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      in World Politics

      Welcome to The Economist’s Technological Idealism

      by

      Every publication has a worldview. Each cultivates a style of thought, ideology or philosophy designed to comfort the expectations of its readers and to confirm a shared way of perceiving the world around them. Even Fair Observer has a worldview, in which, thanks to the diversity of its contributors, every topic deserves to be made visible from multiple angles. Rather than emphasizing ideology, such a worldview places a quintessential value on human perception and experience.

      Traditional media companies profile their readership and pitch their offering to their target market’s preferences. This often becomes its central activity. Reporting the news and informing the public becomes secondary to using news reporting to validate a worldview that may not be explicitly declared. Some media outlets reveal their bias, while others masquerade it and claim to be objective. The Daily Devil’s Dictionary has frequently highlighted the bias of newspapers like The New York Times that claim to be objective but consistently impose their worldview. In contrast, The Economist, founded in 1843, has, throughout its history, prominently put its liberal — and now neoliberal — worldview on public display. 

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      Many of The Economist’s articles are designed to influence both public opinion and public policy. One that appeared at the end of last week exemplifies the practice, advertising its worldview. It could be labeled “liberal technological optimism.” The title of the article sets the tone: “The new era of innovation — Why a dawn of technological optimism is breaking.” The byline indicates the author: Admin. In other words, this is a direct expression of the journal’s worldview.

      The article begins by citing what it assesses as the trend of pessimism that has dominated the economy over the past decade. The text quickly focuses on the optimism announced in the title. And this isn’t just any optimism, but an extreme form of joyous optimism that reflects a Whiggish neoliberal worldview. The “dawn” cliché makes it clear that it is all about the hope of emerging from a dark, ominous night into the cheer of a bright morning with the promise of technological bliss. Central to the rhetoric is the idea of a break with the past, which takes form in sentences such as this one: “Eventually, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and robotics could upend how almost everything is done.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Upend:

      As used by most people: knock over, impede progress, halt a person’s or an object’s stability.

      As used by The Economist: to move forward, to embody progress.

      Contextual Note

      In recent decades, the notion of “disruptive innovation” has been elevated to the status of the highest ideal of modern capitalism. Formerly, disruption had a purely negative connotation as a factor of risk. Now it has become the obligatory goal of dynamic entrepreneurs. Upending was something to be avoided. Now it is actively pursued as the key to success. Let “synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and robotics” do their worst as they disrupt the habits and lifestyles of human beings, The Economist seems to be saying the more upending they entrepreneurs manage to do, the more their profits will grow.

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      In the neoliberal scheme of things, high profit margins resulting from the automatic monopoly of disruptive innovation will put more money in the hands of those who know how to use it — the entrepreneurs. Once they have settled the conditions for mooring their yachts in Monte Carlo, they may have time to think about creating new jobs, the one thing non-entrepreneurial humans continue to need and crave.

      For ordinary people, the new jobs may mean working alongside armies of artificially intelligent robots, though in what capacity nobody seems to know. In all likelihood, disruptive thinkers will eventually have to imagine a whole new set of “bullshit jobs” to replace the ones that have been upended. The language throughout the article radiates an astonishingly buoyant worldview at a moment of history in which humanity is struggling to survive the effects of an aggressive pandemic, to say nothing of the collapse of the planet’s biosphere, itself attributable to the unbridled assault of disruptive technology over the past 200 years.

      What The Economist wants us to believe is that the next round of disruption will be a positive one, mitigating the effects of the previous round that produced, alongside fabulous financial prosperity, a series of increasingly dire negative consequences.

      The article’s onslaught of rhetoric begins with the development of the cliché present in the title telling us that “a dawn of technological optimism is breaking.” The authors scatter an impressive series of positively resonating ideas through the body of the text: “speed,” “prominent breakthroughs,” “investment boom,” “new era of progress,” “optimists,” “giddily predict,” “advances,” “new era of innovation,” “lift living standards,” “new technologies to flourish,” “transformative potential,” “science continues to empower medicine,” “bend biology to their will,” “impressive progress,” “green investments,” “investors’ enthusiasm,” “easing the constraints,” “boost long-term growth,” “a fresh wave of innovation” and “economic dynamism.”

      The optimism sometimes takes a surprising twist. The authors forecast that in the race for technological disruption, “competition between America and China could spur further bold steps.” Political commentators in the US increasingly see conflict with China. Politicians are pressured to get tough on China. John Mearsheimer notably insists on the necessity of hegemonic domination by the US. Why? Because liberal capitalism must conquer, not cooperate. But in the rosy world foreseen by The Economist, friendship will take the day.

      Historical Note

      We at the Daily Devil’s Dictionary believe the world would be a better place if schools offered courses on how to decipher the media. That is unlikely to happen any time soon because today’s schools are institutions that function along the same lines as the media. They have been saddled with the task of disseminating an official worldview designed to support the political and economic system that supports them. 

      Official worldviews always begin with a particular reading of history. Some well-known examples show how nations design their history, the shared narrative of the past, to mold an attitude about the future. In the US, the narrative of the war that led to the founding of the nation established the cultural idea of the moral validity associated with declaring independence, establishing individual rights and justifying rebellion against unjust authority. Recent events in Washington, DC, demonstrate how that instilled belief, when assimilated uncritically, can lead to acts aiming at upending both society and government.

      In France, the ideas associated with the French Revolution, a traumatically upending event, spawned a different type of belief in individual rights. For the French, it must be expressed collectively through organized actions of protest on any issue. US individualism, founded on the frontier ideal of self-reliance, easily turns protestation into vigilante justice by the mob. In France, protests take the form of strikes and citizen movements.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The British retain the memory of multiple historical invasions of their island by Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and more recent attempts by Napoleon and Hitler. The British people have always found ways of resisting. This habit led enough of them to see the European Union as an invader to vote for Brexit.

      The Italian Renaissance blossomed in the brilliant courts and local governments of its multiple city-states. Although Italy was unified in 1870, its citizens have never fully felt they belonged to a modern nation-state. The one serious but ultimately futile attempt was Mussolini’s fascism, which represented the opposite extreme of autonomous city-states.

