Agrégateur de flux

3G Media Group proudly announces the nomination of Ghanaian actor Bill Asamoah to receive an award at the 13th edition of the Annual Mega 3G Awards and Celebrity Bash to be held in New York. The nominees were announced in April, with the event slated for Saturday, October 5, 2024, at the Ukrainian Youth Center, 301 Pallisade Avenue, Yonke .

In a touching tribute to the struggles and triumphs of African ancestors, Emancipation Day wreath-laying ceremonies were held today at the W. E. B Du Bois Centre, the George Padmore Library, and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

Since gaining independence in 1991, the Central Asian states have again forged steadily growing ties with China. These ties advanced significantly in 2013 when Xi Jinping formally announced the Silk Road Economic Belt—part of the Belt and Road Initiative—in Kazakhstan. China's expanding presence in the region, however, has raised new concerns among neighboring countries over economic, political, and cultural sovereignty. In light of Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's annual meeting in Astana and an official visit to Tajikistan, three experts will review the evolving dynamics of these relationships.

On July 25, the Center for the National Interest hosted the fifth in a monthly series of expert discussions organized by the Center’s Central Asia Connectivity Project.

—Elizabeth Wishnick is a Senior Research Scientist in the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) and a Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. She was a tenured professor of Political Science at Montclair State University from 2005-2024. Dr. Wishnick has dual regional expertise on China and Russia and is an expert on Chinese foreign policy, Sino-Russian relations, Northeast Asian and Central Asian security, and Arctic geopolitics. She received a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, and a BA from Barnard College. She speaks Mandarin, Russian, and French.

—Brian Carlson is Research Professor of Indo-Pacific Security Studies at the China Landpower Studies Center of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. Previously, he served as head of the global security team at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zürich and, prior to that, as a postdoctoral fellow and researcher at RAND Corporation. Dr. Carlson holds a PhD in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His research focuses primarily on China-Russia relations. He speaks Chinese and Russian.

—Temur Umarov is a Fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, specializing in Central Asian countries’ domestic and foreign policies, as well as China’s relations with Russia and Central Asian neighbors. A native of Uzbekistan, Umarov holds degrees in China studies and international relations from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He holds an MA in world economics from the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing). He speaks Chinese, Russian, Tajik, and Uzbek.

Andrew Kuchins, Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, moderated the discussion.

Image: Khikmatilla Ubaydullaev / Shutterstock.com. 

Editor’s Note: The Red Cell series is published in collaboration with the Stimson Center. Drawing upon the legacy of the CIA’s Red Cell—established following the September 11 attacks to avoid similar analytic failures in the future—the project works to challenge assumptions, misperceptions, and groupthink with a view to encouraging alternative approaches to America’s foreign and national security policy challenges. For more information about the Stimson Center’s Red Cell Project, see here.

o:spid="_x0000_s1028" style='position:absolute;left:0;text-align:left;flip:y;
z-index:251659264;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;
mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt;
mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt;
mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:right;
mso-position-horizontal-relative:margin;mso-position-vertical:absolute;
mso-position-vertical-relative:text;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;
mso-width-relative:margin;mso-height-relative:margin' from="416.8pt,33.5pt"
to="884.8pt,33.5pt" o:gfxdata="UEsDBBQABgAIAAAAIQC75UiUBQEAAB4CAAATAAAAW0NvbnRlbnRfVHlwZXNdLnhtbKSRvU7DMBSF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" strokecolor="#c00000" strokeweight="1.5pt">


Red Cell

Digital trade—the movement of data across borders—is the fastest-growing segment of global trade today. When data moves freely, the capacity to innovate and generate economic value expands, turbocharging growth. Nonetheless, American politicians have become increasingly wary of the digital economy, the vast power of Big Tech, and the free-market orthodoxy enabling its rise. The Biden administration has taken this shift in the zeitgeist to a new level by repudiating the market-oriented model of governance for digital trade—even at the cost of diminishing American leadership and fragmenting the global economy.

The United States has long championed protecting the free flow of data, limiting data localization, and safeguarding source code from forced disclosure. These core principles are enshrined in the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA), ratified by Congress, and in the United States-Japan Digital Trade Agreement (USJDTA). They once informed the U.S. position on digital governance at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not anymore.

