Yesterday, the President and Secretary of State of the United States of America went on Pakistani television to apologize. In a commercial containing clips from their Washington press conferences, subtitled in Urdu, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton said “sorry” to the mad hordes attacking the American embassy in the Pakistani …
Tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands have increased due to the recent presence of Chinese patrol boats near Japanese waters. Only a handful of Japanese Coast Guard ships currently patrol the Senkaku Island area, and rumors of a flotilla of 1,000 Chinese fishing vessels heading toward …
Harvard economist Larry Summers claims in The Washington Post that aggressive fiscal austerity in the U.K. is the primary cause of its continued economic stagnation. But the former Obama advisor understates both the necessity for a credible British fiscal plan in 2010 and the structural factors that have been a …
The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted another Washington regulation that is holding back the economy. But this one can’t be blamed on President Obama, because it was enacted over 90 years ago. The protectionist Jones Act requires shippers transporting goods between two points in the United States to use vessels …
A new article published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, featuring new research by The Heritage Foundation, tries to slice through the rhetoric on trade policy during a week when the Obama Administration announced a new trade suit against China. The article reaffirms the basic benefits that free trade brings …
The State Department announced yesterday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed the United States he will not permit any further activities by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Russian Federation. State officials tried to put the best face on this humiliating rejection, saying they are “extremely …
In a new Backgrounder, “How Contagious Is Europe’s Economic Crisis?”, we discuss several channels through which a European crisis could be transmitted to the U.S. economy and note the key policy responses needed in the U.S. and in Europe. Current effects. The U.S. is already affected by lower demand for …
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is in Asia trying to prevent further escalations in tensions over several territorial disputes. National elections in South Korea and Japan and a leadership transition in China’s Communist Party have fueled a resurgence of nationalism and historical animosities. Although the rhetoric and political posturing is coming …
“The death of U.S. public diplomacy” was how one Twitter user last Tuesday described the now-infamous apology from the U.S. embassy in Cairo for the ill-conceived movie Innocence of Muslims. Strong words, but there is no doubt about it: The need for American public diplomacy in the Middle East needs …
