Author Archives: Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Gaza’s Future

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th October 2025 - 8:30 am

Peace in Gaza has hit a snag. Actually it has hit three, but one is bigger than the others.

This is not surprising. No one but a total naiveté could have thought that total peace and harmony would have descended once Donald Trump had spoken.

There are decades of mistrust, hatred, violence and lies to overcome. In fact, more than a century if one goes back to the Balfour Declaration and the Jewish settlements of the 1920s.

But back to the present day when both sides have been accusing the other of bad faith and breaches of the ceasefire/peace agreement. Hamas has accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of continuing to fire on their fighters. They also complain that the promised aid has not arrived. The Israelis are angry that Hamas is slow in returning the bodies of dead hostages.

The IDF admits that since the ceasefire it has shot and killed Hamas fighters. Hamas claims that 24 have died. The Gaza Ministry of Health puts the death toll at four. The number, however, is less important than the fact that Palestinians who should be alive are dead.

Israel says that the Palestinians who died attacked Israeli soldiers and that they reserve the right to defend themselves. They probably did attack. How they attacked we do not know because journalists are now allowed inside Gaza. But we do know that the IDF has a reputation for shooting boys who throw stones. Hamas, however, has a reputation for ruthlessness and an inability to control its fighters.

Hamas’s other complaint is linked to a complaint from Israel—the supply of aid. There are three crossings from Israel into Gaza: Rafah, Erez and Kerem Shalom. All aid must go through these land crossings as Israel maintains a tight naval blockade. Two of the crossings are still closed by Israel. Therefore not enough aid is getting through and the Gazans are continuing to starve to death.

The Israeli government, however, is under pressure from the hostage families to withhold aid until all the bodies of the dead hostages are returned.

Posted in Europe / International | Tagged gaza, middle east and peace deal | 8 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th October 2025 - 8:30 am

To lose one prime minister is considered careless. To lose two is incompetence. Three is starting to look like a crisis of leadership. Five in two years is beyond comprehension.

Such is the sad tale of French president Emmanuel Macron as Sebastien Lecornu leaves the Hotel Matignon even before he has a chance to deliver his inaugural address to the National Assembly.

The root of Macron’s evils is, of course, money. But it is further complicated by the thirst for power by France’s far left and far right and the president’s inability to communicate the necessity of living within one’s means.

France desperately needs a budget which reduces its burgeoning debt burden. The country is Europe’s biggest spender relative to its economic output. Its debt burden is just behind the financial disasters that are Greece and Italy. The markets are so concerned about instability that they are increasing the interest which only pushes the debt burden higher.

Raising taxes to make ends meet appears to be out of the question as the tax burden at 45.6 percent of GDP is the highest in Europe.

A step towards balanced books was made in 2023 when Macron pushed through the National Assembly a gradual seven year rise in the pension age from 62 to 64. This, however, looks like it might have to be at least partially sacrificed in order to push through a total budget package by the end of the year deadline.

Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally and a coalition of left-wing parties are refusing to allow ANY budget to pass. They smell the opportunity of forcing a snap election which could result in their winning more seats and possibly forcing Macron out of the Elysee Palace before the next scheduled presidential elections in 2027.

Macron is equally determined to avoid an election. The result of the snap election he called in 2024 was a disaster for the president’s Renaissance Party. The result is that Macron has become toxic within his own party.

His approval ratings are a dismal 14 percent and two of his previous prime ministers—Edouard Phippe and Gabriel Attal—have distanced themselves from their supposed leader.

Germany’s far-right AfD party has a dilemma. It is pro-Russian. It is also anti-Ukraine and anti the war in Ukraine.

At the same time it is pro-jobs because the eastern third of the country (the former East Germany) is starved of industry. That is why it has become a political stronghold for the populist party. Desperate people turn to desperate politics.

The centre-right government of Friedrich Merz has an answer: base a large portion of the new defense industries needed to provision the Ukrainians in the AfD strongholds in the East.

One is already being established in the town of Gorlitz in Saxony on the German-Polish border. The former Alsom plan manufactured railway carriages for 178 years. But over the past ten years it has been sliding into bankruptcy and threatening to further inflate the town’s 9.8 percent unemployment level.

A major proportion of the workforce at the railway manufacturers was skilled welders. Welding is a well-paid trade and welders are needed to make tanks. The result is that the former railway carriages factory is being converted into a tank production centre and jobs are being saved.

Other defense plants are being considered elsewhere in the East in Grobenhain, Thuringia and Brandenburg.

AfD politicians are reluctantly supporting the job creations while at the same time deploring the end product of the jobs created. They must also be concerned that satisfied workers will be less inclined to support extremist political solutions.