      The article in The Economist contains some examples of its reading of economic history. At the core of its argument is this reminder: “In the history of capitalism rapid technological advance has been the norm.” While asserting neoliberal “truths,” like that “Governments need to make sure that regulation and lobbying do not slow down disruption,” it grudgingly acknowledges that government plays a role in technological innovation. Still, the focus remains on what private companies do, even though it is common knowledge that most consumer technology originated in taxpayer-funded military research. 

      Here is how The Economist defines the relationship: “Although the private sector will ultimately determine which innovations succeed or fail, governments also have an important role to play. They should shoulder the risks in more ‘moonshot’ projects.” The people assume the risks and the corporations skim off the profit. This is neoliberal ideology in a nutshell.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Trump Bequeaths Biden an Upended World

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNews AnalysisTrump Bequeaths Biden an Upended WorldThe sheen is off America. But betting against the country’s capacity for reinvention was never a good idea.President Trump with other G7 leaders in Canada in 2018. His “America First” positions galvanized other nations to put themselves first, too.Credit…Jesco Denzel/German Government, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJan. 19, 2021Updated 1:34 p.m. ETPARIS — Most countries lost patience long ago. The erratic outbursts of President Trump were unacceptable to allies when they were not simply insulting. Even rivals like China and Russia reeled at the president’s gut-driven policy lurches. Mr. Trump said in 2016 that America must be “more unpredictable.” He was true to his word.The sudden infatuation with North Korea’s Stalinist leader, Kim Jong-un, the kowtowing to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the “Chinese virus” obsession, the enthusiasm for the fracturing of the European Union, and the apparent abandonment of core American democratic values were so shocking that Mr. Trump’s departure on Wednesday from the White House is widely viewed with relief.The sheen is off America, its democratic ideals hollowed. Mr. Trump’s imprint on the world will linger. While passionate denunciations are widespread, there is a legacy of Trumpism that in some circles won’t easily fade. Through his “America First” obsession, he galvanized other nations to put themselves first, too. They will not soon fall back into line behind the United States. The domestic fracture that Mr. Trump sharpened will endure, undermining the projection of American power.“Mr. Trump is a criminal, a political pyromaniac who should be sent to criminal court,” Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, said in a radio interview. “He’s a person who was elected democratically but who is not interested in democracy in the slightest.”Such language about an American president from a European ally would have been unthinkable before Mr. Trump made outrage the leitmotif of his presidency, along with an assault on truth. His denial of a fact — a defeat in the November election — was seen by leaders including Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, as the spark to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.A mob amok in the inner sanctum of American democracy looked to many countries like Rome sacked by the Visigoths. America, to foreign observers, has fallen. Mr. Trump’s reckless disruption, in the midst of a pandemic, has bequeathed to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the incoming president, a great global uncertainty.Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month. The scenes shocked observers worldwide.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York Times“The post-Cold War era has come to an end after 30 years, and a more complex and challenging era is unfolding: a world in danger!” said Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference.Mr. Trump’s talent for gratuitous insults was felt the world over. In Mbour, a coastal town in Senegal, Rokhaya Dabo, a school administrator, said, “I don’t speak English, but I was offended when he said Africa is a shithole.” In Rome, Piera Marini, who makes hats for her store on Via Giulia, said she was delighted Mr. Trump was going: “Just the way he treated women was chilling.”“Biden needs to tackle the restoration of democracy at home in a humble way that allows Europeans to say we have similar problems, so let’s get out of this together,” Nathalie Tocci, an Italian political scientist, said in an interview. “With Trump, we Europeans were suddenly the enemy.”Still, to the last, Mr. Trump’s nationalism had its backers. They ranged from the majority of Israelis, who liked his unconditional support, to aspiring autocrats from Hungary to Brazil who saw in him the charismatic leader of a counterrevolution against liberal democracy.Mr. Trump was the preferred candidate of 70 percent of Israelis before the November election, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute. “Israelis are apprehensive about what lies beyond the Trump administration,” said Shalom Lipner, who long served in the prime minister’s office. They have their reasons. Mr. Trump was dismissive of the Palestinian cause. He helped Israel normalize relations with several Arab states.Mr. Trump was the preferred candidate of 70 percent of Israelis before the November election.Credit…Ariel Schalit/Associated PressElsewhere the support for Mr. Trump was ideological. He was the symbol of a great nationalist and autocratic lurch. He personified a revolt against Western democracies, portrayed as the place where family, church, nation and traditional notions of marriage and gender go to die. He resisted mass migration, diversity and the erosion of white male dominance.One of Trump’s boosters, the nationalist Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, claimed this month that in the American election, “There were people who voted three, four times, dead people voted.” In an illustration of Mr. Trump’s role as an enabler of autocrats, Mr. Bolsonaro went on to question the integrity of Brazil’s voting system.Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-immigrant prime minister and a strong Trump supporter, told Reuters last year that the Democrats had forced “moral imperialism” on the world. Although he congratulated Mr. Biden on his victory, Mr. Orban’s relations with the new president are certain to be strained.This global cultural battle will continue because the conditions of its eruption — insecurity, disappearing jobs, resentment in societies made still more unequal by the impact of Covid-19 — persist from France to Latin America. The Trump phenomenon also persists. His tens of millions of supporters are not about to vanish.“Were the events at the Capitol the apotheosis and tragic endpoint of Trump’s four years, or was it the founding act of a new American political violence spurred by a dangerous energy?” François Delattre, the secretary-general of the French Foreign Ministry, asked. “We do not know, and in countries with similar crises of their democratic models we must worry.”France is one such country of increasingly tribal confrontation. If the U.S. Justice Department could be politicized, if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be eviscerated, and if 147 elected Members of Congress could vote to overturn the election results even after the Capitol was stormed, there is reason to believe that in other fractured post-truth societies anything could happen.“How did we get here? Gradually and then suddenly, as Hemingway had it,” said Peter Mulrean, a former United States ambassador to Haiti now living in France. “We’ve seen the steady degradation of truth, values and institutions. The world has watched.”As Simon Schama, the British historian, has observed, “When truth perishes so does freedom.” Mr. Trump, for whom truth did not exist, leaves a political stage where liberty is weakened. An emboldened Russia and an assertive China are more strongly placed than ever to mock democracy and push agendas hostile to liberalism.Toward China, Mr. Trump’s policy was so incoherent that Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, was left appealing to Starbucks, which has thousands of stores in China, to improve strained U.S.-China relations. Mr. Xi wrote last week to the company’s former chief executive, Howard Schultz, to “encourage him” to help with “the development of bilateral relations,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.President Xi Jinping of China waiting for Mr. Trump before a bilateral meeting in Japan in 2019. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Xi no doubt feels some Trump whiplash. The president once called him just “great,” before changing his mind. China, after negotiating a truce in the countries’ trade war a year ago, came under fierce attack by the Trump administration for enabling the virus through its initial neglect and for its crackdown in Hong Kong. The administration also accused the Chinese government of committing genocide in its repression of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region of China.Mr. Trump’s approach was erratic but his criticism coherent. China, with its surveillance state, wants to overtake America as the world’s great power by midcentury, presenting the Biden administration with perhaps its greatest challenge. Mr. Biden aims to harness all the world’s democracies to confront China. But Mr. Trump’s legacy is reluctance among allies to line up behind a United States whose word is now worth less. It seems inevitable that the European Union, India and Japan will all have their own China policies..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Even where Mr. Trump advanced peace in the Middle East, as between Israel and some Arab states, he also stoked tensions with Iran. Mr. Biden has suggested that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt was Mr. Trump’s “favorite dictator.” But then America is no longer the world’s favorite democracy.“Even if you say Sisi doesn’t give freedom, where in the world is there total freedom?” said Ayman Fahri, 24, a Tunisian student in Cairo. He said he would take Mr. el-Sisi’s brand of effective authoritarianism over Tunisia’s turbulent fledgling democracy. “Look at Trump and what he did.”Mr. Trump called the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, “dishonest and weak,” whereas North Korea’s brutal Mr. Kim was “funny.” He did not see the point of NATO but saluted a North Korean general.Mr. Trump and North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in 2019. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesHe exited the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear agreement, and planned to leave the World Health Organization. He stood the postwar American-led order on its head. Even if the Biden administration moves fast to reverse some of these decisions, as it will, trust will take years to restore.Mr. Ischinger said: “We will not be returning to the pre-Trump relationship.”Dmitri Medvedev, the former president of Russia and now deputy head of Mr. Putin’s Kremlin Security Council, described America as mired “in a cold civil war” that makes it incapable of being a predictable partner. In an essay, he concluded that, “In the coming years, our relationship is likely to remain extremely cold.”But the U.S. relationship with Russia, like other critical international relationships, will change under Mr. Biden, who has deep convictions about America’s critical international role in defending and extending freedom.Mr. Biden has described Mr. Putin as a “K.G.B. thug.” He has pledged to hold Russia accountable for the August nerve-agent attack on the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny — an incident ignored by Mr. Trump in line with his uncritical embrace of Mr. Putin. Mr. Navalny was arrested this week on his return to Russia, a move condemned in a tweet by Jake Sullivan, the incoming national security adviser.Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the G20 summit in Japan in 2019. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Putin waited more than a month to congratulate Mr. Biden on his victory. It also took a while, but souvenir stalls at Ismailovo, a sprawling outdoor market in Moscow, now stock wooden nesting dolls featuring Mr. Biden and have dropped Trump dolls. “Nobody wants him anymore,” said a man selling dolls. “He is finished.”The world, like America, was traumatized by the Trump years. All the razor wire in Washington and the thousands of National Guard troops deployed to make sure a peaceful transfer of power takes place in the United States of America are testimony to that.But the Constitution held. Battered institutions held. America held when troops were similarly deployed to protect state capitols during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Mr. Trump is headed to Mar-a-Lago. And betting against America’s capacity for reinvention and revival was never a good idea, even at the worst of times.Reporting was contributed by More

