NAFTA, McCain, Myanmar: 3 Stories You Should Read 8/47/2018
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In the category of: Progress, sort of, maybe, who knows…
President Donald Trump is treating this as a major victory. It could lead to one down the line — but it isn’t one right now.
The new agreement makes it so most parts of an automobile traded without tariffs — taxes imposed on a particular set of items — must be made in factories that pay their workers higher wages.
That could potentially increase the number of jobs in American car plants, where workers are paid more than in Mexican factories.
The goal is to have this deal replace NAFTA, but that requires Congressional approval.
Still, the news is certainly the most important development so far in the year-long negotiations to revise NAFTA, as it clears the way for Canada — the other NAFTA member — to rejoin talks after a five-week absence. Trump said the deal is named the US-Mexico Trade Agreement and then called Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to congratulate him on the accord.
However, experts following the talks say that the latest development isn’t a major victory. “I wouldn’t say that the US and Mexico have really reached a NAFTA deal,” Christopher Wilson, a NAFTA expert at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, DC, told me. Instead, both sides just solved a stingy bilateral trade issue, but not the larger multilateral one with Canada.
In the category of: Genocide is pretty easy to spot.
U.N. Accuses Myanmar Army Of Genocide In Rohingya Deaths
It’s the first time the United Nations has explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent”, and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law, U.N. investigators said.
A report by investigators was the first time the United Nations has explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya, and is likely to deepen the country’s isolation.
The investigators called for the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, subject its officials to targeted sanctions and set up an ad hoc tribunal to try suspects or refer them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
In the category of: Legacy is almost always cloudy.
Grappling with the complicated legacy of John McCain
Given his decisive role in promoting Palin’s trash-talking form of rabblerousing, one might have expected a man of McCain’s decency and thoughtfulness to recognize the danger posed by Donald Trump early on and do everything in his power to deny him the party’s nomination. Instead, McCain followed the rest of the Republican leadership in prevaricating until it was far too late. The result was a rare profile in cowardice for the senior senator from Arizona. McCain’s later public stands against Trump and the moral breakdown of the GOP, taken after his cancer diagnosis, were a partial return to form. But in most cases, they came long after they could do much good.
But perhaps even more than his elevation of Palin, McCain’s stances on foreign policy helped pave the way for the electoral collapse of the country’s once vital center. McCain was a hawk for all seasons, consistently pushing the form of full-spectrum idealistic militarism that came to be associated with neoconservatism. Whatever the geopolitical problem, McCain was there (usually in the form of an op-ed co-authored with latter-day Trump toady Lindsey Graham) to place his moral authority and reputation behind a proposal to launch a barrage of bombs, and sometimes send ground troops as part of an invasion designed to overthrow tyrannical governments, in the name of freedom and democracy.