China’s Xi Jinping is preparing for his meeting with Donald Trump later this month by tightening export controls on rare earth mineral exports.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged china, france, germany and horn of africa | 6 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Nobel Peace Prize

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th October 2025 - 8:30 am

MAGA is not happy. Their leader. Their idol. Donald J.Trump is not this year’s recipient of what the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary History calls “the most prestigious prize in the world”—the Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course, he never was going to be the name on the lips of announcing committee chairperson Jorgen Frydnes. At least not this week. Nominations for this year’s prize closed in January even before Trump was inaugurated.

But a little thing like a 124 year-old procedural rule was unlikely to stop a man who is running roughshod over a tried and tested 242-year-old constitution.

There is, of course, always next year. The president has, after all, negotiated six (or is it ten or 11) peace deals. And, even his harshest critics are saying that he deserves the $1.15 million prize money and gold medallion if the Gaza concord holds.

But reading between the lines of this year’s award the five-person Nobel Committee thinks otherwise.

They have given the prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for standing up for democratic values which are being trampled by dictator Nicolas Maduro.

“Democracy,” said chairperson Frydnes, “is a pre-condition for lasting peace. However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat. More and more authoritarian regimes are challenging the norms and turning to violence.

“Rule of law is abused by those in power. Free media is silenced. Critics are imprisoned and societies are pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarisation.”

He went on to say that Ms Machado represents “precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground.”

The chairperson did not mention Trump by name. He didn’t have to. In fact, the overt criticism was directed at Maduro, but the slightly veiled reproach was clearly intended for the American president.

Posted in News | Tagged donald trump, nobel peace prize and observations of an ex pat | 2 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 5th October 2025 - 10:30 am

Drone wall

The EU heads of government—and the British Prime Minister—have given their go-ahead to establish a “drone wall” on the border with Russia.

The move follows Russian invasions by jet fighters of Estonian, Polish and Romanian air space; a cyber attack which closed Berlin Airport and drone activity which closed Copenhagen and Oslo Airports.

The plan is to deploy a multi-layered “drone wall” to quickly detect, track and destroy Russian drones. A nirvana for anyone who has grown to adulthood with hand attached to a joystick.

Ten allies are providing anti-drone and surveillance support. They include: Poland, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the US. Sweden has loaned “powerful radar systems” and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was sending a mission to Denmark for joint exercises to provide “Ukrainian experience in drone defence”.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said ahead of the summit that airspace incursions were getting worse and that it was “reasonable to assume the drones are coming from Russia”.

“We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either. We must do much more for our own security.” .
.
Another flagship project, called Eastern Flank Watch, is aimed at fortifying the EU’s eastern borders by sea, air and land to protect against so-called hybrid warfare, as well as from Russia’s shadow fleet .Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said the EU would have to collaborate on this with both Nato and Ukraine.

EU leaders will be shown plans for a “road map” aimed at bolstering defences and developing Europe’s defence industries by the end of the decade to produce state-of-the-art military equipment. The plans will then be worked on with Nato before EU leaders meet again later this month.

According to the plans for being “2030-ready”, Europe needs to move now so its capabilities are prepared for “the battlefields of tomorrow”.

One of the core ideas is to increasingly focus on joint procurement. The EU has already backed proposals to raise up to $150 billion on capital markets to help fund defence investment. The UK and Canada are likely to take part in the fund.

Democrats’ shutdown gamble

Posted in Op-eds | Leave a comment

Observations of an ex Pat: Gaza

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th October 2025 - 8:30 am

Trump’s “Eternal Peace Plan” for Gaza is an ill-conceived hodge-podge. Despite that, it may succeed because it is the only show in town. It is also Donald Trump’s best shot at the elusive Nobel Peace Prize.

To truly succeed it needs buy-in from Hamas. But why should they accept it? The plan calls for their disbandment, surrender of all weapons and exile from Gaza.

The Plan makes no mention of the West Bank where Israeli settlers are daily forcing Palestinians out of their home. As for the role of the Palestinian Authority, it is allowed a role “after reform.” But how is it to be reformed?

The two-state solution which Palestinians and most of the international community, support, is referred to as an “aspiration of the Palestinian people” not a justifiable goal or a goal supported by the US. Palestinian statehood is held out as a vague carrot, but only after a hazy list of conditions are met.

Anyway, that point (number 19) has been knocked on the head by the repeated assertion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there will “never” be a Palestinian state.

Then there is the fate of hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli jail. According to the plan, once all the hostages are released, the Israelis will release nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Why can’t the exchange be done simultaneously?

Point 3 of the plan says that as soon as the fighting stops the Israelis will conduct a staged withdrawal. From where to where? Over what period of time?

Point 7: “Upon implementation / acceptance, full humanitarian aid immediately flows into Gaza.” Haven’t the Israelis claimed that “full humanitarian aid” is already reaching the Gazans?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza and observations of an ex pat | 6 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 28th September 2025 - 10:54 am

Trump and Russia

OMG! Trump has done another U-turn on Ukraine. This week he said that Ukraine should regain all the lands occupied by Russia and that any Russian plane encroaching on NATO airspace should be shot down.

He also referred to Russia as a “paper tiger.”