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      in World Politics

      Why Is Joe Biden’s Presidency Anathema to So Many US Catholics?

      by

      When I was growing up in Germany in the 1960s, during the holiday seasons, both Christmas and Easter, one of the highlights on television was the reruns of “Don Camillo and Peppone.” These are movies that involve the adventures of a Catholic priest and a communist mayor, taking place in a small village in the Po valley in northern Italy. The protagonists are constantly at loggerheads, yet in the end they always find a compromise, based on mutual understanding and appreciation. The time is the immediate postwar period, when both the Italian Catholic Church and Italy’s Communist Party were at the height of their influence and power. For the Catholic Church, this meant substantial interference in Italian politics.

      Sex Abuse Is the Moral Downfall of the Catholic Church

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      One of the most drastic attempts to wield such influence was the Vatican’s decision in mid-1949 to excommunicate all members of the Communist Party. Given the fact that communism was “materialist and anti-Christian,” anyone who came out in support of the ideology automatically expressed their hostility “to God, religion and the Church” and, therefore, had no place among the community of believers. In a country where faith in the Catholic Church and its teachings were deeply ingrained, this was a formidable weapon. It is to the credit of the creator of Don Camillo and Peppone, Giovannino Guareschi, that he showed in many of his stories that this had little to do with reality on the ground — that somebody could be a communist and a good Catholic.

      Bygone Era

      In contemporary Italy, these are stories of a bygone era, one where the Christian Democrats still were the predominant party and where Italians still flocked to the churches. By now, the Christian Democrats are politically dead, and Italian churches have become museums rather than places of worship. In my own country, Germany, the Catholic Church has long abandoned its anti-socialist rhetoric aimed at the Social Democrats, perhaps, but not only, because the SPD has largely abandoned any pretense to be a socialist party.

