Trump Berates NATO Allies | Trade Threats | Afghan Returnees

Council on Foreign Relations Newsletter If you are unable to see the message below, click here to view. July 11, 2018 Daily News Brief   TOP OF THE AGENDA Trump Calls Out NATO Allies in Brussels U.S. President Donald J. Trump began a two-day summit for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members on an adversarial note by calling allies “delinquent” on their military spending commitments. Other leaders at the conference swiftly rejected (NYT) President Trump’s remarks. Trump also said Germany is “totally controlled by Russia” due to its energy dealings with the country. He will meet later today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has defended a 2015 pipeline deal (NPR) with Russian gas giant Gazprom. After the Brussels summit, Trump will travel to the United Kingdom to meet with Prime Minister Theresa May and then to Finland (WaPo) for a highly anticipated summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. ANALYSIS “The issue of burden sharing has been a long-standing concern for many different U.S. administrations. Yet following the austerity measures that had to be implemented in many European countries in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, defense budgets are now on the rise,” Sinan Ulgen said in an interview with Carnegie Europe. “[Trump] could easily be going over there and proclaiming victory and talking about how he himself, he alone, had transformed the alliance. But instead he seems intent on being the disrupter,” says CFR’s Stephen Sestanovich. “Traditionally, an American president gains when he meets a Kremlin boss with the wind of allied unity at his back. If he uses the NATO meeting to coordinate his message to Moscow, he multiplies the impact by speaking for dozens of free countries, not just America,” Victoria Nuland writes for the New York Times. PACIFIC RIM New U.S. Tariff Threat ‘Bullying,’ Says China The Trump administration said it may impose 10 percent tariffs (WSJ) on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on top of duties levied on $34 billion worth of Chinese exports last week. The new tariff total would exceed the value of U.S. imports to China, raising expectations that Beijing may respond with an alternative countermeasure (Reuters), such as limiting Chinese tourism to in the United States or shedding some of its U.S. Treasury holdings. CFR’s Brad W. Setser examines what’s behind the U.S. trade war with China. LAOS/MYANMAR: The United States imposed visa restrictions (VOA) on some travelers from the two countries for denying or delaying receiving deportees from the United States. SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA IOM Highlights Surge in Afghan Returnees Some 13,700 Afghans returned voluntarily or were deported from Iran in the first week of July, bringing the total number of returnees from the country so far this year to more than 370,500, according to the International Organization for Migration, which cited “deteriorating protection space” in Iran and Pakistan as push factors. On CFR’s Asia Unbound blog, C. Christine Fair discussed how the U.S. exit from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement could impact U.S. operations in Afghanistan. INDIA: India surpassed France (AFP) to become the world’s sixth-largest economy, according to the World Bank, which put the country’s gross domestic product at $2.6 trillion in 2017. MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA UN Warns Israel Over Ban on Goods Into Gaza Israel halted the flow of all commercial goods except humanitarian supplies, such as food and medicine, into the Gaza Strip via its Kerem Shalom crossing. A top UN envoy for the Middle East urged Israeli officials on Tuesday to reverse the decision (Jerusalem Post). IRAN: The country opened a secondary currency exchange market that allows the rial’s exchange rate to fluctuate freely (Reuters), catering to small importers and exporters. Tehran had tried to control the rate as the rial plunged following the U.S. decision to leave the 2015 nuclear deal. SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Flights Between Ethiopia, Eritrea to Resume Ethiopian Airlines said it will begin daily flights between Addis Ababa and Asmara on July 17 days after Eritrea and Ethiopia announced a historic agreement (Bloomberg) to mend ties after two decades. They will be the first regular passenger flights between the two countries since the start of hostilities. SOUTH SUDAN: South Sudanese government troops and allied forces killed at least 232 civilians and carried out mass rapes of women and girls in attacks on opposition-held villages (France 24) in the country’s north in April and May, according to a UN investigation. EUROPE Chinese Dissident Writer Freed Liu Xia, a dissident writer and the widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, arrived in Berlin (SCMP) after more than a decade under de facto house arrest in China. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is believed to have advocated for her release (DW) during a May trip to Beijing. AMERICAS U.S. Officials in Haiti Request Additional Security Amid deadly protests in Haiti over fuel prices, the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince requested additional U.S. Marines and State Department security personnel. The State Department is now advising U.S. citizens (CNN) not to travel to the country. NICARAGUA: At least thirty-eight people, including demonstrators and police, died in Sunday clashes (BBC) amid a wave of anti-government protests, according to a Managua-based NGO. UNITED STATES U.S., Mexico Reportedly in Talks on Asylum Seeker Deal U.S. and Mexican officials are reportedly discussing a “safe third country” agreement that would require asylum seekers transiting through Mexico to first apply for asylum there (WaPo) and allow U.S. border authorities to deport migrants seeking refuge to Mexico. CFR’s Shannon K. O’Neil discusses Mexico’s efforts to restrict migrant crossings at its southern border. Britain fined Facebook $660,000 (NYT), the maximum penalty allowed by the UK office in charge of data protection laws, for sharing user data with political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.         Council on Foreign Relations — 58 East 68th Street — New York, NY 10065 CFR does not share email addresses with third parties. 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From: dailybrief@e.cfr.org

Date: July 11, 2018 at 10:04PM