Ashish Kumar Sen

Trump’s Wall Drives a Wedge Between the United States and Mexico  US President Donald Trump’s demand that Mexico pay for a border wall has plunged the US-Mexico relationship into an unseemly crisis, according to two Latin America analysts at the Atlantic Council.

Can Trump’s Anti-EU Rhetoric Unite Europe?   While US President Donald Trump’s predictions that other member states, besides the United Kingdom, will desert the European Union (EU) are unhelpful, they serve as a wake-up call for the EU to set its house in order, according to a senior European official.

Trump to Meet British Prime Minister May. Here’s What You Should Know.  US President Donald Trump will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May—his first meeting with a head of state or government since his inauguration on January 20—at the White House on January 27. Sir Peter Westmacott, distinguished ambassadorial fellow at the Atlantic Council who served as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States from 2012-2016, discussed what to expect from the meeting, the future of the US-UK “special relationship,” and the challenges in the transatlantic relationship and those posed by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

The United States Quits TPP: A Gift for China  US President Donald Trump’s decision to take the United States out of a free-trade agreement with eleven other Pacific Rim nations is a “gift” for China because it undermines a deal through which the United States had sought to write the rules of the road for global trade, according to two Atlantic Council analysts.

Samantha Power Outlines Russian Threat to the United States, Rules-Based Order   The United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, on January 17 described Russia as a “major threat” facing the United States and the rules-based liberal world order, and cautioned Americans against allowing Moscow to divide them in the face of this threat.

Transatlantic Relationship Forecast: Stormy Weather Ahead   The transatlantic relationship is in for a rough ride over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency simply because there is no “correcting mechanism” among the incoming cabinet to counter the next US president’s rhetoric on the European Union, according to an Atlantic Council analyst. In an interview with the Times of London and Germany’s Bild newspaper published on January 15, Trump bashed NATO as “obsolete,” described the European Union (EU) as “basically a vehicle for Germany,” applauded the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, and predicted that more EU member states would follow. The comments rattled the United States’ European allies.

With Migration Policy Change, Obama Leaves Cuba Relationship to Trump   US President Barack Obama’s decision to end the “wet foot, dry foot” policy that allowed any Cuban migrant who reached US soil to stay in the country will slow the number of Cuban immigrants rushing to the United States, but is unlikely to deter US President-elect Donald Trump from reversing some of the recent progress in the bilateral relationship, according to two Atlantic Council Latin America analysts. 

Trump’s Energy, Climate Positions Causing Concern  While there is “quite a bit of concern” about the direction of US President-elect Donald Trump’s energy policy, he is unlikely to take the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement for the simple reason that doing so would cause “huge collateral damage” to the United States, Todd Stern, a former US State Department special envoy for climate change, said in Abu Dhabi on January 13.

Democrats Making a Mistake by Looking for a ‘Scapegoat’ for Clinton’s Loss, says Trump Advisor   A senior national security advisor to US President-elect Donald Trump said on January 10 that the Democrats are making a mistake by looking for a “scapegoat” on which to blame Hillary Clinton’s presidential election defeat.

Trump’s National Security Advisor Seeks to Reassure Allies US President-elect Donald Trump’s national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, on January 10 sought to reassure US allies of the incoming administration’s commitment to alliances. Flynn said the incoming National Security Council’s mission, guided by Trump’s vision to “make America great again,” will be supported by an overarching policy of “peace through strength.”

John Kerry Sets the Record Straight US Secretary of State John Kerry on January 10 took a thinly veiled swipe at US President-elect Donald Trump while warning of the perils of living in a “factless political environment” and expressing consternation that the process for nominating officials to serve in the next administration is being flouted.

Donald Trump: A Bull in a China Shop?  China could retaliate in several ways that would cause serious damage to the United States if President-elect Donald Trump were to overplay his hand with the Asian nation, according to an Asia expert at the Atlantic Council.  Noting that Trump has a “grotesquely inflated sense of American leverage,” Robert A. Manning, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and its Strategic Foresight Initiative, said: “What would he do if China took its $1.3 trillion in Treasury bonds that fund our deficit and put it into euros? Our economies are very interdependent and there is a mutually assured destruction if we start getting into tit-for-tat trade wars.”

In the DRC, Joseph Kabila Kicks the Can Down the Road  Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is unlikely to abide by the terms of an agreement that aims to end his fifteen-year rule and ensure the DRC’s first-ever democratic transition of power, said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.