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      Even in Ireland and in Poland, the Catholic Church is increasingly in a defensive position. Take, for instance, recent shocking official revelations about decades of neglect and abuse in Ireland’s mother and baby homes. Most of them run by religious orders affiliated with the Catholic Church, they reflected a “brutally misogynistic culture” promoted by the church. This culture resulted not only in unmarried women and girls being held “virtual prisoners” in these “homes” but also in the death of thousands of babies, oftentimes buried anonymously in mass graves. Under the circumstances, the Catholic Church’s adamant pro-life stance rings somewhat hollow.

      The church’s taking the moral high ground has also started to undermine the position of the Polish Catholics. It was recent scandals about the sexual abuse of children involving, most infamously, an icon of Polish Catholicism, Henryk Jankowski, a legend of the Solidarność movement that was instrumental in putting an end to Poland’s communist regime. His statue was toppled by protesters in 2019 in the city of Gdansk, before being officially dismantled and removed. The fact that until today, the Polish Catholic Church has refused to accept responsibility has led to a dramatic loss of trust in its authority. The church, in turn, has sought to divert attention from the crimes committed in its name by targeting the country’s LGTBQ community as the new “plague that seeks to dominate our souls, hearts and our mind.”

      I doubt that the American Catholic Church is tuned in to developments in contemporary Poland or that it has any awareness of the far-reaching influence of the Italian Catholic Church in the immediate postwar period. Yet the parallels are striking, particularly in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. This time, President Donald Trump garnered roughly 50% of the Catholic vote and about 57% among white Catholics. To be sure, Catholics voted for Trump for a range of different reasons. “Pro-life” considerations probably rank very high, if not highest, particularly among white Catholics. So do anti-immigrant sentiments. Among Hispanics, economic considerations appear to have had a significant influence on electoral choice, plus the open hostility a number of Catholic spiritual leaders have expressed toward Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in general.

      Take, for instance, Jesse Romero, a former cop turned into a well-known Catholic evangelist, who appears to have personally “witnessed diabolical satanic activity,” recounted in his 2019 book, “The Devil in the City of Angels: My Encounters With the Diabolical.” A cop staring down the devil — what other qualifications does one need to be a major authority on spiritual guidance? In early 2020, Romero published a book that proclaimed that a vote for Trump was the only choice for Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike. Those interested in the rationale behind Romero’s plea should consult his response to a Never Trump Catholic, which provides a long list of Trump’s “accomplishments” starting with his “pro-life” measures. What about him being a liar and philanderer? Who cares?

      To be sure, Romero is nothing more than another one of these evangelical snake oil salesmen that clutter America’s airwaves. Usually, they are of the Protestant persuasion; but then, the US is an equal opportunity country, and Romero is certainly not the worst of the lot, at least on the Catholic side.

      Party of Death

      A recent post on the Jesuit America magazine website provides a sobering account of the extent to which Catholic officials have gone to incite hatred toward Joe Biden and the Democrats. The author quotes one priest who posted a clip to YouTube that charged that the Democratic platform was “against everything the Catholic Church teaches.” Therefore, American Catholics who voted for the Democrats should “just quit pretending” to be Catholics. Those contemplating voting for Biden should repent of “their support of that party and its platform or face the fires of hell.” Christianity in action.

      And who cares that Biden is, in fact, a practicing Catholic, while Donald Trump, as his Presbyterian Protestant congregation puts it, is not an “active member.” As Rick Stika, the bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, put it in a tweet in August, Biden should not claim to be a good Catholic “as he denies so much of Church teaching especially on the absolute child abuse and human rights violations of the most innocent, the not yet born.” As a member of an institution infamous for widespread abuse of the most innocent, Stika should have known better than to use this kind of language. And yet, as an article in the National Catholic Reporter has documented, he was hardly the only top Catholic dignitary to question Biden’s Catholic faith and credentials.

      When God Hates America

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      Lower ranks followed suit. One priest posted a clip that called the Democrats the “party of death.” This is a trope that has been around for years, first introduced by the former St. Louise Archbishop Raymond Burke. Burke was appointed to the Vatican’s highest court in 2008 from where he attacked both Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who, he charged, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way.”

      Given the relatively long tradition of labeling the Democratic Party as the party of death by the gotha of American Catholicism, it is hardly surprising that the recent video clip received enthusiastic support from Joseph Strickland, a bishop from Tyler, Texas. Strickland not only endorsed the message but exhorted his flock to listen to this “wise and faithful priest.” It might also come as no surprise that according to one witness in Pennsylvania, some priests were “openly suggesting that politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion.”

      This is akin to what the Italian Catholic Church told its flock in the postwar period. This is what the Polish Church has been telling its flock since the collapse of the communist regime. The result: In 2019, a mere 20% of the Polish population expressed trust in the country’s Catholic Church.

      Blood on Their Hands

      Things are likely to move in the same direction in the United States. The headline of a recent article in National Catholic Reporter minced no words: Catholics, the article charged, “need to confess their complicity in the failed coup.” The author claims that, given the five casualties caused by the assault on the Capitol, “Catholic apologists for Trump have blood on their hands.” The tacit or open support of parts of the American Catholic Church’s clergy and affiliated lay organizations, such as Catholics for Trump, CatholicVote.org and LifeSiteNews, for a president who represents the very antithesis of Gospel teaching is bound to have a significant fallout, given the assault on the nation’s cradle of democracy.  

      This comes at a time when the Catholic Church is under tremendous pressure given the growing number of revelations of widespread sexual abuse, more often than not hushed up by the Church hierarchy. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the Catholic Church spent more than $5 million on lobbying to prevent victims of sexual abuse from getting meaningful compensation.

      Ever since the creation of the United States, Catholics have been under a cloud of suspicion. It took more than a century to alleviate these suspicions and allow Catholics to be accepted as equal members of the nation. By openly supporting a president who represents the very antithesis of Christ’s teaching, parts of the American Catholic Church have managed to erase much of the progress the American Catholic Church has managed to accomplish over the past several decades. Consumed by one issue, the question of abortion, they condoned Trump’s behavior by looking the other way on questions of racism, white supremacy, refugees and Black Lives Matter.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      On the contrary, radical right-wing influencers, such as Michelle Malkin (who once said that what was at the heart of her “outspokenness” was her Catholic faith), characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as “vigilante terrorists.” A few weeks before the assault on the Capitol, Malkin ridiculed the idea that Trump supporters might be “the real threat to civil order” or that the “populist movement to ‘stop the steal’ of election 2020 is rooted in hate.”   

