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America’s role in the Middle East

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This is the introduction to Checks and Balance, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter bringing exclusive insight from our correspondents in America.

James Bennet, our Lexington columnist, says America neglects the Middle East at everyone’s peril

The secretary of state declared he was not going to waste his energy chasing peace among Israelis and Arabs. The region was a quagmire, he told an aide as he took office, and he was “not going to fly around the Middle East” like his predecessor. That attitude might sound familiar from the last three American administrations, but the secretary in state in question was James Baker, during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, as described by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their biography, “The Man Who Ran Washington”.

Mr Baker’s aide, Dennis Ross, responded to him with a warning that more recent administrations should also have heard: while Mr Baker “might want to ignore the Middle East, it would not ignore him”.

Like Donald Trump and Barack Obama, President Joe Biden came into office wanting to focus his attention on Asia. When it came to Israelis and Palestinians he stuck with the “outside-in” approach of Mr Trump, hoping that more Arab states would sign peace deals with Israel, and that that would somehow put pressure on the Palestinians eventually to strike a deal, too. As our briefing this week explains, both those goals now seem out of reach. 

It was the first Gulf war that prompted Mr Baker to embark on his own round of intense Middle East peacemaking, taking at least eight trips to the region, including one three-week marathon, that led to the Madrid peace conference in 1991. He did not achieve a peace deal; as Mr Ross had also warned him, he would need “heroes for dramatic breakthroughs”, leaders like Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who gave his life for peace with Israel. No such heroes were on offer. 

But Madrid paved the way, as did pressure from the Bush administration that brought down a right-wing Israeli government, elevating a new prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. During the Clinton administration, Rabin sealed the Oslo accords, the interim peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Then, like Sadat, he was killed. 

I’m not suggesting this war in Gaza is about to lead to some kind of reset, much less a breakthrough. But I found myself thinking about this history as I wrote this week about the public rupture between Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader and a champion of Israel within the Democratic Party, and Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. It seems worth thinking back on the more hopeful moments and what made them possible, including the sort of intelligent, focused attention from American peacemakers that has been missing from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for far too long.

Economics

Trump advisor Hassett confident tariffs will stay despite judges’ ruling

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National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

A top economic advisor to President Donald Trump expressed confidence Thursday that court rulings throwing out aggressive tariffs will be overturned on appeal.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said in an interview that he fully believes the administration’s efforts to use tariffs to ensure fair trade are perfectly legal and will resume soon.

“We’re right that America has been mishandled by other governments,” Hassett said during a Fox Business interview. “This trade negotiation season has been really, really effective for the American people.”

The comments follow a ruling from judges on the Court of International Trade who said Trump exceeded his authority on tariffs, which are aimed both at combating barriers against American goods abroad and stemming the flow of fentanyl across the U.S. border.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that fentanyl is the primary driver in domestic overdose deaths, the judges ruled that related tariffs “fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”

Hassett bristled at the ruling and said the administration will continue its anti-fentanyl efforts.

“These activist judges are trying to slow down something right in the middle of really important negotiations,” he said. “The idea that the fentanyl crisis in America is not an emergency is so appalling to me that I am sure that when we appeal, this decision will be overturned.”

The administration has multiple options to get around the judges’ ruling, including other sections of trade laws it can utilize. However, Hassett said that’s not the plan at the moment.

“The fact is that there are measures that we can take with different numbers that we can start right now. There are different approaches that would take a couple of months to put these in place,” he said. “We’re not planning to pursue those right now, because we’re very very confident that this ruling is incorrect.”

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Economics

America’s immigration detention centres are at capacity

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IN APRIL Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), lamented that it takes too long to deport illegal immigrants. At the Border Security Expo in Phoenix he told a crowd of startup bosses vying for government contracts that a better deportation system would function more like Amazon, the tech giant whose delivery drivers zigzag the country at record speed. “Like Prime, but with human beings,” he said.

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Economics

Demand for American degrees is sinking

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Trump’s war on universities is driving talent away

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