You would have thought that such talks would have infuriated.

No, they took it quite calmly on the chin. Russia is a bear, not a tiger, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, “and there is no such thing as a paper bear.”

He added: “Russia, in general, and President Putin in particular value highly President Trump’s political will to continue working towards a peace settlement.”

The fact, is that the Kremlin believe in the TACO theory when dealing with the American president (Trump Always Chickens Out). They just have to tough it out; keep putting their case and keep fighting.

The Russians will also have noted that Trump’s “Paper Tiger” comments were not followed by talks about increased sanctions or any ultimate on ceasefire deadlines.

They were also heartened by Trump’s answer to a reporter’s question about whether he still trusted Vladimir Putin. He replied: “I’ll let you know in about a month from now.” A month is a long time international diplomacy.

Brazil

Ex-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is out of office, convicted and under house arrest awaiting transfer to prison to serve his 27-year sentence.

He is still, however, a force in Brazilian politics and is busy planning his release.

It won’t be easy, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (the STF) is determined that Bolsonaro stays behind bars and its members have said that any pardon or general amnesty would be unconstitutional.

But that is not the end of the story. Whomever succeeds current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will probably be able to appoint three new members to the Supreme Court. If they are Bolsonaro supporters than the ex-president could be sprung.

It is a long shot, but already ambitious Brazilian politicians believe that pandering to Bolsonaro could win them the presidency. Chief among them is Tarcisio de Freitas, current governor of Sao Paulo. De Freitas has already said that he would pardon Bolsonaro in the first hour of assuming office.

De Freitas and others are pursuing the Bolsonaro blessing because the ex-president still has a large base of supporters. They are mainly evangelical Christians which comprise about 30 percent of the Brazilian population.

Bolsonaro has won their unwavering support with his stands against wokeness, abortion, gender roles and LGBTQ+ rights. On top of that, Bolsonaro is a strict Catholic, he also advocates strong traditional families which aligns with evangelical values.

France

Another ex-president facing gaol time is France’s Nikolas Sarkozy.

On Thursday he was convicted of a criminal conspiracy involving millions of Euros supplied by Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi for Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. The money was meant to pay for Sarkozy’s influence to end Gadaffi’s long-term estrangement from western countries.

Convicted alongside the ex-president were two of his former interior ministers. Claude Geant was found guilty of corruption and Bruce Hortefeur of criminal conspiracy. Sarkozy’s wife, singer and former top model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, also faces charges related to the Gadaffi case.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, russia and ukraine | 1 Comment

Observations of an Expat: The UN

By Tom Arms | Sat 27th September 2025 - 8:53 am

Donald Trump doesn’t much like the United Nations. That was obvious from his General Assembly speech this week.

He is not alone. Most diplomats who have worked with the UN have found it overly political, bureaucratic and inefficient.

But at the same time they acknowledge that dissolution of the United Nations would be a catastrophe.

American withdrawal would be the same because Washington supplies 22 percent of the UN budget as well as its New York home. The latter, at the moment appears possible. Or, if not withdrawal, rendering the UN irrelevant and ineffectual by not paying its dues and pulling out of its agencies which do not align with Trumpian policy.

Trump’s budgetary request for 2026 “pauses” almost all payments to the UN. So far, the US is $3.72 billion in arrears due to the general fund and another $1.3 billion behind in its contribution to the 110,000-strong peacekeeping force. On top of that, half of America’s international aid was distributed through UN agencies.

The Secretariat is facing a serious liquidity crisis and is forced to deal with it with hiring freezes and staff cuts. UN agencies’ budgets have shrunk by about a third. Food, medicines and assistance for hundreds of millions is being eliminated.

Ironically, the Trump Administration’s attitude to the UN is out of step with the American public. A 2025 Pew Research Survey showed that 57 percent of Americans had a favourable view of the UN. 41 percent had an unfavourable view. More importantly, 69 percent support American paying its dues to the international body in full and time.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to wage war. He has pulled out of the UN-sponsored Paris Climate Change Agreement, the World Health Organisation, UNESCO, the Human Rights Council and the UNRWA which supplies aid to Palestinians.

If Trump continues to “pause” contributions then relations between Washington and the UN will likely come to a head in 2027 when the US will be more than two years in arrears with its dues. If that, happens then the US—under UN rules—will lose its vote in the General Assembly which could prompt US withdrawal in a fit of Trumpian pique.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and united nations | 2 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 21st September 2025 - 10:17 am

United Kingdom

The world was focused on Britain this week. A state visit is a big symbolic event but usually the public interest is confined to the two countries involved.

Not this time, Trump’s unprecedented second state visit to the United Kingdom, was front page news in Sweden, Germany, Japan…. Would the president behave? If the US-UK special relationship faltered in the face of MAGA what chance was there for the rest of the world?

Well, the visit was a diplomatic triumph for both countries. The president and King Charles got on famously and their speeches were the epitome of diplomatic non-speak.