      In the wake of the assault on the Capitol, it has become clear that the American Catholic Church’s narrow focus on the question of abortion is a dead end with serious consequences. It is time to shift the focus to pressing issues like social justice, affordable health care for all, human dignity independent of skin color, gender and sexual orientation, and, last but not least, a fundamental break with the Trump administration’s approach to the global climate crisis. In other words, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ rather than kowtowing to the likes of Donald Trump and many within the Republican Party who care only about themselves. 

      A recent article in the Chicago Tribune suggests that this is going to be an uphill battle. When a Catholic priest in Chicago raised uncomfortable questions about the church’s complicity with the Trump administration and the assault on Congress, a significant number of his congregation walked out, clearly unprepared to confront reality. This suggests that the rift in American society extends deep into the country’s Catholic community. This is hardly surprising, giving the polarizing figure of Pope Francis.  What many of his detractors in the Catholic Church have objected to is that his “theology stems from reality: from the reality of injustice, poverty and the destruction of nature.”

      As it happens, the American Catholic Church is a hotspot of opposition to Pope Francis. This might, in part at least, explain the support of many American Catholics for Donald Trump and the vitriol parts of the Catholic community have directed at Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Hence the irony that the country’s second Catholic taking over the Oval Office since John F. Kennedy is anathema to so many American Catholics.  

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Russia: the spectre that loomed over Trump's presidency

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      When historians look back at Donald Trump’s presidency they are likely to pick out two defining themes. One is the coronavirus pandemic. It dominated his last year in office, and saw the president become the virus’s most celebrated victim cum White House super-spreader.The other is Russia, a subject that consumed American public life for four long years. The question first came up when Trump was a long-shot candidate for president. In a Republican party that had once regarded Vladimir Putin as a cold-eyed KGB killer, why was Trump’s behaviour towards Russia’s leader so ingratiating?There were Trump’s flattering public statements about Putin on the campaign trail. And his blatant appeal in July 2016 for Moscow to locate emails that he claimed Hillary Clinton had deleted. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he told a press conference in Florida.As it turned out Russia was indeed listening. That evening a group of hackers working for GRU military intelligence returned after-hours to their office in central Moscow. They tried to break into the accounts of senior Clinton aides, unsuccessfully. A rival spy agency once headed by Putin, the FSB, launched its own electronic attacks.Across 2016 the Russians ran an aggressive and multifaceted operation to help Donald Trump win. In spring the GRU stole tens of thousands of Democratic party emails, including from Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta. These were fed to WikiLeaks and given to reporters via a GRU persona, Guccifer 2.0.Meanwhile trolls working out of St Petersburg launched an unprecedented anti-Clinton social media operation. The Russians – employed by Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin – impersonated Americans, organised pro-Trump rallies, and even hired an actor to dress up as Clinton and sit in a cage.Moscow rumoursDuring the 2016 campaign there were swirling rumours concerning Trump and Moscow. No media outlet could quite stand them up, but the topic burst into the public domain in January 2017 when BuzzFeed published a dossier by the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, commissioned by the Democratic party. It would torment Trump for the rest of his presidency.The dossier alleged the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for five years at least. It claimed Putin’s spies had collected kompromat, secretly filming Trump and two sex workers inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel during his 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.Trump vehemently denied the seedy allegations. He and his Republican supporters on Capitol Hill and within the Justice Department sought to discredit its British author and to out his sources. Steele was a “failed spy” and “lowlife”, and collusion allegations a “witch-hunt” and a “hoax”, Trump insisted.‘Russia thing’Hoax or not, Trump’s efforts to make the “Russia thing” go away backfired. In May 2017 he sacked James Comey as FBI director. This resulted in the appointment of the former FBI chief Robert Mueller as special prosecutor. Mueller’s brief was to investigate whether Trump and his inner circle had conspired with Moscow during the election. To answer yes, a criminal standard of proof was necessary.For almost two years the workings of Mueller’s team stayed secret. The prosecutor was both Washington’s most present personality – endlessly discussed – and a ghost. From time to time his office issued indictments. These were against 26 Russians including GRU hackers. And against Americans: Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, national security adviser Michael Flynn, attorney Michael Cohen, and others.When it arrived in spring 2019, Mueller’s report was a disappointment to liberal Americans who hoped it might sweep Trump from power. It identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign but did not find a criminal-level conspiracy. Nor did it rule on whether the president had obstructed justice. Mueller said he had not considered collusion, which was not a “legal term”.Trump, we learned, had been secretly negotiating in 2015-16 to build a Trump Tower in Moscow while simultaneously praising Putin. Cohen had even written an email asking Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov for help and spoke to Peskov’s assistant. When asked about this by Congress, Cohen lied. The cover-up led to a feud with Trump – and, for Cohen, to federal jail.Back-channelsThe most significant back-channel to Moscow involved Manafort and his one-time Russian aide Konstantin Kilimnik. In a series of clandestine meetings Manafort gave Kilimnik internal polling data, including from the rustbelt states that proved crucial to Trump’s 2016 victory. The two men used burner phones, encrypted chats, and a secret email account, with messages shared in drafts.Mueller identified Kiliminik as a career Russian intelligence officer. His employer was the GRU. What Kilimink did with the information he got from Manafort is unknown. He refused to cooperate with the FBI and fled to Moscow.Critics said the Mueller investigation was hobbled by an excess of legal caution and a failure to meet face to face with Trump. Its biggest shortcoming, arguably, was a lack of Russian witnesses.Much of the Trump-Russia story is still unknown. For example, does the Trump Organization have financial ties with Moscow? After a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s Trump was only able to borrow cash from one lender: Germany’s Deutsche Bank, which gave him lavish credit. At the same time its Moscow division was facilitating a $10bn money-laundering scam for the benefit of Kremlin VIPs.The US public never found out when Putin ordered the DNC hacking operation and why. Nor did it discover what the Russian and American presidents discussed in their private meetings, including during a notorious 2018 encounter in Helsinki. A good guess is that Putin flattered rather than threatened Trump. He fed Trump’s ego and stoked his resentment of the US “deep state” and other “enemies”.‘Grave counter-intelligence threat’In August 2020 the Senate intelligence committee published its own Trump-Russia report. It said Manafort’s willingness to pass confidential material to Kilimnik was a “grave counter-intelligence threat”. And it gave some credence to Steele’s Moscow allegations, noting that an FSB officer was stationed inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Putin’s spy had a live video feed from guests’ bedrooms, the report said.In the end Russia did not interfere in the 2020 election in the same sweeping and systematic way. But Moscow was busy in other ways. Beginning in spring it carried out a massive cyber-raid against US federal government institutions. Russian state hackers inserted malicious code into a software update made by a Texas-based company, SolarWinds. At least six US government departments were affected, as well as the Department of Defence’s sprawling communications network, and the body that manages the US nuclear weapons stockpile. The hackers worked for Russian SVR foreign intelligence, and possibly the FSB. It was the same Cozy Bear outfit that previously hacked the DNC and the US state department.Did Trump condemn Moscow? Nope. He blamed China, in one of his final tweet’s before Twitter kicked him off its platform after the 6 January Capitol attack. The cyber-raid was a reminder of Putin viewing the US as an eternal adversary in a never-ending quasi-war. The National Security Agency has spent billions on cyber-defence and yet on Trump’s watch it was unable to deter intruders from Moscow.Russia would have preferred it if Trump had won the election. Despite Joe Biden’s clearcut victory, though, the Russian leader has much to celebrate. Over four polarising years Trump accomplished many of the KGB’s longstanding goals. These included estranging the US from its western allies and Nato; deepening domestic strife; and waging a Putin-style disinformation campaign against the 2020 result.Manchurian candidate or not, Trump did more than any previous president to discredit US democracy and suck up to the Kremlin. Back in the 1980s the Soviet government invited Trump to Moscow. Seemingly it identified him early as a person without scruples, one perhaps capable given time and opportunity of bringing down the republic.The invasion of the Capitol was the culmination of this cold war fantasy; a perfect series finale.Luke Harding’s latest book Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia’s Remaking of the West is available from the Guardian Bookshop More

