting the economy and causing a sharp recession in which people had to go without income, and some even hungry. To support this he says many parts of the country did not lock down and managed to keep hospitals running fine. California and New York with Democratic governors and large numbers of Democratic voters have borne the brunt of the pandemic in America. He points out the changes in the Middle East with policy that has brought Israel and the Arab world closer. The wars in foreign lands that are no longer being fought wasting precious resources. Democrats and the news media acted to consider Mr. Trump's election as illegitimate and the result of collusion with a Russian president, says Swain, till the Mueller investigation proved this to be not true. The real reason for Trump's election being that the Clinton-Obama Democrats had neglected working class interests and sent jobs overseas, and the Democratic party had shifted far from its working class base. That there is much for reflection in both political parties is stated in this view as the Democrats rush to a second impeachment Feb. 9, after president Biden has setup his new administration, and in the middle of a national emergency pandemic.   ...

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In an effort to fulfill a campaign pledge and yet not upset peace negotiations president Trump plans to go halfway by recognizing Jerusalem, while keeping the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. 

In a sign of much policy has changed since the Obama presidency, new information cited by NYT shows Trump working closely with premier Netayahu of Israel to prevent a vote on Israeli settlement policies. Mr. Obama had decided to proceed with a vote and had sharp differences with Netanyahu that dominated press coverage in the second term. See search term Netanyahu.  The issue is a delicate one because it depends say experts on how Trump frames his decision, does it recognize West Jerusalem, what does it say about its status as holy city, and about Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. It is fraught with risks as Saudi Arabia is likely to say no to negotiations if the issue is framed to only recognize the Israeli position.

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Bradsher, Tankersley and Cohen say in this NYT report- US industrial policy under president Biden corrects the failures of the past. Chinese experts in Hong Kong say the US and Europe deindustrialized their economies with pursuing of policies called "neo-liberal" but basically Reagan era policies that Democratic presidents Clinton-Obama imitated. As they deindustrialized it created disaffection among the struggling lower and middle income classes making $35,000-$106,000 that were big losers in the process, creating threats to democracy as financial and tech, plus pharmaceutical sectors took control of the economy. China's success comes from three decades of mastering the ways of practicing industrial policy that it can support private companies with low cost land, additional subsidies that reduce the cost of production and provide a buffer to absorb losses so that it could dominate key industries. Policies where textbooks and economists trained in the US failed utterly and completely leading to dangers to US democracy that we see as opportunities for good paying jobs in manufacturing disappeared for middle and lower income households from 1980 to 2020. These economists trained in the US always said see lower cost Chinese made goods means lower and middle income people pay less, never saying that this means all opportunities for better paying jobs in manufacturing will be lost for these classes in society. The tech and financial sectors had close ties to the new arrangement that turned manufacturing over to China from the Reagan era to the Obama and Trump era. Apple and Tesla and many industries benefitted from manufacturing mostly outsourced to China. ...

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Trade is just one aspect of the Biden Economic plan. It covers US manufacturing and jobs, Climate Change Action and Renewable Energy, Cost of Living and Wages for workers, Interest rates and inflation, and Capital Allocation with government partnering with the private sector in key industries such as electric cars, solar panels. It has the overwhelming support of most Americans- seven out of 10 Americans favor it polls show. What is described here in the Washington Post as a change from decades of trade policy since Reagan/Bush, Clinton/Obama, is also a response to the loss of key midwestern states by Democrats to Trump in thepresidential election of 2016, and the upheavals for democracy that Biden calls the struggle for the soul of the nation on the White House website. Biden is simply saying that the old policies were a mistake, a huge mistake, and Biden is correcting the Trump response which was loud but lacked the substance that is in the Biden plan through capital allocation in size and government actions to back this up. In this move he now has the support of both Democrats and Republicans. As Greg Ip has pointed out in the WSj no one during the Clinton administration when it engaged China with the World Trade Organization on trade imagined China would replace America as the dominant nation in manufacturing, the size and th scale also affected the climate, the environment in China, and created huge inequalities in the US and China that both nations are trying to correct, Biden in the US and Xi in China. It could even be said these policies were a failure because the size and scale simply overwhelmed everything else with growth rates in China of 12-14%, and the fallout in the near collapse of the economy in the years ahead from hypergrowth.  ...

