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The Weekly GAB Friday, November 17, 2017
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition | www.usglc.org
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Who's in the News

BROOKINGS
Redesigning the US State Department and USAID Assistance Programs |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=gHwBm_FH9XN-PTqeCf_XTQ

George Ingram and Larry Nowels

The Trump administration is in the midst of redesigning U.S. foreign
assistance to improve its effectiveness and efficiency-a
commendable exercise that has garnered interest not just within the
administration but also in Congress and civil society. Below,
we've outlined where help is most needed and how to better
connect the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International
Development, which clearly need to align well. A logical place to
start is where there are acknowledged inefficiencies, logjams, and
unproductive duplication of work. Three State Department functions
immediately come to mind.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
To Solve Global Challenges, Entrepreneurs Can Deliver |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=f3zfH3ly15HH0VRL2LsUJg

Anna Ryott, Deputy CEO of Norrsken Foundation, and James Irungu
Mwangi, Executive Director of the Dalberg Group

By the end of the year, more than 201 million people will be
unemployed globally-around 3.4 million more than in 2016. The
unemployed, often pushed to the margins of society, face barriers to
long-term success, which can contribute to hunger and poverty. In
turn, those conditions can fuel nationalism, terror and armed
conflict. That is why "decent work and economic growth"
are included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, or the
global goals, at the United Nations. Adopted by world leaders in
September 2015, it is an ambitious agenda to ensure a world where no
one is left behind. But time is not on our side, and fast action by
all actors is essential.

Development & Diplomacy

THE WASHINGTON POST

Tillerson's 'Redesign' for State Looks a lot Like a
Retreat |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=HQi2KjY1S_XGUVeFF_d7iA

The Editorial Board

What is going on at the State Department? Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson has begun a "redesign" and has spent much of
this year working on it. There is not an agency in government that
could not benefit from a fresh look, but the importance of the State
Department's mission should not be in doubt. Does
Mr.?Tillerson really intend to strengthen diplomacy as a tool
for dealing with persistent global problems, or is this an exercise in
slashing at the people and offices necessary to represent the United
States abroad, defend its interests and keep a watch on the future?

BLOOMBERG
Drain the Swamp, Not the State Department |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=u29NROSCGkbkhd8v7hn28A

The Editors

There's a difference between taming the bureaucracy and
decimating it. What President Donald Trump and Secretary Rex Tillerson
are doing to the State Department is the latter, making it far more
difficult for the department to advance U.S. interests around the
world. The secretary of state's plans to reorganize the
department may well make sense. But the details have been kept from
the public as well as the rank-and-file, raising unneeded suspicion.
Meanwhile, the president has given every indication that he
doesn't believe in a cornerstone of democratic governance: the
idea that a career diplomatic corps can be relied on to discharge its
duties regardless of who's in office.

THE WASHINGTON POST

State Department's Plan for Staff Cuts Causing New Worry in
Congress |

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Carol Morello

A growing, bipartisan number of lawmakers are expressing alarm over
anticipated personnel cuts at the State Department, saying they have
contributed to plummeting morale and will undermine diplomacy and
foreign policy for years to come. In the latest example, Sens. Jeanne
Shaheen (D-N.H.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson on Wednesday to lift a hiring freeze and promote
experienced foreign officers, requesting in a letter more details
about Tillerson's reorganization plan. Citing reports of
declining morale, recruitment and retention levels, the senators wrote
that "America's diplomatic power is being weakened
internally as complex, global crises are growing externally."
Tillerson's management decisions, they say, "threaten to
undermine the long-term health and effectiveness of American
diplomacy."

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saudis Try to Starve Yemen Into Submission |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=K0o82yRkGn61KpiyiTRLDg

The Editorial Board

Yemen would suffer "the largest famine the world has seen for
many decades, with millions of victims" if Saudi Arabia did not
immediately allow food and medicine to be offloaded at all of
Yemen's seaports, and permit the resumption of air services to
the cities of Sana and Aden, the United Nations official Mark Lowcock
warned Security Council diplomats last week. Saudi Arabia tightened
its blockade against Yemen on Nov. 5 after Iran-backed Houthi rebels
threatened Riyadh with a ballistic missile. The Saudis have since
partly lifted the blockade, but only of ports controlled by its
allies. That is not nearly enough to get urgently needed food to
nearly seven million Yemenis facing famine.

DEVEX
USAID Chief Announces Scale Up of Trade Facilitation Alliance |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=TNs1fY7D4JvXB0VdzZs8Zw

Adva Saldinger

The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, an initiative aimed at
helping countries reduce import barriers, will scale from four to 20
countries, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator
Mark Green announced Tuesday. "We believe that private
enterprise is the only sustainable way to lift lives, to build
communities, and so we're dedicated to working to find ways to
ease the barriers for businesses to participate," Green told a
crowd of business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Foundation's Corporate Citizenship Conference.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Rex Tillerson Tells Myanmar Leaders to Investigate Attacks on Rohingya
|

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=Qt1EvqwN64xVqO45piig4A

Hannah Beech

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson briefly visited Myanmar on Wednesday
and urged its two most influential leaders to investigate
"credible reports of widespread atrocities" by the
country's security forces against Rohingya Muslims. In a
five-hour visit in Myanmar, Mr. Tillerson met with Sr. Gen. Min Aung
Hlaing, the nation's military commander, and Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, the Nobel laureate and head of the country's civilian
government. He urged both to investigate and halt the violence that
has driven more than 615,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to
Bangladesh since late August.