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      in US Politics

      Majority of Europeans fear Biden unable to fix 'broken' US

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      A majority of Europeans believe America’s political system is broken, that China will be the world’s leading power within a decade, and that Joe Biden will be unable to halt his country’s decline on the world stage, according to a report.
      While many welcomed Biden’s victory in November’s US election, more Europeans than not feel that after four years of Donald Trump the US cannot be trusted, according to the study by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
      “Europeans like Biden, but they don’t think America will come back as a global leader,” said the thinktank’s director, Mark Leonard. “When George W Bush was president, they were divided about how America should use its power. With Biden entering the White House, they are divided about whether America has power at all.”
      The survey of 15,000 people in 11 European countries, conducted at the end of last year, found that the shift in European sentiment towards the US in the wake of the Trump presidency had led to a corresponding unwillingness to support Washington in potential international disputes.
      At least half of respondents in all 11 countries surveyed felt, for example, that their government should remain neutral in any conflict between the US and China, while no more than 40% in any country said they would back Washington against Russia.
      “It’s clear that the tumultuous Trump presidency has left an indelible imprint on Europe’s attitude towards the US,” said Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, an NGO in Sofia, and an ECFR board member. “The majority of Europeans are now sceptical about the capacity of the US to shape the world. It makes many, rightly or wrongly, want to opt for a more independent role for the EU in the world.”
      In their report, Leonard and Krastev note that while more than 60% of those polled believed the US was “broken”, most evaluated the EU and their own countries’ systems much more positively – an opportunity, they argue, to harness the collective power of the bloc for the benefit and protection of its citizens.
      The survey found that 51% of those polled did not agree with the statement that under Biden the US was likely to resolve its internal divisions and seek to address international issues such as climate change, peace in the Middle East, relations with China or European security.
      Amid a widespread sense of growing Chinese superiority, 79% of those polled in Spain, 72% in Portugal, 72% in Italy and 63% in France said they thought China would overtake the US as the world’s leading superpower within the next decade.
      Just over 32% of all respondents – and a startling 53% of respondents in Germany – felt that after voting for Trump, Americans could not be trusted. Only in Hungary and Poland did significantly more people disagree with that view than agree.
      Just 10% of those polled saw the US as a “reliable” security partner that would always protect Europe, while at least 60% in every country polled said they doubted their country could depend on US support in the event of a crisis.
      The authors say the geopolitical consequences of this shift are significant: two-thirds of those surveyed said it was now important that Europe look after its own defence, including 72% in Portugal, 71% in Sweden, 70% in France and 69% in Poland.
      At least half of respondents in every country surveyed said they would prefer their government to be neutral in a conflict between the US and China. Across the 11 states surveyed, only 23% of respondents thought their country should take Washington’s side against Russia, with 59% preferring to remain neutral.
      Between 38% and 48% of respondents in seven countries thought the EU should adopt a tougher international stance on issues such as trade, taxation and regulation, while most countries considered Germany was now a more important country to “have a good relationship” with than the US.
      The poll also revealed that in nine of the 11 countries – Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden – where the same question was asked in previous years, the average share of people saying the EU’s political system worked very or fairly well had risen from 46% to 48%.
      It found that people who believed their own national political system was working, which was more often the case in northern than in southern Europe, were more likely to say the EU was a success.
      The report identified four “tribes” that went a long way to grouping respondents’ positions, depending on whether they felt the EU, US or China were rising or declining. The biggest tribe, “In Europe we trust”, comprised 35% of respondents, while only 9% belonged to “In America we trust”. More