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This editorial in the WSJ says that President Obama's failure in Syria-Iraq policy and his sticking to his idea that his policy is working, including his address after the San Bernardino attack, has given Donald Trump the opening he needed to call for a total ban on Muslims entering the country. This appeals to the American public dissatisfied with current policy, by calling for the opposite extreme. It says Obama's leadership failures on this issue have allowed demagoguery to influence the American public, including citing FDR's action against Japanese-Americans as an example.

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Why the Straits of Hormuz are a critical path in the seas near Iran and Saudi Arabia through which much of the world's oil supplies flow. With the U.S. gaining oil sufficiency the straits of Hormuz oil supply lanes in the seas are critical to countries such as China, Japan and India which lack enough internal supplies of oil. Japan's prime minister mediated between the U.S. and Iran to keep the oil supplies lanes open and free of the conflicts and rivalry that have taken place in the region. After initially saying Iran was responsible for some tankers that caught fire, president Trump reversed himself saying that it was unintentional. The U.S. maintains oil sanctions on Iran but is careful not to worsen tensions further, and Iran suffering from the sanctions pursues a policy of trying to wait out the U.S. sanctions.

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The U.S. commander in Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, says Russia respects strength, and the U.S. must add capability in this situation where Russia is no longer a partner with the U.S. and Europe as it appeared to be previously. He sees the U.S. as ready to meet all its commitments and protecting democracy. He also says Twitter is not the best way to communicate policy as president Trump does, and that he receives his instructions through the chain of command.

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Many of the 255 Comments on this article in the NYT say it is misleading or grossly misleading title. Michael Crowley of NYT quotes Wertheim for his conclusion that there seems to be a sense that the world is out of control, there is chaos under president Biden. This is subtly presented and clearly wrong. Wertheim is the author of a book that questions America's exceptionalism, and says "isolationism" was somehow concocted by policy makers such as Eisenhower and Dulles, both Republicans for a postwar world built on American supremacy. What Crowley and Wertheim do is put their very idea of asking questions about policy which is a part of the discussion into misrepresenting through misinformation about what happened. Biden has acted with courage to close wars no other president not Reagan/ Rumsfeld who started the conflict with Iran by arming Iraq's unprovoked war on Iran, not Bush who initiated the war in Afghanistan, not Obama and Trump who did not close the war in the mountains around Kabul that is a "graveyard for Empires" - the Maratha Empire in India in the 1700's that opened the door to British rule in India, not the British Empire wisely staying out of it, the Soviet Union beginning its decline there, and the US mired in it similar to the Soviets. Crowley/Wertheim are only making things worse- Netanyahu was emboldened by the former president and made a major security failure. Putin miscalculated in Ukraine, Biden simply acted in the way any wise American president would -strengthened NATO with Finland and Sweden, providing reasons for Russian restraint yet without escalating the conflict. To say this is chaos is to misinform and misrepresent, and favor the very Supremacy that former president Trump proposes as policy based on US power. By contrast Biden' approach is peace through strength from building close relations between partners in Europe and Asia, not provocation or supremacy. Wertheim is only one voice in a larger discussion not the authority he is presented as. For Wertheim to say "isolationism" was a bogey and point to 1950 as the point when it was created is simply wrong. It existed in some form from the early days of the Republic. Washington was an advocate of not involving the fledgling Republic in foreign entanglements of France even though it was an ally. It is not that response to isolationism is the cause of America embracing the role of leading the Free World as it is now. It is simply the situation leaders faced. Truman faced it when Soviets planned insurgencies in Turkey and Greece which would not exist as democracies today without Truman. And across Eastern Europe Hungary 1956 Ike acted cautiously. Czechoslovakia 1968 LBJ Johnson acted cautiously already in the wrong war with Vietnamese nationalism.  ...

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Jennifer Steinhauer of the NYT says the U.S. Congress is acting as a counter balance to  president Trump to maintain America's postwar policies common to both Republican and Democratic presidents and seen as part of core values- support for NATO and the mutual defense enshrined in Article 5 of NATO, support for the trans-Atlantic alliance. Senators in Congress are now voting overwhelmingly to support these values. This is seen in the manner the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sees his job- to retake the important role Congress and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has historically played in making foreign policy. His view is that the committee he chairs had become a kind of debating society. It is also seen in the way Corker handled a Russia sanctions bill giving Secretary of State Tillerson time to seek improvement of relations, and when time had run out pulling together all members of the Senate to pass the Russia sanctions bill. That bill passed the Senate by 97 for and 2 against in an overwhelming show of support for Congress to make its own foreign policy moves.  ...

