See the latest political news? As the United States formally proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese products, including flat-screen televisions, medical devices, aircraft parts and batteries, China countered with tariffs on $50 billion worth of American goods from states that overwhelmingly voted for President Trump. While advisers to the president initially tried to mitigate concerns over an impending trade war, Mr. Trump doubled down late Thursday by announcing that he would formally consider additional tariffs on $100 billion worth of Chinese products in response to China’s retaliation. The escalating trade conflict may have given the administration additional motivation to move more quickly to resolve the North American Free Trade Agreement — another trade deal the president has consistently attacked.

By establishing inescapable facts on the ground over the ceaseless objections of critics, President Trump overrides the often meaningless verbiage that constitutes international diplomacy and ends up changing the very terms of the foreign policy conversation. Nowhere has this dynamic been clearer than in U.S. relations with China. Beginning with his surprise call to Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in December 2016 and continuing through his resumption of U.S. Navy freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea the following year, his tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, his and his administration’s rhetorical barrage against China beginning in earnest in 2019, and culminating in his multiple actions against China this year, from limiting travel to canceling visas to forcing the sale of TikTok to tightening the vise on Huawei to selling an additional $7 billion in arms to Taiwan, Trump has reoriented America’s approach to the People’s Republic. No longer is China encouraged to be a “responsible stakeholder.” It is recognized as a great-power competitor.

US Foreign politics and Brexit 2020 latest : Last week, with the introduction of the Internal Markets Bill, the rubber hit the road. By the British government’s own admission, the bill violates the Withdrawal Agreement signed onto with the EU, albeit only in “a very specific and limited way,” in the words of Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis. Specifically, it violates Article IV, which establishes the Agreement’s supremacy over U.K. law. The British government has taken this measure because they want their own ministers to decide what goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain should be subject to EU customs checks. In other words, the government is reasserting its sovereignty over Northern Ireland now that the U.K. is safely out of the EU by deliberately violating international law.

Now, I don’t think a single person in American politics actually cares about the “Biden rule,” either. Even if they did, however, the precedent doesn’t apply in this case. Biden argued that nominations shouldn’t be taken up during presidential-election years when Senate and presidency are held by different parties. Trump isn’t a lame-duck president; he’s running for reelection. But let’s concede for the sake of argument that McConnell is a massive hypocrite. Then, it’s fair to say, so are all the pols who accused McConnell “stealing” the Garland seat. Joe Biden now says that “voters should pick a President, and that President should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg.” (They did. They picked Trump.) In March of 2016, however, Biden wrote in the New York Times that the Senate had a “duty” to confirm justices. See even more details at zetpress.com.