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      in Elections

      How Biden era could kickstart coordinated approach to Russia

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      Joe Biden’s accession to the US presidency has spawned a huge body of literature about his intentions towards China, but in his four years out of office Biden has in fact made Russia his primary focus in combatting authoritarianism. Now, just days from coming into office, the arrest of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has suddenly presented him with a test case, which may also lead to friction with two of his closest allies: Germany and the UK.Germany under Angela Merkel has always resisted a full confrontation with Russia, and has fought hard to keep the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany going, saying it is a commercial not a political issue.But Merkel has met Navalny, who was nursed back to health in the German capital after his poisoning and has been described as “the Berlin patient” by Vladimir Putin, and her government may now feel a personal obligation, beyond rhetoric, to help him. The Putin entourage is already heavily sanctioned by the EU as a result if their repression in Belarus as well as Navalny’s poisoning, so her options for showing disapproval through further individual sanctions is limited. And the Nord Stream 2 project will not be far from Merkel’s thoughts.In the case of the UK, British prime ministers have been rhetorically strong about Russia, but are open to the charge that the rhetoric does not extend to clamping down on the lawyers, accountants and army of estate agents that enable the Russian kleptocracy to invest their corruptly-obtained wealth in London. Chatham House, the sober minded thinktank, is, for instance, hosting an event on Tuesday promoted as follows: “The most startling findings of the ‘Russia’ report from parliament’s intelligence and security committee were not about the extent of Moscow’s malign influence in the UK, but about how unwilling the British government had been to take steps to detect and counter it.“The report identified gaping holes in both awareness of the problem, and legislation to deal with it. A formulaic response from the government promised that at least some of these holes have been plugged”. Six months on, how many holes in measures such as ”unexplained wealth orders”, have been filled?But perhaps by coincidence matters are coming to a head. Since 2019, the threat of US sanctions has left the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline about 94% complete. If finished, the 764-mile (1,230km) pipeline will terminate in Lubmin, a coastal village in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and more than double Germany’s imports of Russian natural gas.On Friday, Germany’s federal maritime authority approved extending the project’s operational time frame because of “unforeseen delays outside German waters”.Since US sanctions would target private companies involved in the project, the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has gone to the lengths of establishing a public foundation that could take over the potentially sanctionable activity. Germany believes the US would not have the nerve to sanction a public body, even though this foundation is largely Russian funded.Nicholas Burns the former US assistant secretary of state suggested to the German business newspaper Handelsblatt this week that if Germany suspended construction of the pipeline the US could lift sanctions.Equally, the UK as host of the G7 summit in June looks as if it is going to revive the anti-corruption drive David Cameron started the last time Britain held the event.The west has been hampered in the past four years by the fatal ambiguity of US policy towards Russia. The State Department had been willing to confront Russia, but Donald Trump remained inexplicably averse to doing anything but indulge Putin.Biden has appointed an experienced team with a deep knowledge of Russia including: William Burns, director of the CIA; Victoria Nuland, deputy secretary of state for political affairs; Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior director for Russia and Central Asia in the future NSC; Kathleen Hicks, first female deputy head of the Pentagon; and Shanthi Kalathil, coordinator for human rights and democracy. Collectively they will try to give Germany clearer signals on US policy to Russia, and both how to combat democratic backsliding in Europe and Russian meddling. The huge cyber-attack on Washington institutions, attributed to Russia’s foreign intelligence, lies heavily on the minds of Congress.Biden has promised that he will make the promotion of democracy his guiding foreign policy principle, including a summit to attack the weapons of the authoritarians. Many have questioned the wisdom of the US presenting itself as the standard bearer of liberal values given its state of crisis.But the attack on the Capitol in Washington has only made his allies more convinced of this agenda, and its relevance to America. So the frontline of the “battlefield” where the new US administration and Russia will confront each other is likely to be extended to the post-Soviet space and will include at least Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. For all the talk of the rise of China and the implications of the “Asian century” on America, it is the threat posed by the old cold war enemy that for now at least may most exercise the transatlantic alliance. More

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      in UK Politics

      Alexei Navalny: UK calls for immediate release of Putin critic after ‘appalling’ arrest

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      Boris Johnson’s government has demanded that Russia releases Alexei Navalny “immediately”, following the Kremlin critic’s arrest in Moscow upon flying home from Germany.The opposition leader’s detention by Russian authorities has drawn international condemnation – with some western nations calling for sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s government.“It is appalling that Alexei Navalny, the victim of a despicable crime, has been detained by Russian authorities. He must be immediately released,” said foreign secretary Dominic Raab, who stopped short of threatening any further action against Russia.  Mr Raab added: “Rather than persecuting Mr Navalny, Russia should explain how a chemical weapon came to be used on Russian soil.”
      Russian police detained Mr Navalny on arrival in Moscow on Sunday after he flew home to Russia from Germany for the first time since he was poisoned last summer using using Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Germany said it has ‘unequivocal evidence’ the Kremlin was behind the attack. Prior to his arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Russia’s prisons service said the 44-year-old had violated parole terms from a suspended sentence on a shaky 2014 embezzlement conviction.Following the news of his arrest, a host of British MPs used Twitter to call for his release. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy led the calls for action, tweeting: “Alexei Navalny was the victim of a cowardly chemical weapons attack. He has shown great courage in returning to his homeland.”She added: “His detention is unjustifiable and an insult to the Russian people. He must be released immediately and his attackers brought to justice.”Defence committee chairman Tobias Ellwood called Mr Navalny’s decision to return to Russia “incredibly brave”. Mr Ellwood said: “Poisoned by the FSB yet he chooses to return to Russia and has now been arrested. Incredibly brave stand by Navalny in the name of democracy as we head towards Russian parliamentary elections.”Labour MP Catherine West called for a coordinated response “at speed” from the UK government, the EU and the incoming Joe Biden administration in the US. “It can’t be right that an opposition leader, whose life was almost taken in an aggressive poison attempt, is arrested on arrival,” she said.While the foreign ministers of the UK, Germany, France and Italy called for Mr Navalny’s release, Lithuania said it would ask the EU to swiftly impose new sanctions on Russia. Czech foreign minister Tomas Petricek also said he wanted the bloc to discuss possible sanctions.
      Jake Sullivan, one of Mr Biden’s top aides, told Moscow to free Mr Navalny, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter he was deeply troubled by Moscow’s decision to arrest Navalny.
      Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Western concern over Mr Navalny’s case, casting it as an attempt to distract from the West’s own problems. “You can feel the joy with which these comments are coming out,” said Mr Lavrov.
      “Judging by everything, it allows Western politicians to think that by doing this they can divert attention away from the deep crisis that the liberal model of development finds itself in,” he said.   More

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      in World Politics

      Brexit Trade Deal Brings Temporary, If Not Lasting, Relief

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      “What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning.” So said Ursula van der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announcing the completion of Brexit negotiations on Christmas Eve, quoting from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding,” the final quartet of his last great poem. Van der Leyen’s words perfectly capture the defining trait of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA): It is a platform for further ambition in cross-border partnership between the UK and EU rather than a ceiling on current ambitions.

