Resource Type: In the News

MSNBC: Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ system is an expensive way to make America less safe

At MSNBC, Chief Editor Kelsey D. Atherton walks through how Trump’s recent announcement of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system is an expensive investment in insecurity.

“If missile defense works as promised,” writes Atherton, “it creates an opportunity for the leadership of the protected country to launch nuclear strikes without fear of suffering nuclear retaliation in return. This is true even if missile defense does not actually work as a defense, because overcoming planned defenses means building a larger arsenal and possibly taking a gamble on launching a nuclear first strike, rather than forever losing that deterrent effect.”

Read Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ system is an expensive way to make America less safe at MSNBC.

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

Executive Vice President Matt Duss and Senior Non Resident Fellow Trevor Sutton analyze America’s economic policy, emphasizing that Neoliberalism might have failed—but Trumpism is no alternative.

It has become accepted wisdom that U.S. President Donald Trump’s populist message has been effective because it has criticized a failed economic ideology of neoliberalism. In both administrations, Trump has rejected some long-standing bipartisan orthodoxies about the relationship between the state and markets, such as the belief that economic integration and lowering of trade barriers are unquestionably in the national interest, or that the government should exercise restraint in addressing trade imbalances and managing currency exchange rates.

It is not hard to understand why such economic heresies resonate. Globalization has been a major factor in industrial decline, loss of livelihoods, and downward pressure on wages in the United States. But we should not mistake Trump’s rejection of orthodoxies for any concern for ordinary Americans. He aspires to personal control, not economic justice.

The impacts of globalization were not hard to foresee: The multilateral trade system built during and expanded in the wake of the Cold War was designed primarily to reduce barriers to trade. Other concerns that might be significantly influenced or aggravated by economic integration—for example, inequality, labor rights, and environmental protection—were viewed as matters that national governments could address through their domestic systems or on an ad hoc basis through free trade agreements.

The belief that the deregulatory pressures and labor dislocation produced by globalization could be offset through domestic policies and free trade agreements looks naive in hindsight. In practice, the rules of the trade system constrained national governments’ ability to slow deindustrialization and offshoring of jobs and provided inadequate tools to respond to weak enforcement of labor and environmental standards by trading partners.

These shortcomings enabled a shift in manufacturing activity away from advanced economies into emerging markets, which amplified the disruptive effects of automation on industrial workforces. For many workers, especially those in countries that lack a strong commitment to redistribution like the United States, the shift to a service economy has meant lower wages and increased precarity.

Trump’s fondness for tariffs and bold promises to revive manufacturing may tap into legitimate grievances about globalization but should not be mistaken for genuine economic populism. Trade liberalization has not been the only driver of inequality and insecurity in the United States. Deregulation of financial markets, regressive changes to the tax code, spiraling health care costs, and reductions in pension benefits have also played an important role in bringing Americans to their current plight.

Far from seeking to reverse these trends, Trump is accelerating them by dismantling the administrative state, privatizing or outright eliminating core state functions, pushing tax cuts that favor the rich, and attacking labor rights.

What Trump is actually doing is not fighting for ordinary Americans but asserting personalized rule over markets for political showmanship and performative retribution, producing disruption but not progress. His announcement earlier this month of massively increased tariffs, followed by a suspension of those tariffs, after which he claimed credit for a “historic” market rally after it partially recovered from the dip, is a perfect example. As Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as secretary of the interior during Trump’s first term, observed succinctly, “Tariffs are a tool the president enjoys because it’s personal power.”

This is not a return to the regulated capitalism that drove middle-class growth, innovation, and industrial expansion in the mid-20th century. Instead, it’s a regression to a much older form of government, one in which the head of state surrounds himself with cronies and abuses his powers to tax, spend, and tariff to dole out favors. In other words, a spoils system.

Far from offering a “post-neoliberal” agenda, Trump is reproducing the worst aspects of that order and combining it with the worst aspects of an older one. We must reject and prevent a recurrence of Trump’s predatory capitalism, but the answer is not a reversion to market fundamentalism. The goal should be a system that empowers ordinary citizens and serves the common good, not the whims of one man or a handful of oligarchs and corporate overlords, and one that looks to the sustainable future rather than seeking to recreate a gilded past based on plunder.

