Content Type: New Atlanticist

The Need for American Leadership in the World

By David N. Cicilline

For eight years, the United States led the world in the fight to advance LGBTI equality and ensure that all people could live free from the fear of discrimination, bigotry, and violence. More than any president before him, former President Barack Obama set the standard to inspire many around the world to follow. On Obama’s […]

Kazakhstan’s Niche in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

By Alexandra Di Cocco

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, formerly One Belt, One Road) is an economic integration project that will allow the often-overlooked Kazakhstan to capitalize on its unique geographic location to leverage geopolitical benefits from the initiative. The infrastructure project is designed to expand China’s influence beyond its immediate neighborhood with economic […]

Pipeline Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean

By Firas Maksad and Jean-François Seznec

A creative solution to a quarrel over maritime borders could serve the interests of Lebanon and Israel Recent oil and gas developments in the eastern Mediterranean have brought back into the spotlight the issue of an ongoing maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon that has created uncertainty among prospective foreign investors over the potential […]

AIIB: A Platform for US-China Cooperation

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s president sees an opportunity The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) should be a platform for cooperation, not a point of conflict between the United States and China, the bank’s president, Jin Liqun, said at the Atlantic Council in Washington on April 24. Former US President Barack Obama’s administration was reluctant to […]

Trump Must Stand Up for LGBT+ Rights

By Arego Mitchell

Over the course of the 2016 election, Donald Trump routinely flip-flopped on issues of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans* Americans. After first saying he would consider appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn nationwide marriage equality, he soon made it a recurring talking point to highlight how he would be “better for the […]

Trump-Xi Summit: ‘America First’ Paves the Way for the ‘Chinese Dream’

By Ashish Kumar Sen

US President Donald J. Trump’s “America First” policy—marked by a retreat from multilateralism—has paved the way for China to step into the void and for its president, Xi Jinping, to realize his “Chinese Dream,” according to two Atlantic Council analysts. Trump and Xi met at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on April 6 […]

China Taking Clean Energy Leadership from the United States

By Madison Freeman

With commitments to clean energy and combatting climate change wavering under the new US administration, leadership in renewable energy is quietly shifting away from the United States across the Pacific, where China is rapidly building its dominance. US President Donald Trump has been clear about his support for fossil fuels. Though his stance on renewable […]

Donald Trump: A Bull in a China Shop?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

China could retaliate in several ways that would cause serious damage to the United States if President-elect Donald Trump were to overplay his hand with the Asian nation, according to an Asia expert at the Atlantic Council. Noting that Trump has a “grotesquely inflated sense of American leverage,” Robert A. Manning, a senior fellow with […]

What Would a Taiwan Strait Crisis Mean for the UAE?

By Theodore Karasik and Giorgio Cafiero

Donald Trump’s decision to be the first US president/president-elect to speak with a Taiwanese leader since 1979 has unleashed anger in mainland China. Condemning Trump’s conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, China’s Foreign Ministry declared that if Washington fails to respect Beijing’s interests in Taiwan, the “healthy development of China-US relations and bilateral cooperation in important […]

Trump is Making Asia Anxious

Exemplified by his extraordinary phone conversation with the leader of Taiwan and his tweets criticizing China, US President-elect Donald Trump’s undefined stance on Asia has created uncertainty and anxiety throughout the region. “The United States is a very important strategic and economic partner,” consequently, countries throughout the region are “anxious to find out what the […]