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For groceries cost limiting Trump proposes nothing. It was found in the EU that there was excessive price action by grocery stores in 2022 and 2023. Though experts say no for price setting by government, the deterrent effect of a policy of the government to not set prices but to send a clear message about excessive profit as anti-social behavior, has beneficial impact for price reduction or future price increases to be put on hold. Harris will do this. For child care costs. Trump proposes nothing and does not put children as the next generation of Americans at the top of priorities. Harris puts children as the top priority and early years development as critical. Harris proposes a child tax credit of $6000 per family that would cost $110 billion per year estimate from Office for Responsible Budget, offset by Medicare savings achieved by negotiating with Pharma of $36 billion a year, tax on billionaires at 25% instead of 8.2% saving $40 billion a year, for net cost of $44 billion a year the Harris $6000 Child Tax Credit.  Congress including Democrats failed to extend the $3600 tax credit per child below 6 years that was introduced after 2019 yet allowed to expire in 2022 reverting to $2000 per child under 6 years. The concept is accepted as helping children, Vance the Republican VP nominee has suggested $5000, only opposed by country club Republicans oblivious to the importance of children having free school lunches and parents having the money for child care added costs for the future of the children of this Nation.     ...

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Biden calls ending the war in Afghnistan a "wise decision" for the American people. He says in his foreign policy speech that "it is about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries." A Pew Research poll shows 54% of American adults support the decision.  In a sense the decision had already been made. Biden cited the Doha agreement president Trump signed a year ago with Taliban that called for the release of 5000 Taliban prisoners which included most of the top commanders, and no agreement on the future of Afghanistan. The decision had come much earlier than that when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the period of George Bush were rejected by the American people for the cost and lack of purpose during the presidential election of 2016. That period marked the rejection of policies set under Reagan, Bush and Obama for starting American involvement in the Iraq-Iran conflict first on one side and then on the other side. All the time precious resources that were needed for infrastructure and services in education and healthcare were diverted to these wars, impoverishing America and also Europe. Looking beyond the words thrown around for political advantage both Trump and Biden and the American people, had decided to put these wars behind them 5-10 years earlier. Biden said assertively that America had made a tragic wrong turn, that was all he could say about Reagan, Bush, Obama policy. In the meantime he stated something else was happening- the US was losing its position in the world by wasting its resources in these wars that do not serve the interests of America. "There is nothing China and Russia would want more in this competition than the US to be bogged down for another ten years in these wars."  Biden was saying that he had the courage and tenacity to make a decision that was the right one and a wise one for America against all the transient opinion of people who lacked a grasp of what was happening to the American people- the increasing impoverishing of America in both rural and urban areas. And a similar situation in Europe. It was time to take a new turn, close this chapter, and write a new one in American history, brighter and with new sense of hope. ...

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President Trump says of aide Stephen Bannon- "he's a friend of mine."  In the same news conference he added that Bannon had joined the Trump campaign late, and that "we'll see what happens to him," in August 2017. Bannon has come under criticism for the chaotic situation in the White House. Bannon's use of the Alt-right news outlets to criticize national security chief Gen. McMaster is now an issue in the administration. Bannon's job remains uncertain, says this NYT report, yet he continues to have some influence in policy the president uses to appeal to the Alt-right part of his base of support. Rarely has a presidential aide ruffled so many in the White House, and rarely has a president used the Alt-right in this manner.

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Efforts by French president Macron to end the alienation of Russia from the Western Alliance by bringing together Ukraine's Zelensky and president Putin of Russia for talks in Paris. The effort is for the negotiations to take place in a new environment that accepts the need to recognize Russian concerns for NATO too close to its borders. President Macron has stated that Russia is not the threat for NATO to focus on as the world has changed with the emergence of China, the changes with the Trump administration policy. By ending the Ukraine conflict and Russian perception of a threat on its borders, Macron is making a constructive effort to bring Europe together and put the Ukraine conflict behind it. His comments about NATO being brain dead have received too much media attention, less attention to the effort to mediate and solve conflicts based on perceived threats Russia thinks it faces.

