Trump Administration

It’s been another roller-coaster month for the United States and our global allies as the Trump executive branch demonstrates what happens when “tit for tat” decisions are made without respect to the longer-term consequences. Those consequences affect citizens, the global markets, and a global diplomacy infrastructure that was built after two world wars, ongoing Mideast conflicts, and tensions with nation-state players like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. 

The column I wrote for the June 2018 issue of ASA News & Notes could easily be the column I write this month: a year ago, it covered school shootings, mass shootings, the Trump administration’s separation of children from their refuge parents, and insult with bluster as a form of diplomacy. A year later, we see not much has changed, and each of these topics makes news regularly.