There were disagreements between Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Gaza and recognition of a Palestinian state, but the two men agreed to disagree for the sake of the wider Anglo-American relationship. The issue of Ukraine saw some a slight movement by Trump towards the UK/Europe position and he hinted at a bigger shift if all Europeans stopped all imports of Russian oil (nudge, nudge, wink, wink Hungary and Slovakia).

At the Chequers press conference, the president was asked about attacks on British free speech by his vice president and others. He simply refused to answer. The Epstein files and the fate of Lord Mandelson who was sacked as ambassador on the eve of the state visit was raised. Trump replied: “I have never met the man.”

If Trump did put a foot wrong it was when he suggested that the British government should use the military to patrol its borders instead of trying to stop the small boats with diplomacy. The president was quickly—and politely—told to stay out of Britain’s immigration issue.

A state visit would not be a state visit without the big business deals. And this state visit saw the largest ever commercial package — £150 billion which should create 7,600 jobs. Most of the money went on nuclear energy, quantum computing and AI computing. The investment, however, has been criticised by Nick Clegg, former Liberal Democrat Leader and until recently Facebook’s vice president for Global Affairs, as “crumbs from the silicon valley table.”

United States

One flickering light emerged from the darkness of the assassination of Charlie Kirk—Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox.

In fact, one can say that the light emanated from Utah’s Republican Party.

It was of course, Utah, where Charlie Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson. And because it was his state, Republican Governor Cox stepped in front of the television cameras to speak. He could have followed in the footsteps of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Steve Bannon, Alec Jones, Laura Loomer and other leading Republicans and called for vengeance.

But he didn’t. Instead Governor Cox called “on every American—Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, MAGA, all of us—to please, please, follow what Charlie taught me: Always forgive your enemies—nothing annoys them more.”

This is not the first time that Cox has refused to take the Trumpian line. He refused to endorse him in 2016 because “Trump does not support goodness or kindness.” In 2020 Cox declined to back Trump’s claim of a stolen election. And he didn’t endorse Trump in 2024 until after the attempted assassination at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza, united kingdom and United states of America | 4 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Kirk Consequences

By Tom Arms | Sat 20th September 2025 - 9:56 am

MAGA and President Trump promised revenge for the assassination of Charlie Kirk and it has already started.

Late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel has followed Stephen Colbert into the laughter wilderness after being “suspended indefinitely” by ABC hours following a comment from Brendan Carr, chairman of the broadcasting regulator agency the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that the commission would take action against the network for Kimmel’s comments.

Kimmel made the mistake of criticising MAGA and the president for blaming left-wing radicals for the assassination of Kirk when, said Kimmel, it was more likely to have been a right-wing terrorist.

ABC refused to say that the “indefinite suspension” was related to Kimmel’s comments, but the juxtaposition of events is undeniable.

After the sacking, Carr said that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people, “and that the FCC was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” He added: “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly…or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.”

Trump simply said of Kimmel’s departure: “Great News for America” and called for the dismissal of two more late show comics—Jimmy Fallon and Set Myers. The Democrats have condemned the sacking as an “attack on freedom of speech and democracy.”

Money talks in America and Kimmel’s departure is almost certainly linked to a planned multi-billion dollar involving the distributing channels. The controversial merger would have created a monopoly which needed the approval of Brendan Carr and the FCC.

Jimmy Kimmel’s is not a lone target. President Trump is suing the New York Times for $15 billion and Trump-supporting tech tycoon Larry Ellison is bidding for CNN. Carr has made it clear that any liberal-leaning broadcaster—radio or television—is in his sights. Every eight years broadcasters have to renew their license. Usually this is a pro forma exercise but the FCC can deny a license if it “fails to serve the public interest”. Carr maintains that he determines what the “public interest” is. So far, however, he has not revoked a broadcasting license.

There was no suggestion by Carr or anyone in the Trump Administration about the suitability of Fox News’s license when Fox host Brian Kilmeade said that mentally ill homeless people should be given lethal injections. “Just kill them,” he added.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump | 1 Comment

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 14th September 2025 - 10:41 am

United States

A prerequisite of a successful foreign policy is a stable domestic base.

And in today’s interconnected world, a successful foreign policy has a positive impact on home affairs.

At the moment Donald Trump is in big trouble on the home front. This in turn is having an impact on America’s ability to influence world affairs.

To start with there is the Epstein Files—the paedophile sex scandal which refuses to go away.

But even more troubling is this week’s economic news. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that new job creations were a mere 22,000 in August—a third less than anticipated. On top of that, …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, peter mandelson, qatar, ukraine and united states | 5 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Charlie Kirk

By Tom Arms | Sat 13th September 2025 - 9:38 am

The murder of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy. The reaction is a frightening potential disaster.

On a personal level, the violent death of a 31-year-old father of two is heart breaking.

On the political plane it is a calamity. As of this writing we do not know the motive for the shooting. It is, however, most likely that Charlie Kirk was murdered for his far-right political views.

