It's Woodrow Wilson's Fault

Cracking Down on Presidential Power, Newsday, July 22, 2018. "The power of the presidency has grown at the expense of Congress. President Donald Trump’s trade policy is the latest illustration of the fact that the chief executive in the United States is over-mighty. Unfortunately, the progressive left likes it that way."

Adenauer and de Gaulle All Over Again

With her Chequers Plan, Theresa May is repeating the mistakes of former Tory Prime Ministers, BrexitCentral, July 13, 2018. "The cardinal sin inherent in the way Britain thinks about the EU — and its predecessors — is that Britain focuses on economics at the expense of politics, and fixates on visible trade at the expense of invisibles. The focus on economics, I believe, reflects a couple of things."

The U.S. As Muscle-Bound Giant

Why The U.S. Struggles to Come to Grips with the U.N.’s Gun Control Program, Forbes, July 12, 2018. "The most fundamental U.S. difficulty is that, in most U.N. venues, the U.S. is permanently on the defensive: the best we can do is to limit our losses. I would love to take the offensive, to come up with proposals that we can back and to force others to react to them, instead of us being forced to always react to the idiotic proposals of others."

The PoA's Little Inanities

The Little Inanities of the U.N.’s Gun Control Program, Forbes, July 12, 2018. "During the last two weeks of June, I was in New York, watching the Third Review Conference of the U.N.’s Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, usually abbreviated as the Programme of Action, or just the PoA. For the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, I’ve explained how the U.S. was cheated by a last minute rule change. But spending a fortnight at the PoA also occasions a few broader thoughts on the dysfunctions of the PoA, and the way the U.S. deals with dysfunctional international institutions. In this column, I’ll look at some of those dysfunctions. In the next, I’ll focus on how the U.S. tries — and sometimes fails — to come to grips with them.

Trump's To-Do List in the UK

For Trump It Looks Like A Bad Time To Arrive in Britain – Actually, It’s Ideal. Here’s Why, Fox News, July 12, 2018. "President Donald Trump will have to learn some new names in London. Earlier this week, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and David Davis, who led Britain’s arrangements for exiting the EU, resigned out of dissatisfaction with the government’s plans for Brexit. On the surface, this looks like a bad time for Trump to arrive. Actually, it’s ideal."

Keeping the Party Going at the PoA

To Promote Gun Control, the UN Changes the Rules, Daily Signal, July 10, 2018. "In the last two weeks of June, the United Nations held another review conference on its efforts to counter what it considers illicit dealing in small arms. The U.S. played the game well. But unfortunately, you can’t beat a cheater. In theory, this U.N. program might be a modestly useful way to promote cooperation against the illicit international trade in small arms. In practice, as even the world body has agreed, it does nothing very useful, mostly because most nations at the U.N. are too incompetent, or too ill-willed, to follow through on their commitments."