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After Merkel, who leads Europe?
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
Who's going to be the leading voice politician in Europe after Angela Merkel leaves?
Well, that remains to be seen. First, we need to wait for the outcome of the German election, and then it's going to take quite some time to form a government in Germany to see who's going to be chancellor. And then of course we have elections coming up in France in the spring. Macron is likely to win, but you never know. So by next summer, we'll know more about that. And then there are other personalities there. There's Mario Draghi, prime minister of Italy, who has a strong personality. Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, as long as he's there. So it's going to take quite some time for this to be sorted out.
What did Boris Johnson achieve during his visit to the United States?
Well, I think his number one priority at the moment must be to mobilize broader international support for climate efforts. He is the host of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in November. That must be a success and I hope that he makes further progress in that direction during his days in the United States.
Merkel's White House visit will have symbolism and substance
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
Why is the United Kingdom opening up and what's happening in the rest of Europe?
Well, I mean, my personal view is that there's an element of complacency in Europe and elsewhere. The Delta variant is spreading rather fast. We'll see an increase in infections in a number of countries. Remains to be seen how this will be handled.
What's going to be an outcome of the Angela Merkel visit in the White House?
Well, to some extent, it's a farewell visit. But I think there's going to be a lot of substance because the policies advocating and personified, to a certain extent by Angela Merkel, are going to be the policies that are going to be dominating Europe in the years ahead. Be that Russia, be that China, be that transatlantic relationship. So, symbolism certainly, but a lot of substance as well.
Jeff Bezos has a solution for work-life balance
In the wake of the pandemic, we're all trying to figure out what work-life balance even means anymore. Here's what a few of the most powerful people in the world have to say about it.
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"Dude, you lost?" World leaders react to the US election
After days of tension and uncertainty, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the US presidential vote -- but how are world leaders like Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Mark Zuckerberg taking the news?
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World leaders are freaking out about the US vote too
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The US COVID response under Trump was not "merely mediocre"
An op-ed in the New York Times says that the US coronavirus response under President Trump was mediocre, but not catastrophic, when compared to the response of other countries. But the "peer country" examples selected by columnist Ross Douthat don't paint an accurate picture. Ian Bremmer and Eurasia Group analyst Scott Rosenstein take issue with Douthat's argument in this edition of The Red Pen (where we keep op-eds honest).
Today, we're taking our red pen to a recent piece from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. The title is provocative, "How Many Lives Would a More Normal President Have Saved?" It sounds like Douthat is about to go big on the failure of President Trump's response to the pandemic. But no, that's just the headline. In reality, what he's saying is it isn't a catastrophe and may end up just being, meh, especially when you compare the US to peer nations. Not so fast, Ross. Let's break down the argument and get out the red pen.
First, how are we defining peer nations? Douthat writes, "It probably makes more sense to compare the United States death toll to similarly positioned and sized countries - meaning the biggest countries in Western Europe and our major neighbors in the Americas - than to compare us to a global average." Why not compare, my view, the United States to the EU rather than individual nations for a similar landmass and population? That makes the most sense. If you did, you'd realize that comparison doesn't paint a pretty picture for the United States.
And by the way, if you are going to single out peers, you should also include Canada, Japan, South Korea, all of which have a lot fewer cases and deaths per capita than the United States. Now, to be fair, since publication, Douthat has posted a pretty lengthy thread on Twitter explaining a few of his more controversial points and admitting he should have included Canada as analysis. Fair enough. But in broad terms, comparing the United States to a conveniently selected cohort and ignoring both the different starting points within that comparison and all other counterexamples - like Canada and the EU a whole - seems like you're forcing the argument. Also, the US is far better equipped in terms of federal government resources, pandemic planning, the private sector, and research institutions - the best in the world - than pretty much any other country. So therefore, the extent to which the US underperformed, what should have been our expectations is much greater. Also, keep in mind, the United States population is considerably younger than the European countries that are under comparison, which should have helped minimize deaths and severe illness, since we know that overwhelmingly coronavirus hits older populations.
Next, Douthat focuses on left versus right politics and not anti-science populism versus pro-science pragmatism. That's a lot more important as a split, not left versus right. He writes, "Overall, once you observe the general pattern where the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe have been particularly hard hit, it's hard to distinguish the big countries run by centrists or socialists from the country run by Donald Trump." But when you compare anti-science populists like Trump or AMLO in Mexico, Bolsonaro in Brazil, with Angela Merkel in Germany, or Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, you see a pattern that suggests that Trump's rhetoric, an unwillingness to demonstrate strong leadership, have done more than a little damage.
One of the most important points in dealing with a pandemic is not whether you on the left or on the right, whether you're small or whether you're big, or even whether you're rich or whether you're poor, it's whether or not you're leading with science and expertise. That's been a really fundamental divide in the United States. And President Trump have not led well on that.
Finally, when we get to the "normal president" part from the title of the column, Douthat writes that the actions necessary to save a hundred thousand or more lives "would probably required presidential greatness, not merely replacement level competence." Really? I mean, do you have to be an exceptional leader like Merkel to listen to public health experts and avoid the politicization of vaccines and treatments?
You don't need to be Winston Churchill to level with people and not intentionally downplay the threat of the pandemic, which is exactly what President Trump told Bob Woodward he was doing. It's all in Woodward's new book, by the way. Speaking of vaccines, Douthat also writes that if one is developed in record time, as Trump is promised, that will also be part of Trump's coronavirus legacy. And absolutely agree. But let's keep in mind that President Trump has also stoked vaccine skepticism since before he was elected and now his actions on coronavirus vaccines are contributing to even more skepticism. So if Operation Warp Speed is successful, it may also succeed in further undermining vaccines for coronavirus and for other illnesses for a long time to come.