President Joe Biden reversed decades of U.S. policy last year when his trade representative, Katherine Tai, stopped supporting these principles in Geneva and paused negotiations on the digital chapter of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). U.S. officials wanted “policy space” for domestic regulation. This approach sounds reasonable, but it is unfounded because “policy space” is built into such agreements. Trade-phobia is a partial explanation at best. Democrats in swing states reportedly feared being branded as job-outsourcing globalists in the general election, even though the Republican administration of former President Donald Trump negotiated the USMCA and the USJDTA and tabled a paper at the WTO echoing the old policy line. The Biden team could have done the same, relying on the legal precedent of a ratified USMCA and decades of policy precedent. They had zero precedent to reverse course. So why did they take such a drastic step, and what are the consequences for the United States and the global economy? 

A Reversal Rooted in Biden’s New Washington Consensus

Biden believes historic levels of corporate concentration and the digital revolution itself are “drivers” of economic inequality, weakening democracies. A “fairer” America and a fairer global economic order thus require state intervention. Biden’s new Washington consensus demands that the United States leave its laissez-faire comfort zone and let the government redirect domestic investment, channel innovation, and fight unchecked corporate power using an expansive interpretation of antitrust law and a whole-of-government competition policy. In the bullseye is “Big Tech,” which Democrats and many Republicans agree is too powerful. Biden hired what the New York Times called the most aggressive antitrust team in decades at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with a roadmap for rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

The team put digital matters at the center of their efforts, arguing that the digital economy enables unprecedented levels of monopoly power and new ways of abusing it. The worldwide connectivity of digital platforms makes this a global challenge. Cheered by progressives in Congress, they focused on IPEF’s digital trade chapter to further those efforts. In October 2023, prior to the annual gathering of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders Biden was to host in San Francisco, his team paused negotiations, deprioritizing U.S. digital leadership in Asia and undermining part of Washington’s approach to technology rivalry with China. The digital reversal at the WTO followed. A U.S. official cited the right to “regulate in the public interest” and the need to “address anticompetitive behavior in the digital economy.”

“Bigness” Is Bad Again

Biden’s antitrust team is not wrong to consider how competition presents itself in the digital era. For many decades, antitrust laws have protected consumers from economic harm through the application of the consumer welfare standard, which considers alleged monopolistic behavior in terms of the impact on price, innovation, and quality. It is reasonable to consider whether digital platforms have changed the architecture of market power such that antitrust enforcement should address it. The U.S. trade representative is also not wrong to assert that digital trade is about more than just “trade rules.” The digital world engages social and political concerns, as well as concerns over national security, geopolitics, privacy, as well as consumer and labor rights. With the rise of artificial intelligence, it has to wrestle with crucial moral, ethical, and philosophical questions. 

Nonetheless, the administration’s starting point is that “bigness” itself is harmful because it allows companies to exert force over how the market operates and facilitates other social and political harms. The idea is not new or unique to the digital era. It originated during the Industrial Revolution when corporate trusts in oil, sugar, tobacco, steel, and railroads used exclusionary practices to crush competitors. In the 1890s, “bigness” became equated with monopolism and “immoral and injurious” pursuits, according to Senator John Sherman, author of the Sherman Antitrust Act, suggesting a broad definition of harm. That view persisted until the 1970s with the rise of the consumer welfare standard, the intellectual underpinnings for which were laid at the University of Chicago by Judge Robert Bork and adopted by the Supreme Court in 1979. The Biden administration wants to deemphasize reliance on analysis in enforcing antitrust laws. As a former Biden antitrust advisor explained, massive economic power can translate into massive political power, undermining democracy and threatening free speech and privacy. The administration wants to capture all these aspects of harm under an antitrust silver bullet rather than rely on other policy tools. 

This suggests that antitrust laws could be used to break up U.S. technology giants because they have too much political power or to protect small firms, even if they are inefficient. More importantly, the assumption that “bigness” is almost unequivocally harmful is disproven by the fact that it also arises because consumers simply like a firm’s products and services. For instance, they like ordering products from Amazon and receiving them quickly. Some corporate concentration also boosts innovation and employment, according to recent research. “Bigness” might even be a necessary condition for innovation and lower prices, some argue. Research and development are expensive. Moreover, sacrificing the benefits of economies of scale and scope to consumers in order to address harm to other groups creates more problems. After all, everyone is a consumer.

Edging Closer to the EU

The administration is kicking America’s market-oriented model of digital governance to the curb and warming up to the rights-driven model of the European Union (EU). The concept of “bigness” as a potential indicator of current or future economic, social, and political harms, for example, lies at the heart of the EU’s designation of Big Tech as “gatekeepers” of the digital world under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The act changes antitrust from law enforcement to preemptive regulatory compliance, as the Biden team is also attempting to do. Thus far, Big Tech has not exited the EU market but is adapting to the DMA. 