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Following the Nuclear Security Summit in March 2016, U.S. president Obama says world leaders had expressed concern about Mr. Trump's comments in private conversations with him. Obama said- "even those countries that are used to a carnival atmosphere in their own politics want sobriety and clarity when it comes to U.S. elections because they understand that the president of the United States needs to know what's going on around the world." Obama said that comments by Mr. Trump showed a person "who doesn't know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally. Mr. Trump said in a NYT interview that "Now, wouldn't you in a certain sense have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?" Trump has defended these comments in a televised townhall meeting held by CNN in Milwaukee. Obama was critical of these comments as upsetting the situation in Asia where the U.S. has made great sacrifices in World War II, and today "underwrites the peace and prosperity of that region." Adding that "you don't mess with that."...

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This behind the scenes account  shows how the NATO communique with policy declaration was prepared by July 6 before European leaders and Mr. Trump set foot in Brussels on July 11. It shows to what lengths key members in the Trump administration will go to achieve American objectives in preserving the NATO alliance. Particularly now that Russia is taking an aggressive stance to NATO near its borders.  General Mattis at Defense Department pushed for the 4 30's initiative which is about preparing a rapid deployment force to be ready by 2020. This is in the communique. Also in the communique is the setup of a command post in Norfolk, Virginia, ready to act to deploy forces in Europe. U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kailey Hutchinson, received the demand from National Security Adviser Bolton to have ambassadors from all countries work overtime to get the declaration done by July 6. Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General supported this effort. All were concerned that there should be no repeat of the mess that happened for the G-7 communique when at the last minute president Trump refused to sign on, leading to derisive comments about Canada's Justin Trudeau. It was seen as critical to preserve the sense of unity in the U.S. alliance with Europe. This time there was no disruption even though Mr. Trump acted unpredictably in Brussels. ...

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U.S. president Trump's statement calling for a list of goods for tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods leaves China without a clear response and facing new risks. The U.S. exports about $150 billion in goods to China so that China would have to impose penalties to respond at the same level. Placing restrictions on American firms on access to China's market, and imposing other penalties would have the effect of reinforcing the perception of unfair practices targeting American business and lead to hardening of U.S. response.  The U.S. sees itself as being in a better position with the U.S. economy experiencing a growth trend. China with large local government and bank debt faces a difficult situation. President Jinping's policy of reducing the risks of bad debt in the banking system involved sacrificing some growth to stabilize the system. China's GDP growth in 2017 was 6.9%, the target at 6.5%. Future targets and actual growth now look to be much lower.The trade war with the U.S. has the effect of dampening growth leading to calls for the central bank to loosen its monetary stance. In response to Trump's announcement the People's Bank of China pumped $31 billion into the nation's banks. China is studying Japan's response in the 1980's and 1990's when the U.S. took strong action against Japan's growing trade surplus. Japan responded by appreciating its currency and using stimulus to cushion the effect of lower exports on the economy. The stimulus led to the housing bubble and over time a period of low growth and stagnant economy. The large China stimulus in 2008-2009 has compounded the problems in the banking system. Not deleveraging and controlling financial risks in China's banking system because of the trade war would bring a new set of risks. ...

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Moderators Quick, Harwood and Quintanilla in tense exchanges with Trump on H1-B visas for Silicon Valley, Christie on climate change, and Carson for supporting health claims by a nutrition company. Cruz pointed out that the moderators were pitting the candidates against each other instead of going into serious policy questions.

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Lower volatility in oil prices as a result of a new stream of shale oil supplies at competitive prices is good for oil producers and for consumers. This report in the WSJ shows that volatility and swings in oil prices have gone down with the ability of shale producers to respond to price signals or geopolitical situations and increase supplies. Shale producers can increase supplies in months compared to the years it would take for oil producers in offshore drilling. The new technologies in shale rigs have tripled production since 2011 for the same number of rigs operating in the U.S. Permian Basin from West Texas to New Mexico. The core producers can now supply and be profitable at $40 a barrel.  Supply cuts from OPEC and Russia as currently the policy of both countries mean inventories do not rise too high. And geopolitical problems such as Yemeni attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the reinstated sanctions on Iran by the Trump administration that reduce oil supplies, Venezuela's problems, can be met by increased supplies from the U.S. shale industry in a short time to prevent inventories from dropping too much.      ...