NEWS WRAP

Mia Love in Australia

• Mia Love, the first black Republican congresswoman, is in Australia for a series of events as part of her role as a non-resident senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre. She's joined The Project, ABC News Breakfast, ABC Radio Melbourne and Planet America to discuss US politics, President Trump and the future of the Republican Party. You can also hear her tackle all these issues on this week's episode of the 2020Vision podcast. LISTEN HERE.
   

• President Trump has reversed his decision to host next year's G7 economic summit of world powers at his resort in Miami, in a rare departure after facing bipartisan backlash. The president tweeted the major change just over 48 hours after the initial announcement, called the rising criticism his administration was facing "irrational hostility" and wrote, "I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders." READ MORE HERE.
   
• We were constantly told that Trump was too offensive, ignorant and dangerous to be chosen to lead the United States. But, according to Associate Professor in American Politics Brendon O'Connor in The Conversation, this political interpretation tended to miss how American popular culture had created the conditions for a character like Trump to upend the mannered and formulaic presidential selection process. READ MORE HERE.
   
• Baltimore Democrat Elijah E. Cummings has died at the age of 68. A central figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump, Cummings was a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was an early backer of Barack Obama’s run for the presidency in 2008, when he served as Maryland chair of the campaign. He was active in the progressive caucus, teaming up with Senator Elizabeth Warren on issues of healthcare, including lowering prescription drug prices. READ MORE HERE.
   
• "Don't be a tough guy, don't be a fool." That was the message to Turkey's President Erdogan from President Trump in an October 9 letter, three days after Trump had announced US troops would be pulling out of Northern Syria. Senior Advisor Jared Mondschein spoke about the release of the letter with the ABC's World Today program. LISTEN HERE.

ANALYSIS

Impeachment is already affecting Trump’s foreign policy

Bruce Wolpe
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

While impeachment has many political dimensions that will shape whether a president survives it – Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton did, but Richard Nixon did not – there are two things that stick with the president who is the target of it:  Impeachment is weakness. Impeachment is ridicule.

Weakness because a president’s stature is inevitably diminished by the House of Representatives beginning the process of removing the president from office. 

Ridicule because being a president under impeachment means that the leader of the free world has made grave, stupid and avoidable errors of action, judgement or comportment that have opened him to the humiliating, infuriating prospect of removal from office.

Weak presidents are not always impeached (see: Jimmy Carter). Presidents who were ridiculed have not always been impeached (see: Gerald Ford and Chevy Chase skewering a hapless 38th president).

Impeachment generally unfolds in the context of a president’s standing at home:  Will he survive? Will he and his party suffer at the next election? But less visible or appreciated is the extent to which impeachment can affect a president’s standing overseas, and his ability to execute his foreign policy goals. This is because presidents lose leverage when they are under the threat of being removed from office.

Nixon could not advance America’s end to its involvement in Vietnam when impeachment was under way. Bill Clinton could not bridge the final gap between the PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David, and seal an historic peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. 

One wonders whether an unencumbered Nixon could have continued to unleash American power to get more concessions from North Vietnam in 1974. And might Bill Clinton have been in a more commanding face-to-face position, unblemished by the months of tabloid scandal coverage of his misadventures, to jawbone Arafat more effectively to make the deal with Barak?

Trump’s impending impeachment is already affecting his ability to secure his foreign policy objectives in three crucial areas:

On the trade war with China, Trump has had to settle for a partial deal now, instead of a comprehensive deal later – and there are serious questions that have been raised (such as by USSC colleague Stephen Kirchner) about how good the interim agreement is, and whether China is honouring it. While China is indeed hurting under the pressure of the tariff wars, Trump absolutely needs to deliver wins on the trade issue for his base – particularly in the farm belt – to win in 2020. China knows it and has clearly exploited a visible weakness in Trump’s posture.

Kim Jong Un also knows that Trump needs to show meaningful progress on his most ambitious foreign policy goal of removing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. And Kim is playing hardball: either we have movement by the end of the year, or all bets are off. The risks are that Kim could resume nuclear testing. In the face of a clear marker that his high wire summitry has failed, Trump could be forced to go back to “Rocket Man” and threats to obliterate North Korea.

On Turkey, a key member of the House Republican leadership believes that Erdogan, seeing Trump under the threat of impeachment, was emboldened in his play for northern Syria – that he could get away with it at a tiny price. So far, Erdogan is winning that bet.

Up and down Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC, ambassadors are sending cables back to their capitals handicapping the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, and whether they will see President Pence in the early weeks of 2020. Those cables alone mean that Trump is weaker today than he was in August. And behind every cable is ridicule.

How Trump emerges from the impeachment drama will determine whether these early signs of siege by America’s adversaries will not only continue, but deepen.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 23 October: US House Committee on Appropriations will hold a hearing on the emerging threat to public health from e-cigarettes.
   

• Thursday, 24 October: United Nations Day.
   

• Thursday, 24 October: President Trump will present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former race car driver Roger Penske.
   

• Friday, 25 October: President Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks at the 2019 Second Step Presidential Justice Forum in South Carolina.

EVENT

Book launch: Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism

Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism argues against the tendency to see America as the worst or best nation: the hobgoblin of both deluded and overconfident American nationalists and America’s overly simplistic foes. It instead presents a case for seeing anti-Americanism as a counterproductive prejudice, arguing that while there are many reasons to criticise American policies, politics and American society, a crucial distinction should be drawn between criticism and prejudice. 

Charting the development and adaptation of this anti-American tradition, author and Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre Brendon O'Connor maintains that it is important to contextualise it within the particularities of the American experience and the global reach of American influence and power. The book also explores the rise of Donald Trump and contends that American popular culture created the conditions for a character like Trump to become president. 

Anti-Americanism and American Exceptionalism will be launched by the ABC's John Barron.

DATE & TIME
Friday, 25 October 2019.
6pm (for 6.30pm)

LOCATION
Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037.

COST
Free, but registration required.

VIDEO

White House Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney: "Get over" Ukraine quid pro quo, "we do it all the time"

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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