Creating such a system will require far more comprehensive and strategic changes in policy than antagonistic and erratic tariffs. Many of the key reforms that will be needed are inward-facing, such as a more progressive and simpler tax code, an expanded welfare state, and stronger labor protections, especially those that can address the challenges we will soon face with rapid automation. But these internal measures will only succeed if we reform the external economic and geopolitical environment so markets are not insulated from democratic control and wealth cannot buy impunity.

This shift in the external environment will require a corresponding shift in U.S. foreign and international economic policy. A post-neoliberal economic agenda that works for all Americans should, at a minimum, reflect the following four goals: a fairer trade system that gives states more flexibility in balancing the interests of trading partners with national priorities; an industrial policy that emphasizes good-quality jobs and economic mobility—including in the services sector—at least as much as strategic competition and national security; international coordination to stop regulatory arbitrage and tax avoidance; and a new approach to U.S. foreign assistance and diplomacy focused on equitable distribution of global goods and building worker power.

This agenda will only succeed if Americans can relax the grip of oligarchs and their old guard allies on our institutions. This will not be an easy task and will require perseverance in achieving long overdue reforms, such as amending the federal bribery statute to better reflect commonsense understandings of corruption (which successive Supreme Court decisions have essentially defined out of existence), imposing stricter ethics rules on U.S. officials, and importantly, reforming our country’s campaign finance rules, which have created a political system that is more responsive to a small group of economic elites than to the needs of the majority.

There is no question that the old neoliberal theology that dominated U.S. economic policymaking for decades has failed American working people, steadily siphoning the fruit of their labor disproportionately upward to an elite with the power and influence to game the system. Some amount of creative destruction was long overdue. But we shouldn’t be fooled by Trump’s approach, which simply reproduces the worst aspects of the old order while doing nothing for working people. We need a new economic model that truly puts them at the center.

Read in Foreign Policy. 

 

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

How is Taiwan Reacting to the Trump Administration? Four Experts Visited Taiwan to Find Out

Executive Vice President Matt Duss joins Christopher S. Chivvis, Stephen Wertheim, Brett Rosenberg for a conversation on geopolitical changes in Taiwan. They visited Taipei and met with Taiwan’s officials and thought leaders. In this episode of Pivotal States, they share their takeaways and delve into the United States’ policy challenge in Taiwan.

Watch the full interview on Pivotal Sates. Check out transcript excerpts below:

Christopher Chivvis:
So anyway, given all of that, we thought it would be a good idea to go to Taiwan, which is really sort of at the center of the maelstrom here, and try to get a sense of what it looked like from the island itself. There’s obviously tons of different issues that we can talk about and that we did talk about on the trip. You’ve got the state of Taiwan’s own democracy, the nature of its domestic politics. You’ve got the condition of cross-strait relations, and then finally, since it’s Taiwan, the military dimension is always really important.

But if it’s okay with you guys, I thought we might just start with domestic politics and then move to the larger strategic questions.

Matthew Duss:
I’d say, knowing kind of a little bit about Taiwan’s domestic politics, but not a lot, I think we were able to dive in at a much, much deeper level that I really appreciated. And in a way, the positions of the two parties on the various domestic versus foreign policies are almost counterintuitive. The KMT, this is the Chinese Nationalist Party that literally fought a war against the Communist party and retreated to the island of Taiwan and still nominally claims to be the rightful government of all of China, and yet they are the ones who have the ongoing conversation with the CCP. Any channels that the Taiwanese government has are basically through the KMT. The DPP is much more forward-leaning in terms of an independent Taiwanese identity separate from the Chinese mainland. And yet, even though it seems a bit more hawkish on the foreign policy side, when it comes to domestic issues, gay rights, women’s rights, a whole range of things that we associate with progressive politics here in the United States.

