The Americas

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is changing South Korean foreign policy. He has allowed Seoul’s relationship with the United States and Japan to deteriorate while betting heavily that North Korea would embrace his détente effort. This risks isolating South Korea, and the conservative pushback

It is now nearly 17 months since the Trump administration began collecting 25% tariffs on the first tranche of Chinese imports to the US – time enough to evaluate the economic impact the trade war so far. That impact? Surprisingly little. It is certainly true that comparing the first nine

Even by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s standards, the diplomacy – if you can call it that –  on show at his meeting with US President Donald Trump last Wednesday was brazen. US Republicans and pundits alike were rightly baffled by the warm reception offered to the Turkish strongman,

After a roller-coaster ride spanning 18 months, the trade war between the United States and China is finally showing signs of abatement, with the two sides confirming that they are close to the conclusion of a phase-one deal. While the signing of the deal, which was originally scheduled to take

The US, Australia, and Japan have joined together to establish a trilateral “Blue Dot Network” to help develop infrastructure “in the Indo-Pacific and around the world”. The plan was announced on the sidelines of the 35th ASEAN summit in Thailand last week. This sounds impressive. The Indo

It is not yet agreed, may yet fail, and is anyway unlikely to settle matters, but the impending “phase one” trade deal could be a useful ceasefire in the US economic war with China. Two years on from the US initiation of penalty tariffs on China, it is also a convenient moment to point to a few

The US trade war against China launched by President Donald Trump has hitherto lacked a clear moral dimension. There are economic arguments – that China insists on tilting the playing field by blocking certain foreign companies, forced local partnerships for foreign firms, or intellectual property

Small states are states too. They have their own agency, their own interests, and their own preferences, and it is important they do not see the world through the perspectives offered by the US-China binary. This was the main point of the speech I gave this month in Beijing as Malaysia’s Deputy

Ambassador Nicholas Burns is the 2019 Rothschild & Co Distinguished International Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is one of America’s most eminent former diplomats, having served under Republican and Democrat administrations in a 27 year career in the foreign service. He was US

It is only a start, but the Friday trade talks agreement between China and the US is still the best news for the world economy in the almost three years since Donald Trump won the presidential contest. This agreement is sufficient to keep the talks going, which last week was in doubt. More

Just last week, much of Washington seemed to reach consensus on the direction of US policy in Syria. The Syria Study Group, a bipartisan committee convened by Congress to examine policy options released a final report, laying out a way forward. The committee concluded that sharp shifts and reversals

The US House of Representatives’ inquiry into grounds for impeaching Donald Trump is yet another indication of the massive erosion of the President’s domestic authority. His authority as an international leader has similarly declined, not as a result of challenges by other international leaders

From trade to cyber, from the South China Sea to outer space, strategic rivalry between the United States and China is shaping the international order. The polar regions seem no exception. At the recent Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council held in Rovaniemi, Finland, US Secretary of State

It’s not just the phone ringing at the Lodge – Scott Morrison needs to keep an eye out for the postie, too. Because like Donald Trump before him, senior US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham plans to contact Australia, this time with a letter, to ask for cooperation. “To find out,” as

Nearly three quarters of the way through Donald Trump’s first term, the Democrats have launched impeachment proceedings against the President. Given that this is likely to gin up his base and produce more of the chaos and controversy on which he thrives this decision is surprising. Of the many

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ahead of an election next month, is seeking to fend off an immediate and growing scandal around past episodes of wearing “brownface”. But whatever Trudeau’s fate at the polls, his term in office has come as Canada wrestles with longer-term shifts

The Tuesday firing (or resignation) of president Donald Trump’s third national security advisor, John Bolton, was hardly a surprise. The rift between the two men had been the subject of news pieces and commentary for several months. From Bolton being effectively quarantined in Mongolia while Trump

Scott Morrison said it himself, only last week. “I mean he’s a very different President to previous Presidents.” And in another timely reminder ahead of the Australian Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, the revolving door at Donald Trump’s White House has turned again, with the

If the President Donald Trump’s behaviour in August did not drive away his voters and open discussion of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment fitness clause, what will? Surely one of the great questions to emerge from the Trump presidency is the stubborn persistence of his low 40-per cent

Despite an optimistic bounce in global financial markets Friday, the relentless trade war between the US and China resumed Sunday. Threatened 15% tariffs by the US on another $250 billion of China imports went into effect Sunday morning, as did new China tariffs on US crude oil, soybeans and

Never one to shy from lofty goals, French President Emmanuel Macron used the G7 summit in the French seaside town of Biarritz to make tenuous first steps in rejuvenating the West as the world’s most powerful political alliance. The summit ended yesterday amid improbable displays of goodwill and

Back in December, Scott Morrison went halfway in following Donald Trump’s change to the diplomatic recognition of Israel, deciding to leave Australia’s embassy in Tel Aviv while formally acknowledging “West Jerusalem” as the capital. But at the same time, Morrison decided not to follow Trump

Many of The Interpreter’s readers are experts on the theory and conduct of international relations. So, quite reasonably, they look at armed conflict through the lens of inter-state relations, where one state resorts to the use (or the threat of use) of armed force to prevail over another. For