Ben Johnson

Joe Biden: victim of the cult of youth

From our US edition

Bernie Sanders suffered a heart attack, but Joe Biden’s campaign may be the casualty. The 78-year-old Sanders’s physical condition renewed concerns about the 76-year-old Biden’s mental acuity, which had been temporarily scuppered by President Trump’s phone etiquette. Before the Ukrainian controversy, even former president Jimmy Carter hinted Biden had passed his expiration date. Biden’s rivals openly questioned whether his inexact grasp of facts, stilted speech, and apparent memory issues stemmed from his status as a mid-septuagenarian. As with most politicians’ analyses, they properly identify the problems but misjudge their cause and cure. Biden’s hazy habits are not products of senility; they stem from his status as a former idol of America's cult of youth worship.

biden

Donald Trump’s one-front trade war

From our US edition

At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, President Donald Trump went a long way toward defusing a potential war – not with Iran, but Canada and Mexico, where Trump revoked tariffs he had imposed in the name of national security. Why the sudden bout of tariff reduction? The president is focusing on a one-front trade war with China. The restrictions began as two fronts of the same war. Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum imported from China last March. Then he extended those tariffs to the EU, Canada, and Mexico on June 1. But the president seems to have concluded that the US can no more fight a two-front war in trade than on the battlefield.

Donald Trump one-front trade war