Latest news with #USforeignpolicy
Reuters
3 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Iran says US travel ban shows 'deep hostility' for Iranians, Muslims
June 7 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign ministry said a U.S. travel ban that includes Iran showed "deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian people and Muslims", the ministry posted on the X platform on Saturday.
South China Morning Post
17-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
US sanctions are losing their power in a post-American world
Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@ or filling in this Google form . Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification Donald Trump's return to the White House in January reignited discussions on the use of economic pressure as a tool of US foreign policy. But the world today is not the unipolar terrain of 2018. From Beijing and Moscow to Tehran and Brasília, the contours of global power have shifted. At the heart of this shift is a growing rejection of US dollar hegemony – and with it, the perceived moral and strategic legitimacy of Western sanctions ('US sanctions network of companies it says helped ship Iranian oil to China', May 14 ). This is not to suggest the collapse of American influence, but rather its strategic overextension. In the name of defending the rules-based order, Washington sanctions over a third of the world's countries. But as major powers pivot towards alternative trade settlements and local currencies, the threat of sanctions begins to lose its sting. Consider the China-Russia partnership: bilateral trade rose to US$245 billion in 2024 , with over 70 per cent settled in yuan or roubles . This is not simply economic pragmatism; it's geopolitical signalling. When such arrangements multiply, the architecture of coercive diplomacy faces erosion. Iran, too, reads the moment carefully. Though talks with Washington continue, Tehran sees these less as openings for detente and more as shields against hostile escalation. In the view of Iranian policymakers, America's grip is loosening – not only due to its military missteps, but because its financial weaponry is being dulled by the emergence of multipolar alternatives.
Malay Mail
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Joseph Nye, pioneer of ‘soft power' and adviser to US presidents, dies as Trump era challenges legacy
WASHINGTON, May 8 — Joseph Nye, a versatile and influential political scientist and US policymaker who coined the term 'soft power,' a concept of nations gaining dominance through attractiveness now scoffed at by President Donald Trump, has died, Harvard University announced yesterday. He was 88. Nye, who died Tuesday, first joined Harvard's faculty in 1964 and served as dean of the Harvard Kennedy School as well as in positions under presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. The author of 14 books and more than 200 journal articles, the neo-liberal thinker studied topics as varied as arms control and pan-Africanism but became best known for developing the term 'soft power' in the late 1980s. As opposed to hard power, such as weapons and economic sanctions, soft power includes values and culture that can win over others. 'Soft power — getting others to want the outcomes that you want — co-opts people rather than coerces them,' Nye wrote in a 2004 book on the topic. Among other examples, he pointed to growing US influence in Latin America when Franklin Roosevelt instituted a 'good neighbor policy' and, conversely, how the Soviet Union lost Eastern Europe through brutality even as Moscow's hard power grew. Trump, since returning to office in January, has sharply reduced US soft power, including through dismantling foreign assistance and cracking down on international students, and has sought to ramp up military spending. In responses to AFP in February about how he saw Trump's second term, Nye wrote: 'Trump does not really understand power. He only thinks in terms of coercion and payment.' 'He mistakes short-term results for long-term effects. Hard coercive power (such as a threat of tariffs) may work in the short term while creating incentives for others to reduce their reliance on the US in the longer term,' he wrote to AFP by email. 'Our success over the past eight decades has also been based on attractiveness.' But he said that US soft power had seen cycles in the past, pointing to the unpopularity of the United States during the Vietnam War. 'We will probably recover somewhat after Trump, but he has damaged trust in the US,' he wrote. Nuclear thinker Nye acknowledged the limitations of soft power alone. In his book, he wrote: 'Excellent wines and cheese do not guarantee attraction to France, nor does the popularity of Pokemon games assure that Japan will get the policy outcomes it wishes.' Nye was considered a possible national security adviser if John Kerry won the White House in 2004. He was also particularly active on Japan, where former president Barack Obama considered appointing him ambassador. Always attentive to soft power, Nye took to the opinion pages of The New York Times in 2010 to criticise some in the Obama administration for seeking to play 'hardball' with a new, inexperienced Japanese government over base relocation, calling for a 'more patient and strategic approach' to the longtime US ally. Much of Nye's time in government was focused on nuclear policy. He argued that the risk of nuclear weapons could have deterred major powers from entering World War I — but that the spread of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War posed new dangers. 'He was proudest of having contributed both intellectually... and practically (in the Carter and Clinton administrations) to preventing nuclear war,' fellow Harvard scholar Graham Allison said in a statement. — AFP