… I thought that was really interesting. Yeah. And I do think it’s important always to understand as much as possible the domestic drivers of any country’s politics, because ultimately, that is what, in democracies, politicians — I hate to break it to people — are mainly concerned with. How do I get re-elected? How do I stay in power? How do I manage my own political coalition? So that’s something that we have to contend with as we try to come to our own decisions about U.S. policy.

Brett Rosenberg:
And I was struck as well by, there’s obviously this polarization between the two parties, but there was an understanding that the public I think is much closer to where the DPP’s view is on the cross-strait approach, not necessarily in terms of a hawkish approach, but in terms of, we’re already an independent sovereign nation.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think it was not that this person was charged with activities, like they were ideas that were expressed, that were deemed so harmful to the security of Taiwan. And obviously that is a huge problem. The same with the recall effort. It’s a foundational principle of democracies that you respect outcomes of elections when they don’t go your way and you try again next time. Obviously we see echoes of all these problems here in our country. We should be humble about that. But it does really show the increasingly zero-sum nature of their politics. That’s the phrase that kept ringing around in my head as we heard both sides describing the other.

Christopher Chivvis:
Bunch of unreasonable radicals was sort of the impression that you got from talking to the KMT.

Brett Rosenberg:
We had one person refer to the DPP as the DEI party, clearly importing in some American…

Matthew Duss:
I think that’s really important to understand the domestic side, but also the strategic impact of it on Taiwan’s security and its relationship with the U.S.

Christopher Chivvis:
And I think it was really clear when we were there, and I completely agree that that’s a really excellent summary of the strategic situation. We often think about the defense side of it, getting Taiwan to do more for its defense. Obviously that’s what we’ve been asking of our European allies. There’s good reasons for that. But in this case, as you pointed out, there’s a flip side to it, which is Taiwan also needs to be demonstrating that diplomatically, it’s willing to go out of its way in order to ensure that we avoid having to come to its rescue, that we avoid having to get into that war with China that would be so destructive.

But, you know, so we asked several times our interlocutors, especially on the DPP side, you know, how they felt about cross-strait dialogue. This would be trying to return to the constructive discussions that were going on between Beijing and Taipei from the early 1990s up until around 2016. And just I’ll say off the bat, it’s clear that China bears a lot of the responsibility for why these fell apart, but we were in Taiwan, so we were trying to get their sense of it.

Matthew Duss:
I think it’s a bit more concern, and just as Brett said, they had clearly heard that line, but they were a bit more, I guess, sanguine about the fact that, no Taiwan does have cards that Ukraine does not. TSMC being the most obvious example. But there’s two sides to that. They need to be able to deter an invasion and if necessary withstand it, fight back, things like that. But two, they need to be able to prove to the United States that they have cards so as to then bring the US in.

Brett Rosenberg:
Exactly. And the question of whether Taiwan can prove its worth to the United States in a way that convinces them to commit fully.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think there are definitely elements of what Stephen and Jennifer wrote in their piece, stronger investments in Taiwan’s defense, certainly investments in its own resilience. One of the things we haven’t mentioned yet is there’s apparently an effort now to extend the amount of time that is required for national service for all young Taiwanese. Right now it’s about four months, which one person referred to as just a kind of summer camp where they go and hang out and do drills, and that’s their-

Christopher Chivvis:
Shot a rifle once or twice.

Matthew Duss:
Right, right. Exactly. And to extend that to one or two years as a lot of other countries do. But also it’s just understanding that, I mean, given the various scenarios, the kind of least bad scenario is what we have now with a few changes as we just mentioned. Also having a president of Taiwan who is really willing to try harder to have engagement with Beijing, which Taiwan does not have now, unfortunately. I think that would be good, that opens possibilities in talks with Beijing, but also I think that would have benefits in terms of US public opinion and global opinion as well. And I do think that matters, but I think coming from a DC perspective, the idea of just there’s not much we can do and we should keep this unsatisfying status quo is not a very attractive argument either there or here. And yet, that is I think probably the best option.

