What Brexit Means for the U.S.

Brexit’s Three Key Implications for U.S. Policymakers, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5031, January 31, 2020. "The U.K’s exit from the EU will have three major implications for U.S. policymakers. First, as the U.K. regains its full diplomatic independence and represents itself in functional international organizations, it will be essential for the U.S. to deepen its bilateral diplomatic engagement with Britain. Second, as the U.K. recovers its freedom to negotiate trade agreements, the U.S. must take advantage of this opportunity to negotiate a free trade area with Britain. Third, as the U.K. restores its democratic national sovereignty, the U.S. should recognize that the U.K. has vindicated the principle on which the U.S. itself is founded, even though the history of the Special Relationship shows that the U.S. and the U.K. will not always agree with each other."

The UN: A Club for Nations

Why United Nations Membership Means Little, Newsday, September 24, 2017. "The UN today is a club for nations. Every widely recognized nation is in it, and if you’re not a nation, you’re excluded. As such, the UN has no serious membership standards: If you’re a nation, you’re in. But that was not how it was meant to be. When the UN was founded in 1945, it was a society for the nations that had won the Second World War. The losers — Germany, Italy and Japan — were excluded. As such, the UN was supposed to embody the values America had fought to defend."

Interpol, the Palestinians, and Standards for Membership

Will Interpol Be Able to Create Fair Standards for Membership?, Forbes, November 30, 2016, "Contrary to media reports, a Palestinian effort to win admission to Interpol has not been rejected. As I noted in my previous post, it has been postponed, pending a report on membership criteria to be conducted by Hans Corell, former Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel of the United Nations."

The Mirage of Engagement

‘Tent’ Membership Has Its Problems, Newsday, April 5, 2015. "The nuclear deal with Iran announced by President Barack Obama on Thursday is a mirage -- an agreement now to agree later. But it stands for something bigger: the belief that it's better to have the bad guys inside the tent than out of it."

Senator Warren Is Wrong (Again) About Trade

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanisms: An Important Feature of High-Quality Trade Agreements, with James Roberts and Riddhi Dasgupta, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4351, February 20, "There are many reasons to doubt that a trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU will deliver the economic gains or advance the broader geopolitical objectives claimed for it. Like any treaty, a trade agreement can be fairly assessed only when a full and final text has been negotiated and presented to the public. Yet the concerns raised in principle about creation of an ISDS mechanism are unfounded. Far from being dangerous or undesirable, an appropriately structured ISDS is an essential part of trade-agreement enforcement and should be included in any U.S. trade agreement with the EU."

The Faulty Geopolitical Case Behind TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): The Geopolitical Reality, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2953, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that is being hailed as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. It is essential that both the geopolitical concerns that motivate support for a TTIP and the limits of a TTIP’s ability to improve U.S.–EU relations and address the rise of China be properly understood."

The Economic Case for and Against TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Economic Benefits and Potential Risks, with Luke Coffey and Bryan Riley, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2952, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that politicians and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic hail as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. But no U.S.–EU agreement can do all that has been claimed of the TTIP, and there are reasons to believe that its benefits have been oversold. The U.S. should support all measures that would promote growth and employment by increasing economic freedom, but it should not accept any agreement that could increase government regulation in the name of promoting free trade and create a transnational regulatory body that could infringe on U.S. sovereignty."

A Rectification of Names

Call the Islamic State Murderers Instead, Newsday, September 8, 2014. "The murderers of journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley call themselves the Islamic State. And commentators reliably repeat that name. That's wrong -- and dangerous."

The Traditional Requirements of Sovereignty

An Assault on Sovereignty in Israel, Ukraine, Newsday, July 25, 2014. "At a conference in Israel earlier this month, the White House's Middle East coordinator, Philip Gordon, spoke the magic word: sovereignty. Unfortunately, for the White House, it's just a word. From Israel to Ukraine, today's crises show what happens when the world forgets what sovereignty requires."

Recommendations on U.S. Policy Towards Europe

President Obama Goes to Europe: Top Five Policy Recommendations, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4234, June 4, 2014. "President Obama’s visit to Europe this week will be an important opportunity for the U.S. President to restate America’s commitment to the transatlantic partnership, strengthen the NATO alliance, and shore up European opposition to Russian aggression against Ukraine."

Top Five for 2014

Top Five Foreign Policy Priorities for 2014, with Nile Gardiner and James Phillips, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4123, January 14, 2014. "In 2014, the U.S. should be willing to stand up to those who threaten its interests while it stands with those who share its values and goals. Foremost among those values are the principles of sovereignty and self-determination, which must be as central to U.S. foreign policy as they are sacred to its system of government. Here are the top five foreign policy priorities for the Administration and Congress in 2014."