FOREIGN POLICY
Treasury Takes Aim at Global Food Security Program |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=TJjAfxIBjYt2ifhcl0ubnA

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

The Treasury Department said this week it would withdraw U.S. funding
from a program created by the Obama administration meant to boost food
security in the world's poorest countries. The Global
Agriculture and Food Security Program, or GAFSP, was formed after the
G-20 summit in 2009. The Obama administration drove the
program's creation and saw it as important part of the
"Feed the Future" initiative meant to answer the global
food price crisis in 2008. "The U.S. is not expecting to make
any future contributions to GAFSP," said David Malpass,
undersecretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department,
in written testimony submitted to a Nov. 8 hearing before the House
Financial Services Committee.

Politics & Foreign Policy

THE WASHINGTON POST
Trump's Extraordinary 12-Day Adulation Tour |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=WeCe79d2kXx9ajqXw5AtNQ

David Ignatius

Trump's trip was closer to a pilgrimage than a projection of
power. The president rarely explained details of U.S. policy. Instead,
he mostly asked other leaders for help, lauded their virtues and
embraced their worldviews. Trump's trip may indeed prove to be
historic, but probably not in the way he intends. It may signal a U.S.
accommodation to rising Chinese power, plus a desire to mend fences
with a belligerent Russia - with few evident security gains for
the United States. If the 1945 Yalta summit marked U.S. acceptance of
the Soviet Union's hegemony in Eastern Europe, this trip seemed
to validate China's arrival as a Pacific power.

BLOOMBERG
Tillerson Got a Lot of Face Time With Trump on the Asia Trip |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=cjFAi3IGsiPc1HSLASXi6Q

Nick Wadhams

Tillerson, who stayed on in the region for two days after
Trump's departure, headed home Friday with his aides boasting of
the quality time he'd spent with the president. While the
secretary of state flew in a separate plane, Trump and his top
diplomat were seldom apart on the ground. Tillerson frequently briefed
the president alone at the start of the day, according to a State
Department official who asked not to be identified discussing the
pair's private schedule. He sat at the president's side at
most of his bilateral meetings with other world leaders and rode with
Trump in his armored limousine as they crisscrossed Beijing during a
two-day stay.

POLITICO
Pompeo Emerges as Favorite to Succeed Tillerson |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=RIPCCAmxzKKTHXdIiJ6G9g

Eliana Johnson and Annie Karni

The CIA director's favored status in the West Wing has made him
the odds-on choice to succeed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state,
according to more than half a dozen administration officials and
outside advisers familiar with the White House's current plans.
It's not clear when Tillerson might leave - he has
vigorously denied rumors that he plans to resign anytime soon -
but Pompeo has told associates that he expects the president to tap
him for the position and that he'd accept the job if it's
offered to him. Trump's relationship with Pompeo mirrors the
close bond he developed with John Kelly while the retired Marine
general was serving as secretary of Homeland Security - and he
promoted Kelly to chief of staff within six months, replacing former
Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus.

THE ATLANTIC
'It's a Mistake to Underestimate China' |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=8qIDzAFPFjzVvVLOncz7IA

Krishnadev Calamur

At the recent APEC CEO Summit in Vietnam, President Donald Trump said
the United States would refocus its existing development efforts in
Asia toward infrastructure investment that promotes economic growth.
While the room was full of hundreds of corporate and government
officials from the region and around the world, Trump was delivering
his remarks to an audience of one: China. But there are few signs that
Washington has the political appetite to compete with the kinds of
investments China has been making around the world.

POLITICO
Corker-Tillerson Alliance Frays |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=bW4ALs8rhc9tTH-2WD6LFQ

Nahal Toosi

Sen. Bob Corker, having already turned on the president, has a new
target for his frustration: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The
Tennessee Republican and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman
has voiced concerns about Tillerson's management of the State
Department and his still-fuzzy plans to restructure it. At a Senate
hearing earlier this week, Corker agreed with several criticisms of
Tillerson and his team expressed by Democrats, adding that lawmakers
need to be "much more focused on holding them
accountable."

THE WASHINGTON POST
Trump Loves Human Rights - When Convenient |

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The Editorial Board

What this trip showed - and Mr. Trump's overall foreign
policy reflects - is that human rights and democracy are seen by
the president not as universal principles demanding attention
everywhere, but as cudgels to be rolled out selectively, to criticize
tyrants and rights abusers when convenient, and to be easily ignored
elsewhere. There always has been tension in U.S. foreign policy
between human rights and other priorities; Mr. Trump is not the first
president to have to balance competing priorities. He is the first in
memory, though, to show so little devotion to democracy and human
rights as values - and such enthusiasm for leaders who are
contemptuous of those values.


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