Stephen Wertheim:
Actually, when you poll Americans, only thirty-some percent say that they would support coming to the direct defense of Taiwan against a Chinese attack. That’s a fairly low number if you compare that to the number that say that they would support defending a NATO ally, including the Baltic States.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, it’s a significant gap in perception. So from Taiwan’s perspective, I think they believe they have more support from the U.S. than might actually exist, and that’s concerning.

Matthew Duss:
Right. No, it’s ripe for political actors on either side to disturb that status quo and political actors from the United States as we’ve seen in the recent past. But I was really struck by one conversation we had with a kind of progressive left DPP-affiliated journalist and activist.

Christopher Chivvis:
This was in that bar. The Home Run Bar. That was fun.

Matthew Duss:
Right, exactly. Who clearly was pro-independence. And then we asked, “Okay, so what’s the pathway?” And he said, “Well, there’s no path right now to achieving this.” So there’s at least a pragmatic-

Christopher Chivvis:
Which was surprisingly realistic for someone who was so aspirational about it.

Matthew Duss:
Right. A level of pragmatism to say, “Well, at the moment, there’s no path to this.” And that was one of the most interesting things I think we heard.

Matthew Duss:
The announcement of a rise in the defense budget is definitely a part of that. The announcement, all the things that Brett talked about, I think is a part of that. So again, I wouldn’t overstate the amount of alarm, but I do think some people were perhaps a bit too relaxed and placing a bit too much stock in this kind of idea that, “Oh, Americans will always support Taiwan because maybe Americans when you poll them. But the question is will they punish a politician or a president who changes that?”

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The Real Scandal Is Bombing Yemen, Not the Group Chat

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Matt Duss on the contradictions of Trump’s foreign policy.

Might Makes Right: Matt Duss on Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine, from Ukraine to Gaza

Watch the Full Interview with Democracy Now

Transcript:

Matt, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what you understand at this point. At the time of this broadcast, the meeting between Zelensky and Trump has not taken place at the White House yet.

MATT DUSS: Right. Well, what we understand — what I understand right now is that a few weeks ago this deal on rare earth minerals actually originated with the Ukrainians in the hopes that this would be a way to entice Donald Trump into offering U.S. security guarantees. They understand, I think quite rightly, that Donald Trump is always interested in how he can profit, how he can — how he can cut deals. And the hope was that an exchange for some claim to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral wealth, this would translate into real military security guarantees from the United States to Ukraine’s security.

Donald Trump responded to that by saying, “I love this idea. I’m not going to give you any real security guarantees.” However, he does seem to imply that by giving the United States a stake in the future — in future profits in Ukraine, this, in itself, could translate into a form of security guarantee. He has talked about U.S. workers being present doing this work in Ukraine as a form of a guarantee, but believing that would also mean that Donald Trump, the United States would respond militarily to an attack by Russia that endangered those Americans. So, this is still unclear, as are the actual details of this minerals deal.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I mean, it’s very interesting, because you’d think the person who’s most concerned about this — I mean, Zelensky, for reasons of just how much of the rare earth minerals they would be promising to the U.S. — but the person who would be most concerned about this is the president of Russia, is Putin.

MATT DUSS: I mean, I think that’s right. You know, he obviously does not want the United States and Ukraine to be drawing into a closer relationship. So, again, this is why I say we really do need to wait and see the actual details of this deal. As of right now, it has Ukraine promising to invest some portion of their mineral wealth into a shared fund between Ukraine and the United States, and which would also be reinvested in Ukraine, although U.S. companies would be the ones developing this. Donald Trump sees this as a way of getting the United States, quote, “paid back” for its support for Ukraine’s defense. But you’re right: Anything that draws the U.S. and Ukraine closer is something that can’t make Vladimir Putin very happy.

AMY GOODMAN: During his first Cabinet meeting this week, President Trump was asked by reporters about tariffs on the European Union. And I’m asking you this as Trump just met, of course, with the British Prime Minister Starmer. They also talked about Ukraine. But this is particularly interesting, what he said, what Trump said about the European Union.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I mean, look, let’s be honest: The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the history and what Trump is talking about?