The right of free and open debate is a fundamental principle of democracy. It is one of the key reasons that democracies have prospered and totalitarian states have failed.

That is why most of America’s political figures have been loud in their condemnation of Charlie Kirk’s death, including President Donald Trump who started off on the right note in attacking the murder and the rhetoric which led to that murder.

But Trump being Trump, he couldn’t help himself from sliding into the self-same finger-pointing accusations of the type that he himself said led to Kirk’s death.

After praising Charlie as a “great American” who “loved his country” Trump went on to say: “All Americans, and the media, must confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonising those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most despicable way possible.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in our country today.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump | 8 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 7th September 2025 - 8:30 am

China

The received diplomatic thinking for some years was that the United States represented the secure and stable post-war order. China represented radical—bordering on revolutionary– change.

This is changing. Trump’s America First policy coupled with tariffs and an ill-defined isolationism, is projecting America as the chief agent of change.

Meanwhile, China’s growing dependence on international trade, is transforming it into an advocate of globalisation and the international institutions that protect it.

This was apparent at this past week’s meeting of the 20-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tianjin. In his opening address, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that countries should “uphold justice, engage in multilateralism and advocate for inclusive economic globalisation and an equitable global governance system.”

He also called for support for the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation (The WTO has been effectively rendered powerless by America’s refusal to allow new judges to be appointed).

China has over the years set up a collection of overlapping regional organisations which it dominates. They include the SCO, The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the China-Arab Forum.

Beijing uses each of these organisations that to push the claim that China—not America—is the world’s anchor of stability. And as the Trump Administration pursues a rolling campaign of economic warfare against its trading partner this story is gaining in credence

Diplomatic and trading opportunities are being handed to China on a plate by the policies of MAGA America. It is getting to the point where an increasing number of countries are actively interested in finding an alternative to the dollar as the world’s premier trading currency. Also, fewer countries appear to be willing to impose sanctions on America’s behalf.

A key country in the shift away from America is India. Historically, India has been at loggerheads with China and successive American administrations have made strenuous bipartisan efforts to secure Indian support to counterbalance growing Chinese power.

These efforts appeared to bear fruit in the first Trump Administration and during the Biden years. But they suffered a serious setback when Trump recently opposed a 50 percent tariff on India for buying Russian oil.

In Tianjin, Modi made a point of physically embracing both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. It was an embrace which sent worried shivers down the spines of American diplomats.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron looks set to lose another prime minister—his fifth since January 2024.

The current resident of the Hotel de Matignon—Francois Bayrou—has scheduled a vote of no confidence in his economic plans for next week. And it looks like it will fail. His deficit reduction proposals are hugely unpopular.

M. Bayrou is a centrist—he and Macron want to reduce France’s high level of public debt which is currently 114 percent of GDP. To do that, Bayrou proposes budget savings of $51 billion a year.

The problem is that Bayrou heads a minority government and budget cuts are opposed by both the right and left-wing blocs of the National Assembly. The National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, most socialists and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s far-left supporters all oppose the cuts. They also see the debate as an opportunity to increase their parliamentary representation and have called on Macron to call fresh elections to the National Assembly.

The Socialist leader, Olivier Faure, has offered to stave off elections with a pledge to join the Bayrou’s government. But he demands a high price. He wants the cuts halved to $25.5 billion. Faure was rejected.

It is unlikely that Macron will accede to Melenchon and Le Pen’s election demands. The last time he did so, Macron ended up shrinking his minority government. Current polls indicate that if elections were held now, Macron’s supporters would end up with a paltry 15 percent of the vote. The RN is likely to win a third of the votes, the combined parties of the left 25 percent. The balance would be split between socialists and moderate conservatives.

If he does not call elections, Macron will have to choose another prime minister from what appears to be a dwindling list of suitable candidates and an increasingly unstable political environment.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has taken to heart one of the most famous quotes from George Orwell’s iconic novel “1984”: “He who controls the past controls the future.”

Posted in News | Tagged china, donald trump and france | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: End of Tariffs?

By Tom Arms | Sat 6th September 2025 - 8:30 am

Trump is right. Ending tariffs would be an economic disaster, at least for him. Any damage to America would be his own fault.

It would not, as Trump claims, turn America into a third world country. That is a typical Trumpian hyperbole.

But the sudden and dramatic end of tariffs would definitely damage Trump’s vision of the future American economy. And that in turn will hurt Trump politically. Whether it would also be bad for the rest of the world… well, we’ll have to wait and see.

The prospect of the sudden end of tariffs was raised by the decision of the Appellate Court last Friday to support a lower court’s judgement that the tariffs were unconstitutional.

The Appellate Court, however, has given Trump a possible out—The Supreme Court. The Administration has until October 18 to appeal to the ultimate judicial authority and, of course, the court is packed with conservatives,

But that may not be enough. Trump imposed the tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA gives the president sweeping powers to declare an emergency and to use economic actions to deal with it.

