Blinked (April 25, 2025)
Welcome to Home & Away.
Some years ago, Malcolm Gladwell published Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. As I recall, the book argued that snap judgments are often better than those formed after careful assessments. On occasion, that may well be the case, but I wouldn’t count on it. Better to do the serious analysis, which brings me to one of the larger points in today’s newsletter.
I want to write about blinking of another sort: backing down. There is a strong case to be made that the president of the United States blinked multiple times this week. (I see David Sanger came to the same conclusion in the New York Times.) Trump declared he would not be firing Fed Chair Jay Powell—who was originally nominated by Trump himself in 2017 and has just over a year remaining in his current term—after repeatedly floating the idea of removing him. Trump and his Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, also spoke confidently that the United States and China would reach a trade deal, predicting that tariffs would come down substantially from their current sky-high level.
In the first case, my sense is that what caused Trump to pull back was not any legal question over whether he had the authority to fire Powell. It was instead political. Markets fell almost 3 percent Monday, the dollar plummeted, and yields on long-term Treasuries soared in response to signs Trump wanted Powell out. Powell provides businesses and investors with confidence at a time it is in short supply. As for the changing narrative surrounding tariffs, there are reports that some of this country’s largest retailers warned Trump that their shelves would soon be empty unless he changed course.
This is all instructive and, in a way, reassuring. Most Americans like checks and balances. They do not trust concentrated power. They want an independent central bank willing to do what is in the long-term interest of the economy, even when those moves go against the near-term political interests of the power that be. This public belief in constrained power is good news for the courts, universities, law firms, and others—maybe even members of Congress—who are contemplating standing up to executive overreach.
Trump and Secretary Bessent’s speculation that the economic war between the United States and China would be short-lived is also revealing. The U.S. economy and a good many U.S. businesses are not in a position to sustain a long or even a short trade war with China. Dependence on supply chains that run through China is substantial, and these supply chains would take time and considerable investment to move. One might think that the leverage would go the other way—that China would be more vulnerable to a trade war given that it sells much more to this country than it buys (hence its $295 billion trade surplus with us last year). But it turns out it is less difficult to find alternative markets for goods than it is to find, or build, the alternative production facilities, critical components, and raw materials needed to keep the American economy running, never mind with such a rapid turnaround. In addition, the goods that America sells to China—largely agricultural and energy—are items that China can normally find elsewhere.
It helped, too, that several major CEOs expressed their concerns directly to Trump and that the IMF reduced its projection for U.S. economic growth this year by a full percentage point, from 2.8 to 1.8 percent. Between all of these responses and his sinking poll numbers, Trump finally seems to have internalized that his tariff tantrum was putting the U.S. economy and his presidency at risk. So, he blinked. Which, in this instance, turns out to be a good thing for him and for us.
Matters of State
Nearly a week ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened Ukraine and Russia that the United States would “move on” if the Trump administration’s bid to end the Ukraine war (or, more accurately, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine) did not soon yield results. The United States put forward a ceasefire proposal, one seen by Ukraine and most European governments (as well as many others, including yours truly) as overwhelmingly pro-Russian.
From what has been reported, Trump appears ready to formally recognize Crimea as Russian territory, while also de facto recognizing Russia’s occupation in other parts of Ukraine. Ukraine would be precluded from joining NATO, while Russia would enjoy substantial sanctions relief. Given what is being said and written by Trump on Truth Social, namely, that the responsibility for the lack of diplomatic success lies with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, I fear that he and Ukraine are being set up to take the blame for the failure to end the war. From this fear stems another, that the Trump administration is preparing to abandon not just diplomacy but also Ukraine itself.
Multi-party talks scheduled in Europe for this week unraveled in response to the U.S. plan, which may well have led to Vice President Vance doubling down on Wednesday, reiterating Rubio’s call that Ukraine accept the U.S. proposal or risk the Trump administration stepping away from the war entirely.
Vance put it this way: “We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process. The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine.”
This U.S. position is deeply flawed. What the Trump administration is now proposing goes well beyond what is needed for a ceasefire. The introduction of final status issues—such as the status of Crimea and Ukraine’s potential inclusion in NATO—only complicates the task of stopping hostilities. Ceasefires on the Korean Peninsula, Cyprus, and the Middle East all suggest that they are less difficult to achieve and more likely to endure if they are kept simple.
Don’t get me wrong. A ceasefire that stopped the war would be welcome. But diplomacy at this stage need not—and should not—ask protagonists to repudiate long-term aims.
