21 MARCH

Republican warns of impeachment if Russia probe is halted

Republican Senator Jeff Flake has told The Washington Post that he would support impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump if the president ends Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election "without cause".

“If [Trump] fires [Mueller] without cause, how different is that from what Nixon did with the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’? He left before impeachment came, but that was the remedy then and that would be the remedy now," Flake said.

Flake has been a prominent critic of the president, but his warning came days after similar salvos from Republican elder Senator Orrin Hatch, who said firing Mueller would be a "foolish action" and "the stupidest thing" the president could do.

Trump has stepped up his criticism of Mueller, attacking him by name for the first time on Twitter in the days following the president's decision to fire FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe – 26 hours before his scheduled retirement.

NEWS WRAP

Open book

• Most people hadn't heard about Cambridge Analytica until this week, but the British data company claims it ran the digital, television and data campaigns for Donald Trump's presidential election bid. Now, multiple US state attorneys general are launching investigations into the company's misuse of 50 million Facebook users' personal data and it has been suspended from the social media platform in the wake of a New York Times report revealing that it violated Facebook's terms of service. A Channel 4 undercover sting report also captured its CEO making claims about the company bribing politicians or potentially entrapping them, leading to his suspension. READ MORE HERE.
   

• Andrew McCabe's firing quickly overshadowed Rex Tillerson's ouster as US secretary of state earlier in the week – but the fallout from that decision continues. The ABC's Stan Grant spoke to the Centre's CEO Simon Jackman and visiting scholar Charles Edel on his Matter of Fact program about Tillerson's sacking shortly after the event. WATCH HERE.
   
• Ahead of the ASEAN summit in Sydney last weekend, Labor's foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong and defence spokesperson Richard Marles said a future Labor government would strongly support the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. The so-called Quad is a security grouping involving Japan, Australia, India and the United States. The Centre's director of foreign policy and defence Ashley Townshend spoke to The Australian Financial Review about the announcement. READ MORE HERE.
   
• President Trump has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin for winning re-election at the weekend, provoking a strong rebuke from Senator John McCain. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said accusations that Russia used a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy in the UK did not come up during the two presidents' conversation. The diplomatic crisis between Britain and Russia over that attack has raised the prospect of cyber warfare between the two nuclear-armed countries. Research fellow Brendan Thomas-Noone spoke to The Telegraph about how a cyber war with Russia could play out. READ MORE HERE. 
   
• Trump has publicly called for drug traffickers to face the death penalty. His comments during a speech in New Hampshire are part of his plan to combat the US painkiller-addiction epidemic. Trump said his administration was attempting to change the law to execute drug dealers, but that it will face stiff political and judicial headwinds. READ MORE HERE.

It has to happen without anyone thinking ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is ‘who’s put that out?'

Mark Turnbull, managing director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global
(Channel 4 News undercover sting)
19 March 2018

ANALYSIS

Trump's threat to rules-based global trade

Jared Mondschein
Research fellow

From guns to health care, Washington seems more gridlocked and politically divided than ever, yet there’s actually fairly widespread consensus on at least one issue: China is not playing fairly when it comes to trade.

China has become dramatically more market-oriented than it was when it first joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, yet Beijing having acceded to the premier international organisation addressing international rules of trade has not coincided with China becoming market-oriented enough. Today, China maintains significant government involvement in the economy – ranging from subsidies and the supporting of dumping cheap goods abroad to enacting significant tariffs on foreign imports.

The major divergence in Washington – and where the Trump administration is upending the rules based order – is over how to address that.

Both Obama and Bush administrations took on China within the multilateral WTO framework to reign in Beijing’s unfair practices. Within this framework all countries would collectively enact retaliatory measures against any country deemed to be engaging in unfair practices. 

The Trump administration, on the other hand, has taken a unilateral approach that violates the multilateral WTO system in either letter or spirit by invoking the WTO national security exception in bad faith having enacted tariffs on steel and aluminium and then its expected tariffs on Chinese imports in the near future. 

The Trump administration is also actively blocking judicial appointments to the WTO’s Appellate Body, which has the important role of settling international trade disputes. The one function of the WTO that has been lauded more than any other for preventing trade wars and maintaining the rules based system for trade, the Appellate Body may simply not have enough judges to exist by 2019.

As one European report adroitly said: “Trump is making a cynical calculation that the US is the world’s No.1 economy and can outmuscle any opponent in a trade dispute, without the need for international arbitration. In a world that returns to the law of the jungle, Trump reckons he wins.”

From its sluggish pace in adopting new trade measures – it has been stuck on the latest round of negotiations since 2001 – to the uncomprehensive means of addressing mercantilist tendencies, the WTO system is undoubtedly an imperfect one. It is also the only global trade system available. Yet, instead of trying to improve the WTO or create a new system to raise the standards of international trade, such as joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trump administration is seeking to throw the baby out with the bathwater and perhaps even the whole bathroom for that matter.

From the US withdrawal from the TPP and Paris Climate Accords to the dismantling of the US diplomatic corps, many US allies have maintained a strategy of trying to minimise Trump’s disruptions while praying that the next administration will be more reasonable and stable. Trump’s existential threat to the rules-based order on trade, also known as the WTO, make such a strategy impossible. 

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 21 March: The US House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the US trade policy agenda.
   

• Wednesday, 21 March: The US State Department will hold its 2018 International Women of Courage celebration.
   

• Thursday, 22 March: US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on recent trade actions, including section 232 determinations on steel and aluminium. 
   

• Monday, 26 March: Australia's House of Representatives returns for three sitting days, along with the Senate.

EVENT

Trump and the US presidency: The past, present and future of America's highest office

VIDEO

Cynthia Nixon announces run for governor of New York

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#AndrewMcCabe

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University of Sydney NSW 2006

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