These include such measures as sanctions and freezing assets. However, nowhere in the Act does – ruled the Appellate Court by 7 to 4—is the president given the power to impose tariffs. That is “a core Congressional power.” This means, according to two levels of the judiciary, that the tariffs are unconstitutional and should be reversed.

So far Trump’s tariffs have raised more than $210 billion dollars. By time the Supreme Court rules on their legality the figure will be around $300 billion.

If the tariffs are illegal than those who paid them can sue the government—plus interest and possible damage to business—for the money that they lost.

But that is not all. Tariffs are at the heart of Trump’s long-term economic policy and linked to his Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). According to some estimates, the sweeping tax cuts in the BBB could increase the federal deficit by $5.2 trillion over the next ten years. Tariff revenues are meant to more than offset those losses.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and tariffs | 9 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 17th August 2025 - 8:30 am

Where are the Democrats?

The question has been repeatedly asked as Donald Trump has flooded the political landscape with Executive Orders. Well, the answer became apparent this week: they are alive and well and living in California.

Gavin Newsom, the Governor of the Great Bear State, has donned the mantle of leader of the anti-Trump brigade.

To do that he has adopted many of the same techniques of Trump himself. Michelle Obama once said: “When they hit low we hit high.” That has not worked, says Newsom. He is hitting lower and lower and lower.

Trump has called on the acolyte Republican state of Texas to gerrymander their congressional districts to give him five more seats in the House of Representatives. Newsom has threatened to gerrymander California to counter the Texas Republicans unless the redistricting plans in Texas and elsewhere are dropped.

The California governor has taken to social media to troll Donald Trump. He uses the same shoutie capital letters and boastful, self-congratulatory rhetoric as the president. He explains: “We need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done…. We have to meet fire with fire and wake up to the assault on institutions, knowledge and history.”

Trump is fighting back. When Newsom called a press conference to announce his redistricting plans, Trump sent armed ICE agents to stand in the crowd.

A US Grand Jury is involved now.

With three separate criminal referrals, the Department of Justice has launched a full-scale investigation into claims that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and CIA Director John Brennan, orchestrated an intelligence assessment that claims the Russians meddled in and backed Trump in the 2016 elections.

It is true that Obama ordered the CIA to investigate claims that Trump was backed by the Russians. They found no proof of collusion but they did report that Russia tried to influence the elections in Trump’s favour. This assessment was published shortly before Trump took office and Trump claimed that it undermined his first four year administration.

The first referral came from Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence. She claimed to have unearthed a congressional report that claimed the Russians did not support Trump and that Democrats orchestrated a false assessment. Gabbard says that this means the initial report was nothing short of “treason.” Gabbard failed to mention that the report was written by Trump-supporting Republicans congressmen.

Referral number two was from CIA Director John Ratcliffe who stumbled across classified documents that said the report was “rushed” at the behest of Obama and others. Ratcliffe again says this proves “treason.” Ratcliffe failed to say that the report says it would have reached the same conclusion no matter how much time it took to investigate.

Finally, FBI Director Kash Patel said he uncovered a “treasonous” email from Hillary Clinton calling for a false assessment of Russian involvement. The email was old news and had already been dismissed as “fake” news.

The irony is that Obama cannot be prosecuted no matter what a Trump-convened Grand Jury decides. Thanks to the Trump-controlled Supreme Court, a sitting president cannot be held accountable in law for any act committed while president.

When it comes to law and order…

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 3 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Russia and Ukraine – the history

By Tom Arms | Sat 16th August 2025 - 8:30 am

“Ukraine is not a real country,” claims Vladimir Putin. “It is,” he has repeatedly stated, “an artificial creation” that is historically and culturally part of Russia.

If you go back far enough—the 9th century—he has a point. Kyiv was the cradle of what became the Russian Orthodox Church which for centuries defined Russian nationalism.

But since the mid-13th century, borders, allegiances and political alignments have been constantly shifting.

It started with the Mongol invasion which led to the heirs of Genghis Khan ruling the Principality of Moscow until the 15th century. Most of Ukraine became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which lasted until a Cossack rebellion in 1648.

The 1648 rebellion established the Cossack Hetmanate which lasted a little over a century and is viewed as the foundational state by Ukrainians. The Hetmanate rejected the feudal system of Poland and the authoritarianism of Russia. The leadership was not hereditary, but was elected by a warrior class on the basis of merit.

Initially the Hetmanate’s main enemy was Poland. It was the era of religious wars and the Cossacks were Orthodox Christians. So they turned to their co-religionists in Moscow for protection. Big mistake. Russia gradually increased their control over Ukraine and in 1764 Catherine the Great simply abolished the Hetmanate and imposed direct imperial rule.

From that point on Ukraine’s history was a story of Russian domination with the occasional burst of independence. The biggest came with the collapse of the Tsar in 1917. The problem, however, was that the Ukrainians themselves were divided. The Bolsheviks quickly crushed the half dozen independent Ukrainian states that sprang up.

Ukraine then became a nominally independent country within the Soviet Union. In reality it was part and parcel part of the USSR and it suffered more than any other part of the Soviet Union under Soviet rule. Two million-plus Ukrainians were arrested and deported to either Siberia or Kazakhstan. Up to 7 million died in the Holodomyr famine of 1932-33 caused by Stalin’s forced collectivisation. The Ukrainian language, culture and customs were suppressed and an estimated one million ethnic Russians were moved into Ukraine in an attempt to dilute the Ukrainian identity.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 20 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th August 2025 - 8:30 am

Tariff Time

At the stroke of midnight on Wednesday American tariffs took effect in 90 countries. The tariffs were the highest in a century.

They start at 15 percent and rise to 35 percent for Canada and 50 percent for Brazil and India. Brazil is the victim of Trump’s anger over the decision to prosecute his friend Jair Bolsonaro for attempting to overthrow the government. India has been hit with a 25 percent punitive secondary tariff for importing Russian oil.

The Trump Administration is still talking to Mexico and China. Currently the tariff on Chinese goods is 30 percent. Deals have been struck with the UK, EU, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

So far this year, tariffs are estimated to have contributed $152 billion to the US Treasury. Trump has said this is only the start. He is threatening more and higher tariffs on pharmaceuticals and computer equipment and chips.

So far, the impact on the US economy has been nominal. But this is because American businesses stockpiled foreign goods before the tariffs took effect and consumers have been paying pre-tariff prices.

This will soon start to change, although the latest rise will not work its way through the pipeline until early October. However, businesses have been warning the administration that they cannot keep prices down much longer, and in fact, they are signs of inflation for items such as appliances, clothing and furnishings. The full impact will be ready in time for Christmas.

The Yale Budget Lab reckons that once all the tariffs have worked their way through the pipeline, the cost to the average American household will be $2,500 and half a percentage point will be shaved off the US economic growth figure.

Gaza

Netanyahu this week said he wants a permanent military occupation of Gaza. The US supports this. A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth millions. Click here to see a video of what Netanyahu will be occupying.

Trump to Moscow?

Trump is set to fly to Moscow. The exact date is unknown, but can be as early as the coming week.

After talks with Vladimir Putin, the US president will fly to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. Putin has refused a trilateral Ukraine-Russia-US summit.

The announcement of Trump’s travel plans came after a three-hour Kremlin meeting on Wednesday between Putin and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff. No firm details have emerged from that meeting but Russian sources say that Putin “has conveyed certain signals.”

The most likely signals he could have sent would have been concessions on his territorial demands. In a June memorandum, the Russian leader clear set out his demands for peace: Russian sovereignty over the Ukraine regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kerson as well as the demilitarisation of Ukraine, Ukrainian neutrality, no formal military involvement and new elections.

From the Ukrainian point of view this would mean total surrender and a return to the status of Russian puppet state.

According to Russian sources, the key to Putin’s demands is control of Ukraine. How he achieves that goal is open to negotiation. It could be through NATO guarantees, territorial control or combination of the two. The latter seems the most likely.

El Salvador

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 14 Comments

Observations of an Ex Pat – The Vote

By Tom Arms | Sat 9th August 2025 - 8:30 am

The right to vote is at the very heart of every democratic government. Running alongside that is the right to make that vote count; to provide at least the hope that people can change their political representation through the ballot box.

Without that hope the voters will lose faith in their political system and – ultimately—the government loses credibility and democratic values and the country as a whole faces serious decline.

Gerrymandering is a political tool that denies representation to certain sections of the electorate. It has been a part of the American political scene almost since the country’s foundation. It is practiced by both political parties. Neither of those facts make it anything less than what it is—political corruption.

Politicians have been devising methods of manipulating the vote almost since the votes were cast. The Romans devised a system whereby votes were weighted in accordance with the voter’s wealth. In the nominally republican city states of Renaissance Italy, citizens seeking public office were pre-vetted by the wealthy oligarchs before the people voted on them.

Then, of course, there were the pocket—or “rotten”—boroughs of Britain where centuries-old constituency boundaries meant that a handful of voters could elect one MP while a bustling city of tens of thousands went unrepresented.

The drawing of constituency—or electoral—boundaries was at the heart of Britain’s rotten boroughs. And the way in which those boundaries are drawn which became the biggest political bone of contention. Up until 1885 they continued to be organised in such a way to give more MPs to rural areas.

After the 1885 Redistribution of Seats Act, urban areas were given more seats but political parties were given a bigger say in boundary redistribution. The two biggest parties—the Liberals and Conservatives—ensured their hold on power by splitting up working class areas to dilute support for the nascent Labour Party. They gerrymandered.

It was not until 1948-50 that Britain established an independent boundary commission that took constituency boundaries out of party political control. Gradually over the post-war years, other countries followed suit. In 2025, the United States is the only major outlier, standing alongside countries such as Zimbabwe.