Ukraine has made clear it is willing to accept such a limited proposal. Russia, however, is not. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has adopted a clear pro-Russian bias. Dislike of Zelenskyy is deep, most likely dating back to the Ukrainian president’s unwillingness to provide Trump with alleged material that would have helped him in his 2020 run against Biden. Zelenskyy’s more recent lack of deference no doubt hasn’t helped either. What explains Trump’s embrace of Russia and Putin remains a mystery.
What is unfolding is tragic on multiple levels. President Trump is right to seek a ceasefire in Ukraine, but he is sabotaging his own objective by the approach he, Vance, Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have selected. I expect it is no coincidence that Putin felt emboldened to escalate Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, unleashing a massive strike on Kyiv early Thursday morning. Negotiating a cessation of hostilities requires disabusing Putin of the notion that Ukraine will fall into his lap if he only fights on. That requires giving Ukraine enough military and intelligence support to defend itself both to bring about and sustain a ceasefire, not strong-arming Kyiv into accepting unreasonable concessions that will endanger its security and independence. It is that simple, but it requires more than just pleading “Vladimir, STOP!” on Truth Social.
From Away to Home and (Sometimes) Back
This week, I participated in a quasi-debate on PBS NewsHour about the deportation of international students with Chad Wolf, Trump’s former acting secretary of homeland security. The link can be found below, but I’ll also summarize my perspective here. There are just over one million international students in this country. A small handful have caused problems for their schools. Where they have, that is for law enforcement and school authorities to adjudicate. In instances where their conduct has clearly not threatened national security, as is the case for virtually all of the foreign students who have been deported by this administration thus far, their fate should not be for the government to decide.
Meanwhile, international students add money and jobs to the American economy to the order of $43.8 billion and 378,175 last year alone. They provide much-needed resources for colleges and universities that are then used to support American students who cannot afford to attend these schools without financial assistance. They can also help American students develop a more global perspective to understand this increasingly interconnected world. Those who come here to study and return home, hopefully, take with them an appreciation of the United States, democracy, and capitalism. Indeed, many of our closest allies are led by officials who studied here. Those who choose to stay here give us much-needed talent, especially in critical STEM fields. It all adds up to something that we would be foolish to interfere with just because of the words and actions of a few.
Legatum
I will end this edition with Pope Francis, who passed away early Monday, just hours after Easter Sunday. A few thoughts. He was comfortable pushing back against the tenor of his times. Francis, whose own family emigrated from Italy to Argentina, was protective of migrants at a time opposition to immigration was increasingly prevalent, concerned about climate change when little was being done to slow down the earth’s warming, and principled, repeatedly calling for peace amidst war even in his last hours (and at times, such as with Russia and Ukraine, making clear where he thought the lion’s share of the blame deserved to go).
Which brings us to the matter of legatum, of legacy. Much will depend on who is chosen as his successor since eleven years is too short a papacy to ensure a lasting legacy. My own sense is that his legacy won’t be all that long-lasting. Francis was less an individual who made sweeping policy or institutional changes than someone who manifested and communicated modesty and decency in himself. He signaled his openness to change but tended not to follow up on it. I expect some will not be sorry to see someone with his political leanings replaced by a more conservative figure, and this could well happen as organizations often follow Newton’s law of motion and swing back in reaction. Regardless, I would think Pope Francis will be missed and remembered fondly by a majority of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
A Request
I will make the assumption (always dangerous) that the approximately twenty thousand of you already subscribing to Home & Away have determined that you benefit from it even if you don’t necessarily enjoy it. If that is the case, please recommend Home & Away to someone you think would benefit from it as well. They need not agree with all—or even most—of what is written here; indeed, it might be better that they do not, as too much of what too many of us consume nowadays tends to reinforce rather than challenge our preferences. And if you are already reading this but have yet to sign on as a subscriber, take the leap. As you will soon see, we are trying to build a community that will engage in serious give-and-take.
As always, some links to click on.
Richard Haass in the news
Friday, April 18: CBC News: The National (Is Putin Playing Trump About Peace in Ukraine?)
Tuesday, April 22: PBS NewsHour (Foreign Policy Experts Offer Views on Trump Administration’s Student Activist Crackdown)
Wednesday, April 23: The Arena With Kasie Hunt (on Trump’s Ukraine ceasefire proposal)
Wednesday, April 23: RANE Podcast Series (on Trump’s foreign policy)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens