Reflectii

The biggest stories this week are likely to be the continuing standoff between NATO (led by the United States) and Putin in the Ukraine, the new Russo-Chinese detente, and the Republican Party’s continuing drift toward Trumpism. One way of tying these together to reveal a larger pattern is to talk about the expanded Child Tax Credit. You heard me right. The fate of the expanded Child Tax Credit illustrates a basic problem that runs through all this.

Slippery slope

However, interesting as those experiments and observations might be, they are still the result of specific parameters within a particular setting and an environment that doesn’t resemble real life. Serious and honest behavioral economists both understand and freely admit this. Just because there was one experiment in which 12 university students chose to receive 1 chocolate today rather than 2 tomorrow, one cannot extrapolate from it that the entire country needs a public pension system and a central authority to oversee it, since all citizens are clearly incapable of saving.

Belgian police arrested 13 suspected members of an Islamist terror group in an operation in Antwerp on Tuesday.

The suspects were detained for spreading jihadist propaganda on social media, though police said it was unclear whether they had made concrete plans to launch an attack. Around 100 police officers were deployed at 13 different addresses during the raid.

“There is a growing threat that seeks to transform the European Union into an ideologically charged federalist super-state; a corporation which disregards national identity and sovereignty, and therefore democracy, plurality and the interests of the citizens of the nations that form the Union. This drift endangers the Union itself by moving away from the Christian European ideals on which it was founded…. We should cooperate and join forces to protect Europe from enforced ideologies and anti-democratic drift that are leading to its downfall.” — Joint Statement, Madrid Summit, January 29, 2022.

There is no doctrinal statement in American diplomatic history that is more fundamental than the Monroe Doctrine. It was designed to draw a strategic line between the New World and the Old, and to alert the European powers that their political influence and presence was no longer welcome in the Western Hemisphere. No doctrinal statement has been enforced as often as the Monroe Doctrine, which has been used to justify U.S. intervention throughout Central America and the Caribbean. The Monroe Doctrine was cited in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, a perfect failure, as well as the Cuban missile crisis, a diplomatic triumph.

The chart of the week shows how surging energy costs have boosted inflation, especially in Europe, after fossil-fuel prices nearly doubled in the past year. Rising food prices have also helped to boost inflation.

Meanwhile, continuing supply chain disruptions, clogged ports, logistics strains and strong demand for merchandise have broadened these price pressures, especially in the United States. Higher imported goods prices have contributed to inflation in some regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean.

Strategic bottlenecks in US domestic and foreign policy over the last decade sounded the alarm about an imminent world order change in Obama and Trump’s Presidency. The AUKUS Pact seems to be the way out of Washington and London’s strategic impasse of the post-World War II order which should begin the process of paving the way for the emergence of a new Protestant White Anglo-Saxon Order (WASP).

The Biden administration has signaled how it will use its power to designate different groups as terrorists as part of its foreign policy efforts.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the Colombian rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, off the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list at the end of 2021.

I know the importance of this decision because I worked on adding and deleting groups and individuals on multiple lists, including the Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

After the disappointments of 2021, can Venezuela’s government and opposition get negotiations back on track in the year ahead?

Venezuela enters 2022 with persistent challenges but also some tangible opportunities. Left behind are the unrealistic aspirations of the immediate exodus of Chavismo — leaving room for the incremental development of democratic co-existence. But for any positive change to occur, the Maduro government and democratic opposition will need to return to the negotiating table, where they have established a platform for coordination and progress on issues such as restoring democratic institutions, humanitarian relief and, ultimately, elections. The international community, especially the United States, will be a key player and should not fall into a pattern of inertia. In the Venezuela of 2022, small efforts can make a real difference in the lives of ordinary citizens.

The continuing global recovery faces multiple challenges as the pandemic enters its third year. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has led to renewed mobility restrictions in many countries and increased labor shortages. Supply disruptions still weigh on activity and are contributing to higher inflation, adding to pressures from strong demand and elevated food and energy prices. Moreover, record debt and rising inflation constrain the ability of many countries to address renewed disruptions.