      The Rise of the Digital Émigré

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      Relief was the predominant emotion amongst the business community on both sides of the Channel before the New Year. Now that the dust has settled and attention has turned to the detail of the deal reached, there should be no illusions that the TCA ends EU-UK negotiations. We set out below what, in high-level terms, the TCA means for EU-UK trade in goods and services, and where there are gaps to fill and questions to still be answered over the coming months and years.

      What Does the TCA Mean for Trade in Goods?

      Firstly, the good news. Under the TCA, there are no tariffs or quotas on cross-border trade in qualifying goods between the United Kingdom and the European Union. In this regard, the TCA goes further than any EU trade agreement negotiated with a third country. This is a hugely positive outcome for businesses with UK and EU supply chains, particularly in sectors such as the automotive and agri-food industries, where tariffs imposed on so-called World Trade Organization terms under a no-deal Brexit would have been high.  

      However, it is crucial for those involved in cross-border trade to appreciate that only goods that are of EU or UK origin benefit from zero tariffs and zero quotas under the TCA. Rules of origin are a key component of every trade agreement and determine the “economic nationality” of products. Under the TCA, a product will attract a tariff if a certain percentage (beyond a “tolerance level”) of its pre-finished value or components are not of either UK or EU origin. The tolerance levels vary from product to product and require careful analysis. Therefore, businesses will need to understand the originating status of all the goods they trade between the UK and the EU to ensure they benefit from the zero tariffs and quotas under the agreement. Businesses will also need to ensure that their supply chains understand the new self-certification procedures to prove the origin of goods.

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      Beyond the qualified good news on tariffs and quotas, the deal is less helpful in that full regulatory approvals are required for goods being imported into the EU from the UK and vice versa. While in certain important sectors (automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals) the UK and the EU agreed on specific rules to reduce technical barriers to trade, the UK government did not achieve its longstanding negotiating objective of securing broad mutual recognition on product standards.

      Therefore, from January 1, 2021, all products exported from the EU to the UK will have to comply with the UK’s technical regulations and will be subject to any applicable regulatory compliance checks and controls. Similarly, all products imported from the UK to the EU will need to comply with EU technical regulations and will be subject to all applicable regulatory compliance obligations, checks and controls.

      There will also be specific changes to food and plant safety standards under the TCA. UK agri-food exporters will have to meet all EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) import requirements with immediate effect. In this sector, UK exports will be subject to official controls carried out by member state authorities at border control posts. Similarly, EU agri-food exporters will have to meet all UK SPS import requirements, following certain phase-in periods the UK government has provided.

      Far from being a “bonfire of red tape” promised by certain advocates of Brexit before the 2016 referendum, the TCA introduces a “bonanza of new red tape” for businesses who wish to sell their products in both UK and EU markets. On January 8, UK Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, acknowledged that there would be “significant additional disruption” at UK borders over the coming weeks as a result of customs changes and regulatory checks.

      What Does the TCA Mean for Trade in Services?

      As has been widely noted by commentators, the deal on services is far thinner than on goods. More than 40% of the UK’s exports to the EU are services, and the sector accounts for around 80% of the UK’s economic activity. As an inevitable consequence of leaving the EU single market, UK service suppliers will lose their automatic right to offer services across the union. UK business will have to comply with a patchwork of complex host-country rules which vary from country to country and may need to establish themselves in the EU to continue operating. Many have already done so.

      The level of market access will also depend on the way the service is supplied. There are four “modes” for this. Services can be supplied on a cross-border basis from the home country of the supplier, for example over the internet; to the consumer in the country of the supplier, such as a tourist traveling abroad and purchasing services; via a locally-established enterprise owned by the foreign service supplier; or through the temporary presence in the territory of another country by a service supplier who is a natural person.

      All of this means that UK-established businesses will need to look at domestic regulations on service access in each EU member state in which they seek to operate, and vice versa for EU-established businesses seeking market access in the UK.

      A Basis for Ongoing Negotiations

      The TCA does not mark the end of EU-UK negotiations, and in some areas these discussions start immediately. For example, the agreement has provided an end to so-called passporting of financial services under which banks, insurers and other financial service firms authorized in the UK had automatic right to access EU markets and vice versa.

      The EU and the UK have committed to agree on a memorandum of understanding that will establish a framework of regulatory cooperation in financial services by March this year. With an end to passporting, it is likely that there will be more friction in cross-border financial services, but the extent of that friction depends on the outcome of future negotiations between EU and UK governments and regulators.

      To take another example of importance to the UK economy, the TCA does not provide for the automatic mutual recognition of professional qualifications. As of January 1, UK nationals, irrespective of where they acquired their qualifications, and EU citizens with qualifications acquired in the UK, will need to have their qualifications recognized in the relevant EU member state on the basis of that state’s domestic rules. However, the TCA leaves the door open for the EU and the UK to agree on additional arrangements in the future for the mutual recognition of qualifications, something that professional bodies will be pushing for immediately.

      Whilst there has been understandable relief from politicians, businesses and populations on both sides of the Channel suffering from Brexit fatigue that a deal — any deal — has been reached, the sheer extent to which the TCA envisages ongoing negotiations between the UK and the EU on issues both large and small over the months and years ahead has not been widely appreciated.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More