The perspectives of the administration and the EU have converged. The FTC chair, Lina Khan, reportedly praised the DMA for addressing markets controlled by “digital gatekeepers.” U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai has not only extolled regulation as the EU’s “superpower,” but also, in defending the right to regulate in the public interest, has said that even if foreign governments target U.S. corporate giants, the United States should not object because, from a tax perspective, they may not be “American” after all. This is a shocking statement from a U.S. official, but it reflects the mood among some politicians on both sides of the aisle. 

The progressives pushing for these changes believe the United States should not enter into trade agreements, including on digital issues, that could tie Congress’ hands on possible future legislation. They want to enact legislation resembling what the EU is doing, but they do not have the votes to do so. Although both parties want more regulation and strong antitrust enforcement to rein in Big Tech, the members of each party disagree on methods—one of the reasons the United States has no federal privacy laws. Furthermore, taking free things away from consumers is always a political error. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made that point in February 2023 when she warned that banning TikTok would “lose every voter under 35 forever.”

That said, a growing cohort of younger Republicans are fans of the Biden approach because they think big business imposes a “woke” political agenda on the country. The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the FTC under a second Trump administration channels Biden’s arguments about unchecked corporate concentration undermining democracy. Should Trump win in November, given his past activism on antitrust and belief that Big Tech is biased against conservatives, he may continue the Biden policies and force Republicans to fall in line. 

For now, the administration is content to free-ride on Brussels’ activism while designating the DMA a barrier to trade on paper and claiming that its hands are tied on digital trade until Congress acts on digital policy. In fact, the administration is not only fine with the EU reining in Big Tech but also more comfortable than it should be with letting Europe set global rules. That explains the administration’s complacency toward serious bipartisan accusations that the president has ceded global economic leadership with his reversal on digital trade policy.

The Consequences for the United States and the Global Economy

Even if Washington no longer seeks to foster the conditions conducive to the expansion of American corporations abroad, the U.S. government should not support foreign governments in curbing their ability to do so. The EU is going after the most valuable businesses in the U.S. economy, and its targeting of Big Tech in the short run benefits China. The DMA designated only one of its technology titans, ByteDance. Eventually, more Chinese digital platforms will be subject to EU regulations, but by that time, they will have a foothold in the EU market. As for the EU model of governance, there is a reason Europeans “use an American search engine, shop on an American e-commerce site, thumb American phones, and scroll through American social media feeds.” The EU is apparently unwilling or unable to address the need for both innovation and regulation at the same time. 

The U.S. trade representative implies that the administration’s digital reversal does not put America’s global leadership at risk because China’s model of state control over data flows is unappealing to most. Nonetheless, regional digital economy agreements and trade agreements with digital chapters dot the global landscape, but they do not all conform with each other. If trade is resilient to U.S. withdrawal, so is the business of setting the rules and norms governing it. 

The alternative to a global framework for digital rules is a “Splinternet” and balkanized digital trade. All nations would then make things that could only be sold in limited markets abroad. That is a recipe for shrinking, not growing, the middle class. 

Keeping America’s technological edge sharper than its competitors requires constantly running against the best in the business, no matter what corner of the globe they hail from. Ring-fencing American technology companies into the highly regulated, democracies-only global order the administration prefers will incentivize imitation over innovation.   

Unfortunately, the U.S. path is set—regardless of who wins the White House in November. That is the ultimate irony: an approach aimed in part at changing the political climate at home, growing the middle class, and forcing the political marketplace to reward the center rather than the extremes will do the exact opposite. Washington needs to reconsider its direction of travel before the rest of the world makes other plans.

Ferial Ara Saeed is the Founder of Telegraph Strategies LLC, a consulting firm with deep experience in economic, foreign policy, and national security issues. She is also a former senior U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Northeast Asia and the Middle East. At the State Department, she has served as Deputy U.S. Coordinator for information and communications technology policy, as an advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs on Asia economic policy, and she has played key roles in negotiating landmark trade agreements with China and Japan. Follow her on X: @TelStratLLC.

Image: Salma Bashir / Shutterstock.com. 

Crisis is unfolding in northern Ethiopia - driven by drought, crop failure and insecurity following war.

Crisis is unfolding in northern Ethiopia - driven by drought, crop failure and insecurity following war.

Les Bleus après avoir balayé les Albiceleste (26-14) retrouveront samedi les Sud-Africains pour la demi-finale. Antoine Dupont retrouvé, a marqué le dernier essai tricolore sur une inspiration dont il a le secret.

