Vietnam Is Still Caught in a Tug of War Between Superpowers
The Reunification Day parade on Wednesday was an emotional display of national pride, 50 years after North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon — as the city was then called — ending a conflict that devastated the country and killed an estimated 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 American troops.
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Buzz Feed
16 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
Best Political Tweets 7-1-2025
American politics — well, frankly, global politics — is chaos right now, but I find it comforting to know I'm not alone in thinking the world has gone bananas. So, here are 49 of the best, most relatable, and sometimes funny political tweets from the last month: And finally: See you next month!
New York Post
26 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump's racking up wins — and rewriting the book on diplomacy
The least diplomatic president in US history is scoring diplomatic victories. Over the last couple of days, Donald Trump has gotten NATO to agree to a defense spending target of 5%, and backed Canada off imposing a digital-services tax on American tech firms. He's done this while being loathed by many of his foreign interlocutors. In fact, Trump has executed a near-complete inversion of the typical diplomatic formula. He's not nice. He's not conflict-averse. He's not euphemistic. And yet he's gotten results. The NATO commitment, in particular, is potentially historic, and could materially strengthen the position of the Western alliance for the long term. Trump is violating the usual rules of persuasion. Abraham Lincoln famously said: 'It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' ' Trump doesn't hesitate to pour on the gall, often in ALL CAPS on Truth Social. The leading 19th-century French diplomat Talleyrand said, 'A diplomat who says 'yes' means 'maybe,' a diplomat who says 'maybe' means 'no,' and a diplomat who says 'no' is no diplomat.' Trump says 'go to hell' as the start of the negotiation. He persuades by pressuring. He coaxes by threatening. He de-escalates by escalating. He wins friends and influences people by convincing them he thinks they're freeloaders and losers. A lot of this is a function of his personality and his experience as a Gotham real-estate developer with a nose for power dynamics, a knack for showmanship and a willingness to court risk. It's hard to see how his style of international politics will be replicable by a more traditional political figure. But undergirding his approach is a key strategic insight into the gap between US military and economic might and that of its allies, and how this meant there was a vast unexploited potential for the United States to throw its weight around. When the US president is talking about pulling the plug on NATO, or cutting off trade talks with Canada — as Trump did in response to the proposed digital services tax — it's going to get everyone's attention. The bull standing outside the door of the china shop is a powerful incentive to get along with the bull. The United States has jawboned European countries about their defense spending over the years, but always in a 'we are all friends here' fashion. Defense Secretary Robert Gates issued warnings, cast in terms of how the United States might one day lose its patience. The Biden team didn't have it in them to force the issue. One expert told The New Yorker of her effort to convince Biden officials to get tougher on Germany over its low level of spending. They demurred. 'We don't want to overpressure them,' the expert recalled them saying. 'They should do it on their own time.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters What Trump has shown is that 'over-pressuring' can sometimes be the right amount of pressuring. Amazingly, prior to the NATO summit on spending, the secretary-general of NATO sounded like a Republican senator trying to keep on Trump's good side in a text message to the president: 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.' There's, no doubt, a limit to Trump's way of doing business. It's true that Machiavelli said it's better to be feared than loved, but he also warned against being hated. Operating this way will build up resentment of the United States over time. And Trump so far has gotten his most notable results using his leverage against dependent friends and allies, not China or Russia. Still, there's no denying his unconventional effectiveness. The late political scientist Joseph Nye contrasted so-called soft power with hard power. 'This soft power — getting others to want the outcomes that you want — co-opts people rather than coerces them,' he wrote. Trump wields soft power with an edge, co-opting through an element of coercion. Twitter: @RichLowry
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
USAID cuts could result in 14M additional deaths: Research
A study published Monday found that the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) could result in more than 14 million additional deaths globally by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths of children younger than 5 years. The findings were released hours before Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency would officially shut down following President Trump's executive order earlier this year aiming to dismantle the agency. Many of the deaths are expected to occur in the African countries of Nigeria and Uganda due to the loss of funding for maternal and child health aid, in addition to epidemic and emerging disease surveillance. Researchers found that those two countries would contribute to 107,000 additional deaths globally in just one year of a disrupted malaria-control supply chain. The end of USAID pulls funding from non-governmental organizations including the UN World Food Programme, which closed its southern Africa office, placing 27 million people at risk of hunger amid the country's worst drought in decades, the study says. Former Presidents Obama and Bush have been critical of the Trump administration for the USAID closure, which also threatens to scale back America's role in the global fight against HIV and AIDS. 'Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it's a tragedy. Because it's some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,' Obama said, according to The Associated Press. Rubio on Tuesday defended the shuttering of USAID, arguing the agency's objectives were often left unmet. 'Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown,' Rubio wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. 'This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end.' The Monday study found that USAID-supported efforts have helped to prevent more than 91 million deaths across all age groups, including 30 million deaths among children. It said high levels of USAID funding were associated with a 15 percent reduction in mortality across all ages, a 65 percent reduction in mortality from HIV/AIDS, a 51 percent reduction from malaria, and a 50 percent reduction from neglected tropical diseases. In 2022, USAID was responsible for more than half of nutrition interventions, food distribution and agricultural interventions globally. 'Therefore, the impact of USAID on health and mortality reduction extends beyond its direct funding of health programmes and interventions,' the study's authors wrote. 'In particular, USAID's support for poverty alleviation, education, and water and sanitation interventions—among many others—might have had a substantial effect on health outcomes, also considering the broader spillover effects these interventions can have on entire communities,' it added. 'Indeed, poverty alleviation interventions alone have demonstrated important effects on reducing both adult and child mortality.' The research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, UK Medical Research Council and EU Horizon Europe.