MATT DUSS: From his perspective, he clearly sees the EU as a way to just form a larger economic bloc that could compete with and possibly, as he said it, screw the United States. But, obviously, it’s much more complicated than that. Economic competition is part of it. I mean, coming out of World War II, there was a huge security and political component of this, Europe trying to draw together to coordinate and to talk more effectively to avoid a third round. We went through two world wars, you know, driven by European economic and military competition. So it was a real effort to avoid that. But Donald Trump simply sees it as a way, as he said, to screw the United States by separate European countries drawing together into one large economic formation that could make joint economic decisions.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, now President Trump is threatening tariffs, starting Tuesday, on Mexico, on Canada, increased tariffs on China, and threatening to tariff the whole European Union.

MATT DUSS: Right. I mean, he did this in his first term. You know, he sees tariffs as yet another way to extract concessions. It’s hard to know exactly how far he’s going to go, as we saw in his comments just now about Zelensky. Last week, he was calling Zelensky a dictator; this week, he can’t believe he said that. You know, frankly, I can’t believe he said that, either. So we’ll have to wait and see what he actually does.

I think what’s interesting about all these meetings we’ve been seeing from European leaders — Macron last week and Starmer just yesterday, and I’m sure we’ll see this from Zelensky today — is that they all understand that they do not want to be in public spats with Donald Trump. They are seeking ways to flatter him. They’re seeking ways to demonstrate that he can profit from a better relationship with their countries.

AMY GOODMAN: In your recent piece for The Guardian, where you talk about “What are we to make of Trump’s Ukraine policy?” you talk about discussions between the U.S. and Moscow in deciding the future of Ukraine. You also compare this to U.S.-Israel relations as both nations plan the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. So, if you can talk about, in both cases, the first, leaving out Ukraine — though he’s meeting with Zelensky today and denying he said — of course, he did say that Zelensky is a dictator — but leaving out Ukraine and leaving out the Palestinians when it comes to their fate?

MATT DUSS: Right. I mean, I see a great deal of similarity, you know, a consistency to Trump’s approach. He sees the global order as one in which great powers, powerful countries make the decisions, and less powerful countries, less powerful communities and peoples simply have to live with the consequences. We saw that in the negotiation between the United States and Russia, hosted by Saudi Arabia, where Russia and the United States were essentially determining the future of Ukraine. We saw this in the appearance at the White House with Benjamin Netanyahu a few weeks ago, where he announced his proposal for the removal — essentially, the ethnic cleansing — of Gaza, a decision with huge consequences for the Palestinian people and for the region made without a Palestinian in sight. So, again, I think this is how Trump sees the world. The United States, by dint of its enormous economic and military power, sits with other great powers and simply determines the rules of the road, and weaker countries and other peoples who aren’t in the room have to deal with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you saw this video, AI-generated video, that President Trump retweeted on his social media, on Truth Social, this horrific video about Gaza.

MATT DUSS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And it has Trump Gaza, a huge hotel. It has a gold statue of President Trump. It has Elon Musk walking down the streets. And it has Netanyahu and Trump sitting on beach chairs on the ocean with their cocktails. And finally, it has Trump dancing with an almost completely naked, her bottom naked, woman. What is this?

MATT DUSS: I don’t have a good answer for you. I don’t know who dropped acid and made that video. But, you know, it really —

AMY GOODMAN: The point isn’t who made it. The point is he tweeted it.

MATT DUSS: That’s right. No, that’s right. You know, clearly, that appealed to him. But, I mean, we saw this from his comments with Netanyahu, is that he sees the redevelopment, as he would say it, of Gaza as a source of potential profit, just as he sees this deal on rare earth minerals with Ukraine as a source of potential profit. In both of these cases, you always have to follow the money. You know, the thing to ask about every decision Donald Trump makes is: How does this translate into money in Donald Trump’s pocket? So, he clearly sees some advantage into this garish redevelopment of Gaza into, you know, one big Trump casino and golf course — of course, without any consideration for the people who actually live there right now.