DÉCRYPTAGE - La gauche, comme le RN, veut abroger la réforme des retraites. La menace est en tout cas prise au sérieux dans l’exécutif.

Le géant des matériaux de construction a annoncé ce jeudi une hausse de 14,5% de son bénéfice net au premier semestre et prévoit « une très belle année » pour 2024. Néanmoins, son chiffre d'affaires est en baisse de 6% en raison du recul de la construction neuve en Europe.

The geopolitics of Formula 1, daring women journalists of the Vietnam War, and other page-turners for the beach.

A growing chorus of establishment pundits and policymakers have taken to branding anyone who calls for prioritizing diplomacy over force in U.S. foreign policy as “isolationist.”  

In official Washington, labeling an analyst, advocate, or organization isolationist is essentially an effort to convince the public at large that they are naive, and therefore not to be taken seriously. But recent history suggests that the “military first” (and second and third) approach favored by the Washington establishment is in fact the stance that is the most naive.

The direct U.S. wars of this century, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, have done more harm than good, consuming vast quantities of blood and treasure in the process— $8 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention millions of displaced people, all  according to estimates by Brown University’s Costs of War project.  America’s slightly less direct wars – those we fund or supply with bombers and bombs – in Yemen, Gaza, and Ukraine are devastating and costly financially, environmentally, and in humanitarian impact. 

Interventionists – and their cheerleaders in the media and think tanks – are never held to account for their failures.   

Moreover, most advocates of greater restraint are not opposed to all uses of force. For example, U.S. support for Ukraine’s effort to fend off Russia’s invasion of their country is essential. But it must be accompanied by a diplomatic track aimed at preventing a long, grinding war that causes more death and destruction and precludes rebuilding, while constantly risking escalation to a direct U.S.-Russia or NATO-Russia conflict.  This view appears to be gaining traction with at least some U.S. officials. But when advocates of a diplomatic track raised the idea early in the conflict, many experts and policy advocates within the DC establishment mislabeled it as isolationist.

Given the challenges we face, from thwarting Russian aggression in Ukraine, to taking a balanced approach to the challenges posed by China, to stopping the slaughter in Gaza and heading off a region-wide Middle East war, America desperately needs a serious debate on what policies to pursue in a rapidly changing global security environment.  That means evaluating proposals grounded in a policy of restraint seriously, not dismissing them with misleading labels.  

A critical component of a more effective, more affordable approach to national security should be a more realistic view of the challenges posed by China. Unfortunately, many top U.S. officials are doing more to promote exaggerated views of a hostile Chinese regime bent on global domination than they are to encourage a factual assessment of Beijing’s intentions and capabilities. For example, at the recent Aspen Security Forum, Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Charles Brown warned that if the U.S. lapsed into isolationism – a term he did not define – it “opens the door to Xi Jinping and others who want to do unprovoked aggression . . .We have credibility at stake.”

The tensions between the United States and China are real, but there is little evidence to suggest that Beijing is chomping at the bit to invade its neighbors if the U.S. shifts to a more restrained, realistic strategy.  The most contentious issue –the future status of Taiwan – would be best addressed via diplomacy, in the form of a revival of the “One China” policy that has kept the peace in the Taiwan Straits for the past five decades.  The policy holds that the United States will not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation, and that it will maintain informal relations with Taipei and refrain from treating it as if it were a treaty ally. For its part, China would pledge to pursue unification with Taiwan via peaceful means only.

There are larger problems in the U.S.-China relationship, most notably an action-reaction cycle based on each side’s worst case assessment of the other’s motives and military might.  While neither side is actively seeking conflict, there is a danger that the two sides might stumble into war if they remain on their current paths. In this context, a truly defensive strategy in East Asia that seeks to deter Chinese military action against its neighbors while abandoning the more dangerous and costly goal of being able to “win” a war with that nation is the course most likely to establish stability in the region.

As we elect a new President and Congress, we should debate the future of U.S. foreign policy.  But let’s do it honestly, without throwing around misleading labels intended to shut down debate and to keep us mired in a deadly, expensive and counterproductive approach to world affairs.

About the Author: 

William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

DÉCRYPTAGE - Fraîchement élu à la tête des députés macronistes, le premier ministre démissionnaire pourrait tenter de s’imposer comme le patron de Renaissance en vue de 2027.

Today’s stronger-than-expected GDP numbers make it very unlikely that the Federal Reserve will start an interest rate-cutting cycle at its policy meeting this week. This is a great pity, considering the multiple downside risks to the economic recovery that are now in plain sight. By the time the Fed starts cutting interest rates, it will likely be too late for the Fed to stave off an economic recession.

