1. Trump promised to bring an end to Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear program. Kim Jong-Un hasn’t denuclearized. 
2. Trump said he “won’t bomb Syria.” Then he bombed Syria.
3. After pulling out of the Paris accord, Trump said he’d negotiate a better deal on the environment. There have been no negotiations.
4. Trump said he would renegotiate the Iran deal, but it remains at a standstill as election nears
5. Trump said he would reverse China’s entry into the WTO but China remains in the WTO despite Trump’s vow for removal.

Mr. Trump will continue to abuse the presidency’s powers over foreign affairs to the detriment of American foreign policy.

President Trump has never before been so isolated and ignored, even mocked abroad. After years of snubs and American unilateralism, European allies have stopped looking to the president for leadership, and are turning their backs on him. They no longer trust that this president will offer them much.

Mr. Trump continues to believe allies can be abused and mistreated and that he can order them around and at the same time count on them. He doesn’t understand that while the U.S. is powerful, it doesn’t always call the shots.

Much of Trump’s international engagement has been a hodgepodge of impulsive and contradictory actions. To the extent there is a Trump doctrine, it amounts to this: Use tariffs, sanctions and other means of economic pressure to compel U.S. adversaries and, as often, allies to accede to White House demands. This has not worked. First, Trump set wildly unrealistic goals. Trump’s next mistake was assuming that unilateral U.S. action was enough to succeed, and that he didn’t need the international cooperation obtained by previous presidents.

EU leaders have agreed to a comprehensive package of €1 824.3 billion which combines the multiannual financial framework (MFF) and an extraordinary recovery effort under the Next Generation EU (NGEU) instrument.

Long-term EU budget

The new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) will cover seven years between 2021 and 2027. The MFF, reinforced by Next Generation EU, will also be the main instrument for implementing the recovery package to tackle the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Le Liban traverse la pire crise économique de son histoire. La monnaie nationale perd chaque jour de sa valeur face au dollar. Les entreprises, les magasins ferment. Le chômage explose. Près de la moitié de la population vit désormais dans la pauvreté. Le gouvernement a appelé le Fonds Monétaire International à l'aide, mais il ne parvient pas à présenter des chiffres fiables de son endettement.

Author: Michael Mazza, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The Chinese pressure campaign against Taiwan is likely to persist. In the coming years, that campaign may include formal or informal import bans on Taiwanese goods; military provocations; information warfare operations aimed at destabilizing Taiwanese society; and the poaching of diplomatic allies.

For a long time, “One China” policy which recognizes the government of People’s Republic of China as the only legal government of China has been the backbone of the EU-Taiwan relations. It implicates that the cooperation between both partners is limited to non-political fields and excludes any diplomatic elements. On the surface, there is not much room for the EU to manoeuvre.

The uncomfortable truth is that business elites, European bureaucrats, and many European politicians are out of touch with the public’s sentiment on Hong Kong. Few European leaders pretend to even care about basic human rights in Hong Kong, and it will be difficult to get unanimity on this issue across Europe due to Beijing’s economic statecraft. Both European Council President Charles Michel and Borrell have reaffirmed the EU’s values, and Michel insisted on the bloc’s attachment to “the preservation of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy” but this is not enough.

Source: Hertie School

The conceptual and more concrete dimensions of the Commission’s geopolitical ambition point towards three key challenges.