26 JUNE

Democrats face off in first debates

Twenty Democratic presidential hopefuls will take to the stage in Miami, Florida for their first televised debates this week. Held over two nights, with 10 candidates featuring in each, NBC News' Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Telemundo's José Diaz-Balart will share moderation duties.

Elizabeth Warren goes into the first debate with a sizeable advantage – many of the best polling candidates have been randomly drawn into the second night together. Warren also continues to gain in the polls, with a pair of recent surveys showing her surging ahead of rivals among progressive voters.

There will also be plenty of scrutiny of former Vice President Joe Biden, after a series of controversies in recent weeks, including invoking segregationist senators with whom he disagreed but worked with as an example of how he can be civil and get things done.

NEWS WRAP

A Republican sizes up the Democratic field

• With former Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement reversing his position on the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, does he and the rest of the Democratic field risk alienating moderate voters in the United States? In her column for the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, Non-Resident Senior Fellow (and former Republican congresswoman) Mia Love suggests the policy, along with promises of Medicare-for-all and free college, now put President Trump firmly in the mainstream for 2020. READ MORE HERE.
   

• Can any Democrats realistically hope to cut-through against 20 competitors over the crowded two debates this week? CEO Simon Jackman joined the 2020Vision podcast to preview the first televised face-off and also shared his thoughts on Trump's official campaign kick-off in Orlando. LISTEN HERE.
   

• Special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly following a subpoena from the US House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the panels announced Tuesday. Mueller will testify publicly before both committees on Wednesday, July 17, according to a joint statement announcing the hearing. READ MORE HERE.
   

• President Trump has announced new sanctions against Iran just a few days after putting a last-second halt to what would have been his third military action against targets in the Middle East. Research Fellow Brendan Thomas-Noone spoke to News.com.au about the concerns for Australia amidst the crisis. Senior Fellow Jared Mondschein also wrote for The Age on the need for restraint. READ MORE HERE.
   

• Author Michael Wolff 's follow-up to his Trump White House exposé Fire and Fury flunks the smell test, according to Non-Resident Senior Fellow Bruce Wolpe. He reviewed Siege: Trump Under Fire for The Sydney Morning Herald last week and found it largely wanting. READ MORE HERE.
   
• Trump is taking the global economy to the edge of hell in a handbasket, according to Non-Resident Senior Fellow John Lee, and the president's meeting with Xi Jinping during the G20 in Osaka this week will likely only provide temporary relief. Lee notes in his column for The Australian Financial Review today that the more instability and uncertainty in the era of Trump and beyond, the more likely the greenback remains the world's pre-eminent reserve currency. READ MORE HERE

Hundreds of migrant children have been transferred out of a filthy Border Patrol station in Texas where they had been detained for weeks without access to soap, clean clothes or adequate food, the authorities confirmed on Monday, suggesting that worsening conditions and overcrowding inside federal border facilities may have reached a breaking point.

New York Times report on the poor facilities housing migrant children in the United States
24 June 2019

ANALYSIS

Can Trump pull a trifecta at the G20?

Bruce Wolpe
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

For President Trump, there is no more important international meeting in his presidency than this weekend’s G20 summit in Osaka. For a man who has mastered “the art of the deal”, he's regularly come up empty-handed in the trade wars. He has blown up NATO meetings, trashed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, launched tariff wars with Europe, Japan, China, Mexico and Canada, endured a failed summit with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, suffered a breakdown in trade talks with China, and has still not produced his peace plan for Israel and Palestine. 

Even where he has reached a new agreement, such as the US-Mexico-Canada trade pact, chances of approval by Congress this year are fast receding. It will likely not be in effect by the end of 2019.

But in the midst of this shutout in global diplomacy, and after a week of exceptionally tense brinkmanship with Iran in the Persian Gulf, there is, astonishingly, a major chance for a Trump re-set that could salvage his most crucial foreign policy goals – and aid his re-election. This G20 summit is suddenly exquisitely timed for Trump to end the current phase of confrontation and incoherence in foreign policy, and get back on a positive course to resolve three enormously important issues:

(1) Iran: At the G20, can Europe open up a diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran? If there is not to be war, there must be diplomacy – can the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal find a way to begin bringing the two countries into some accommodation? Trump has said repeatedly he wants talks. Establishing a backchannel between Washington and Tehran, together with a stand-down on the military skirmishes, is the only way forward on the nuclear control goals of the United States and the sanctions relief Iran desperately needs. 

(2) US-China trade talks: This may be the last chance for a restart on negotiations. Trump believes he can't lose, that he has more cards to play with Chinese imports than American exports harmed by Chinese retaliation. But such a posture is not conducive to reaching an agreement. Even if the structural trade issues can be resolved – a big 'if' – China wants all tariffs ended if a deal is done. It also wants some relief and access for Huawei. The backdown in Hong Kong is very helpful – it takes a complicated human rights issue off the table. Can Trump and Xi Jinping agree on a process that will enable them to declare victory and head to a safe harbour together later this year?

(3) US-North Korea talks: Xi was in Pyongyang with Kim this past week, undoubtedly talking about what Kim and Trump both have to work through if substantive and true progress is to be made on dismantling Kim’s nuclear arsenal. Kim received a letter from Trump in the wake of Xi’s visit. Will Xi present a roadmap to Trump on how to get real progress re-started on the nuclear talks?

So little with Trump is strategic; so much is tactical, opportunistic in the short-term and improvised. But what the G20 in Osaka presents is an opportunity for some tactical advances that actually serve long-term US strategic interests. A play on Iran is a truly long shot. It took years for President Obama to find the key to the door for the nuclear negotiations. Untying the trade issues with China is exceptionally complex. The end goal of a nuclear-weapons-free North Korea may well prove elusive.

Nevertheless, Trump’s ability to go to the 2020 election with real foreign policy achievements for the American people may well depend on whether he can pull off a trifecta in Osaka.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 26 June: First Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Florida.
   

• Thursday, 27 June: Second Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Florida.
   

• 28-29 June: G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan.
   

• Tuesday, 2 July: Australian Parliament resumes in Canberra.

EVENT

When will the military have its #MeToo moment?

VIDEO

President Trump questions the accuracy of the popular vote count in the 2016 election

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#Iran

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