The Need For A Positive No to the EU

UK Needs Freedom to Pick Talent from the Whole World, Yorkshire Post, November 23, 2013. "The EU’s problems are real, and underneath, they will drive voting in the referendum. But the Out campaign needs not just the Thatcherite spirit of rebellion: it needs her optimism. Even in terms of immigration, the EU means favouring talent from Europe, a tiny part of the world, at the expense of talent from the rest of it. And that makes less sense today for Britain than it ever did in the past."

Another Reason for Britain to Leave the ECHR

European Court Errs in Decision on Terrorist Suspect Extradition, with Andrew Robert James Southam, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3930, May 7, 2013. "The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has given an interim ruling that Britain cannot extradite Haroon Aswat to the United States. Aswat has been indicted in the U.S. on conspiracy charges related to the establishment of a terrorist training camp for radical Islamists in Bly, Oregon in 1999. By this decision, the ECHR, unless its decision is overturned, will have done significant damage to the Anglo-American extradition system, and to the ability of both sovereign nations to try and punish serious offenses, including terrorism."

Puzzling U.S. Policy on The Falkland Islands

US Should Stop Playing Games with the Freedom of the Falkland Islands, Yorkshire Post (UK), March 12, 2013. "It is hard to understand what the US thinks it is achieving by encouraging Britain to negotiate away the rights of the Falkland Islanders. Yet that is exactly what Washington is doing. Starting with the notorious 2010 press conference with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, a string of US officials have urged Britain to negotiate with Argentina."

The Falklands Are British

The United States Should Recognize British Sovereignty Over the Falkland Islands, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2771, March 4, 2013. "In order to assert their inherent right to choose their own form of government, the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands will hold a referendum on March 10–11, 2013, to decide whether they wish to maintain their allegiance to Great Britain. Britain has administered the Islands peacefully and continuously since 1833, with the exception of the two months in 1982 when the Islands were invaded and illegally occupied by Argentine forces. The Obama Administration has backed Argentina’s calls for a U.N.-brokered settlement for the Islands and so far has refused to recognize the outcome of the referendum. This policy poses serious risks to U.S. interests and is an insult both to Britain—the U.S.’s closest ally—and to the rights of the Islanders."

Pre-Debate Post on US Role in the World

Debate Prep: The U.S. Role in the World, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 22, 2012. "At the Heritage Foundation, we agree on the centrality of American leadership. But leadership is just a word: anyone can say that they believe in it. To be real and effective, leadership needs to be backed up by priorities, by policies, by budgets, and by the strength of the nation. And that is a good place to start."

The EU: Effect, Not Cause, Of Peace

The EU’s Nobel Peace Prize: Not Just a Laughing Matter, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 12, 2012. "The lesson of the EU’s prize—taken with the three prizes that the U.N. has won in various guises over the past decade and President Obama’s award in 2009 for promising to be more multilateral—is that the Nobel Committee, like a lot of elites, think that the way to promote peace is to diminish national sovereignty and the democratic control of politics by relying on supranational institutions of regional (or global) governance."

The PoA --Time for the US to Quit This Farce

U.S. Should Quit U.N.’s ‘Programme of Action’, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 4, 2012. "So let’s sum up: The PoA has achieved little of use, has a constantly expanding agenda, promotes restricting civilian firearms ownership, and seeks to advance this agenda by the slow elaboration of international norms. It is high time for the U.S. to quit this farce."

Defending the US-UK Extradition Treaty

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty: Fair, Balanced, and Worth Defending, with Andrew Robert James Southam, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2723, September 4, 2012. "The 2003 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Great Britain is intensely controversial in the United Kingdom. The treaty resulted from a British process and is a modern and praiseworthy approach to extradition that is based on an objective evidentiary test, requires dual criminality in all cases, and has a proportionality standard. The European Union’s European Arrest Warrant does not have these virtues and therefore urgently needs reform, as does Britain’s participation in the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Extradition and acceptance of the jurisdiction of the supranational European Court of Human Rights. While Anglo–American cooperation on the treaty and on extradition and international criminal justice can be improved, the 2003 U.S.–U.K. Extradition Treaty is fair, balanced, and worth defending."

A Few Reasons Why the ATT Conference Failed

True Belief and True Failure at the United Nations, The Commentator, July 30, 2012. "What was missing was people who knew what they were doing. The ATT was never about banning; it was about regulating, a far more complex activity. And since far too many nations lack the administrative capacity to control their borders, they also lack the ability to negotiate a treaty controlling the arms trade."