What are we to make of Trump’s Ukraine policy? | The Guardian

It’s been quite a week for US foreign policy. Following a phone call last week between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Russian delegates met in Saudi Arabia to smooth relations between the two countries and discuss possible paths to ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine was not invited to the talks. Quite reasonably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country would not be bound by decisions taken without their participation. Trump responded to this by falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, and sought to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy by claiming in a Truth Social post that he “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls … A Dictator without Elections.”

In reality, Zelenskyy’s current approval rating is more than 50%, which is higher than Trump’s. And while it’s fair to ask whether Ukraine should have elections during the war, only a total rube would believe that Trump is bringing this up because he cares about democracy.

In terms of optics, the talks themselves are a clear victory for Putin, a validation of his well-known aspiration to restore the great power status to which he believes Russia is historically entitled. In this view, the future of Ukraine, and of Europe, is something to be determined by the United States and Russia irrespective of the populations involved.

For Trump’s part, it fits neatly with his modus operandi that Russia and the United States would get to make those decisions. Just as with the spectacle of the US president and Israeli prime minister a few weeks ago determining the future of the Palestinians who weren’t even in the room, in Trump’s jungle the powerful make decisions that the weak must simply accept, international law and human rights be damned.

You can say this for Trump: at least he’s consistent. The previous administration’s approach to two major wars – Ukraine and Gaza – was characterized by a glaring double standard in which Russia’s blatant violations of the laws of war were rightly condemned, while Israel’s commission of the same were shamefully excused and supported. The rights of the Ukrainian people to freedom and self-determination were treated as unquestionable, while those same rights for the Palestinian people were considered negotiable, if considered at all.

Trump now appears to be resolving this tension by throwing the Ukrainians under the bus along with the Palestinians. And as with his forced-displacement proposal for Gaza, he seems to see Russian talks over Ukraine as primarily a business venture, with the state department readout of the meeting highlighting possible new “investment opportunities” in warming US-Russia relations. (This shows again how wildly off the mark the Washington establishment’s “isolationist” criticisms of Trump have been. In truth, Trump is much more an old-school imperialist, always looking for new spoils to be enjoyed. The amount of time and energy devoted to the idea that Trump is a “Russian asset” obscured the more prosaic homegrown danger posed by his predatory authoritarian capitalism.)

That said, it’s important not to overreact to these talks by dismissing the notion of diplomacy to end the war, nor lose sight of the larger problem in what Trump is doing and how these foreign policy moves tie into his broader agenda. While Trump’s comments indicate a troubling direction of travel and a propaganda victory for Putin, that in and of itself is not enough reason not to avoid negotiations. We should be talking to our adversaries more, not less. The question is what we get from them. And if this initial dialogue helps lead to a durable end to the war, that’s positive. The details will matter.

As will Ukrainian buy-in. There’s some evidence that Ukrainians could support an agreement that comes short of total victory. According to a November Gallup poll, 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. According to the same poll, more than half of this group (52%) believe that Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as part of such an agreement.

But for any such agreement to be more than just a temporary halt to conflict, it will need to ensure Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. Simply imposing an agreement that returns Ukraine to Russian vassal state status is not only unjust, but it will also not work. No people would accept decisions about their fate made over their heads, nor should they be expected to. The Ukrainians won’t, just as the Palestinians won’t.

European allies have responded with understandable alarm to Trump’s abrupt policy shift, even if they have no excuse not to have seen it coming. Europeans can no more be cut out of negotiations over the future of their region than Ukraine can be excised from talks over its own fate. If this latest shock finally, at long last, spurs our European allies to take greater responsibility for their own region’s security, that would be a positive outcome. But given how quickly the urgency of past “turning points” has faded, we shouldn’t hold our breath.

The tone and choice of location for this week’s talks in Riyadh (itself a propaganda victory for the Saudi regime) are just one piece of a larger picture in which the United States is now aligning itself more fully with the global forces of ethnonationalism, authoritarianism and oligarchy. As the Trump administration draws closer to rightwing autocrats internationally, it is also hard at work here at home dismantling the administrative state and divvying up the spoils among its own oligarch allies.

Until Democrats are willing to look more honestly and critically at the influence that wealthy interests have on their own party and their governing choices, they won’t be able to offer a compelling and convincing alternative.