The distinguishing characteristic of the Jerome Powell Fed is its backward-looking monetary policy approach. In 2021, the Fed was inexcusably slow in raising interest rates at a time when there were clear signs of an acceleration in inflation. Today, the Fed is very slow in cutting interest rates. It is too slow at a time when there are clear signs that inflation is moderating and that downside risks to the economy are building.

A backward-looking Fed will likely say that today’s GDP numbers do not provide it with sufficient reassurance that inflation is coming down to its 2 percent inflation target on a sustainable basis. In defense of its position, the Fed will note that in the second quarter, GDP growth accelerated to a faster-than-expected 2.8 percent. It will also point out that the core personal consumer expenditure deflator, the Fed’s favorite inflation yardstick, ticked up 2.7 percent compared to a year ago.

The basic mistake that the Fed now appears to   shopping habits following the pandemic, commercial property prices are dropping, and property developers are already starting to default on the $900 billion in property loans that fall due this year. This will hit the banks especially hard at a time when high interest rates have wrought serious damage on their loan and bond portfolios. It is estimated that the banks are currently sitting on more than $1 trillion in mark-to-market losses on those portfolios.

According to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study, close to 400 small and medium-sized banks could fail due to high interest rates and the commercial property crisis. Were such failures to materialize, they would be reminiscent of the 1980s Savings and Loan Crisis, which contributed significantly to an economic recession.

Another risk that could derail the recovery is the United States’ drift toward protectionist policies, especially against China. One clear indication of this drift is the emphasis in the current election cycle on the need to protect American jobs from foreign competition. Donald Trump has made clear that if he wins the election, he will impose a 60 percent import tariff on China and a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all other countries’ exports. That would carry the risk of retaliation by our trade partners and a return to the economically destructive beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the 1930s.

Looking abroad, there is no shortage of political and economic risks to which the Fed should be paying attention. Russia is still engaged in its war with Ukraine, while the Israel-Hamas War could spill over to the rest of the Middle East. China, the world’s second-largest economy and, until recently, its main engine of economic growth, is struggling to cope with the fallout from the bursting of its massive housing and equity bubble. Meanwhile, a heavily indebted and ungovernable France raises the specter of another round of Eurozone sovereign debt crises.

In 2021, at a time when the economy was recovering strongly and receiving its largest peacetime stimulus on record, the Powell Fed maintained interest rates at zero to keep a strong recovery going. That allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle. Today, at a time when the Fed’s high interest rates have caused inflation to moderate sharply and at a time when downside risks to the economy are building, the Fed is choosing to stick to its hawkish monetary policy stance. This heightens the chance that the Powell Fed will end up with contributing not only to the inflationary surge to a multi-decade high in 2022 but to an economic recession by early next year.

About the Author: Desmind Lachman 

Desmond Lachman is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was previously a Deputy Director in the International Monetary Fund’s Policy Development and Review Department as well as the Chief Emerging-Market Economic Strategist at Salomon Smith Barney.

Image: Shutterstock.com. 

Ireland reduce Zimbabwe from 121-1 to 210 all out to finish day one of the first Test match in Belfast in a strong position.

137 km/órás sebességgel száguldott egy fiatal sofőr Dunaszerdahelyen, 87 km/órával lépte át a sebességhatárt.

Avec une marge nette de près de 20 %, deux fois celle des plats de la restauration ordinaire, le burger fait figure de « cash-machine ». Très vite rentabilisé, vite préparé, vite avalé, il figurerait aujourd'hui à la carte de trois lieux de restauration sur quatre en France ; en 2023 dans l'Hexagone, on (...) / Agroalimentaire, Agriculture, Alimentation - 2024/07

DÉCRYPTAGE - Depuis 2016, au moins six appellations différentes ont désigné les troupes présidentielles. Un brouillard qui affaiblit son identification et entretient le flou sur la ligne politique.

Le choix du président américain est un processus long et complexe. Il commence par les primaires et finit par le choix, en novembre prochain, de celui qui devra diriger l'Amérique depuis la Maison Blanche durant les quatre (04) prochaines années.

Les Jeux olympiques commencent officiellement vendredi, dans une période marquée par de fortes tensions internationales. Un impressionnant dispositif sécuritaire a été mis en place pour garantir le bon déroulement de la compétition, mais les menaces sont nombreuses.

L’ancien président, qui avait quitté la Chambre Basse pour l’Élysée en 2012, reprend ses marques dans ce Palais Bourbon où il a tant manœuvré.