Read in The Guardian.

DOGE Access to Defense Database Increases Risks of Corruption, Oligarchic Capture

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may soon gain access to USXports, a database of US-made defense items for export, a potentially massive conflict of interest, Ari Tolany tells Zeteo News’ Spencer Ackerman:

“USX often contains sensitive business information, including technical data, contracts information, and blueprints, including [on] SpaceX and its competitors,” says Ari Tolany, who directs the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy.

“Corporate interests too often dictate US government policy through the revolving door between government and industry. One corporation having privileged access above others is yet another example of the bald-faced corruption characterizing the intrusions of an unelected billionaire into government decision-making.”

Read the original article, Musk and DOGE Might Soon Have Access to the Most Lucrative Defense-Contract Database of All.

Jeffrey Sachs & Matt Duss Debate U.S.-Russia Talks to End Ukraine War

As top diplomats from the United States and Russia meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss ending the war in Ukraine and improving relations between Washington and Moscow, Economist Jeffrey Sachs and foreign policy analyst Matt Duss joined Democracy Now! to offer their analysis.

Duss emphasized that Ukrainians have agency and the conflict cannot be reduced to a question of NATO participation. “If there is a workable peace agreement to be had, that’s good,” he says, but attempting to decide Ukraine’s future without Ukrainians at the table is unlikely to be successful or sustainable.

Duss explains:

Putin’s vision for Russia’s role and for the eventual dispensation for Ukraine is that this is something to be worked out between Russia and the United States, between these two great powers. He sees Russia as a rising force. Again, he’s trying to kind of reestablish Russia as a great empire, a great force in global affairs. And his vision of how global affairs should work is that the great powers make decisions, and the lesser powers just have to deal with it. Their concerns are of very little concern. And unfortunately, I think that is something we’ve seen from the Trump administration, too, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s Gaza. It’s that the powerful make decisions, and the weak just deal with it. I don’t think that’s just. And more importantly, I don’t think that’s going to lead to a sustainable peace. So, listen, if they do — if they do come out of these talks with a workable and sustainable and durable peace agreement for Ukraine, one that protects Ukraine’s democracy, one that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty, we should all support that. But without the participation of Ukraine, I’m very, very skeptical that we’re going to get anything like that.

Some additional positive side effects could include reducing the corrosive power on our democracy and foreign affairs of the U.S. military-industrial complex. If NATO countries step up their security commitments, Duss notes, “that could have potential positive consequences for the United States, given the way that the US security architecture in Europe is something that helps buttress our own military-industrial complex & diminishes & really corrupts our own democracy.”

You can find the full interview and transcript on Democracy Now! here.

Additional Resources:

Trump’s Impact on Gaza Policy, USAID, China

Trump’s proposal for the US to “own” Gaza and force out the Palestinian population would make it American policy to support “a crime against humanity”, says Matt Duss.

On this episode of After America, Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President at the Washington DC-based Center for International Policy, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss Trump’s Gaza announcement, the freeze on US development funding, and the new Cabinet’s approach to China.

This discussion was recorded on Friday 7 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President, Center for International Policy // @mattduss

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

This podcast originally appeared on The Australia Institute.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Show notes:

‘Trump’s Gaza Proposal is Less Original Than He Thinks’ by Matthew Duss, Foreign Policy (February 2025)

‘America Is Cursed by a Foreign Policy of Nostalgia’ by Nancy Okail and Matthew Duss, Foreign Affairs (December 2024)

‘Democrats have become the party of war. Americans are tired of it’ by Matthew Duss, The Guardian (January 2025)

The Un-Diplomatic Podcast hosted by Van Jackson, Julia Gledhill and Matthew Duss

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

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Matt Duss Discusses Trump’s Dangerous Foreign Policy Actions – Mornings With Zerlina

On February 7, Center for International Policy Executive Vice-President Matt Duss joined SiriusXM’s “Mornings With Zerlina” for a discussion of Trump’s proposal to ‘clean out’ the Gaza Strip, the attacks on USAID, the administrative state, and more.