The United States is a federal system and each state determines the electoral boundaries for every elected office from congressman to dog catcher. In a handful of states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan and Washington—an independent electoral commission draws the lines. New York also has a nominally independent commission, but the state legislature has reserved the right to override its decisions. In all the other 44 states the electoral boundaries are drawn by politicians in the state legislatures. In the US, drawing electoral boundaries is called “redistricting.”

The result has been truly astonishing efforts at gerrymandering. In Louisiana, for instance, a third of the population is African-American but only one of the state’s six congressmen is Black.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured and observations of an ex pat | 5 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 3rd August 2025 - 9:18 am

Gaza

“There is no starvation in Gaza. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza,” so spake Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Well, just about everyone disagrees with him, including his good buddy Donald Trump.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in July alone 63 Gazans died of malnutrition. Obviously many more are suffering from it and still clinging to life. Of those who died 24 were children and 38 adults. The adults were mainly parents who gave what little food they had to their children.

Death from malnutrition is one of the worst possible ways to die. It takes months and is extremely painful.

It usually starts with fatigue. Then the body—in its search for the energy it needs to stay alive—starts to break down muscle tissue from the organs, including the heart and lungs. The skin becomes dry and develops sores. Hair falls out. The victim suffers severe stomach cramps and joint and muscle pain. The victims become highly susceptible to other disease. In the final stages a malnourished person becomes apathetic, confused and then dies.

The worst affected, are children under three. They are more likely to become malnourished simply because they are at an age when their fast-growing bodies need more energy/fuel. They also have limited reserves of fat so they become malnourished more quickly.

Survivors can suffer long-term problems, dependent on how soon they can be treated high calorie foods such as “plumpy nut.” But they have to be treated in special centres over a period of many months or their bodies can suffer other problems.

If their state of starvation is too far advanced, then the children especially will suffer complications for the rest of their lives.

They will almost certainly be below height and weight and the onset of puberty will be delayed. The children will be more susceptible to diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria, measles and chronic diseases. They will also have a lower IQ and have difficulty concentrating. According to the WHO, children who survive severe malnutrition are 12 times more likely to die from a childhood disease.

If they survive to adulthood, they will suffer from depression and anxiety and find it difficult to forge relationships.

One of the main reasons for long-lasting damage is the permanent harm that malnutrition does to the synaptic connections. These are the tiny electrical connections between the body’s cells. Synaptic connections are most commonly referred to when talking about brain functions, but they are also vital in the nervous system and keeping the heart pumping.

Brazil and Canada

Trump’s tariffs are now a political weapon. Actually, they have always been in his political arsenal. He is just being a bit more open about using excise duties for political ends.

The two main targets this week are Canada and Brazil.

The latter involves Trump’s Brazilian friend Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian president was known as the “Latin Trump” and the two men had a lot in common. Not only did their policies overlap, so did the way in which they left office.

Both men claimed that their second runs for the presidency of their respective countries were “stolen” by a “deep state” liberal establishment. Both men also allegedly organised coups to reverse the results of those elections and encouraged their supporters to storm federal buildings to keep them in power.

Trump got away with it. His 2024 election victory brought an abrupt halt to attempts to bring him to trial. Bolsonaro was not so lucky. First he was banned from running for office again until 2030 and then, in February of this year, he was told by Brazil’s Supreme Court that he must stand trial.

Trump’s says the charges against Bolsonaro are “a political witch hunt” and he has slapped a 50 percent tariff on Brazil. He also sanctioned the judge—Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—leading the investigation of Bolsonaro with sanctions and blocked the justice’s access to US investments.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) has responded by telling Trump that if January 6 had occurred in Brazil, he would be in prison.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged benjamin netanyahu, brazil, canada, donald trump, gaza, jeffrey epstein and ukraine | 3 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Project Esther

By Tom Arms | Sat 2nd August 2025 - 10:10 am

The Heritage Foundation is best known as the people who brought us Project 2025. Remember, that was the blueprint for a second Trump Administration which Trump denied he ever heard of and then implemented.

About the same time as Project 2025 was published, The Heritage Foundation produced another blueprint—Project Esther.

The paper is named after the biblical heroine who saved her people in ancient Persia. Its avowed purpose is “A National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism.” Its real purpose is to use the veneer of Jewish protection to introduce extraordinary governmental and legal manoeuvres to stifle left-wing dissent.

Like most Trumpian projects, fear is a central element. In the case of Project Esther it is fear of all things Palestinian and anything opposed to the government of Israel. The authors of Project Esther call the object of fear the “Hamas Support Network” (HSN).

In Project Esther’s playbook, HSN encompasses a broad swathe of organisations, student groups, and individual activists. Any far‑left, anticolonial and anti‑Zionist movements is dubbed the moral equivalent of terrorism. It then goes on to say that because these organisations—that as anyone critical of Israel—are terrorists that they are an organised danger to American society as well as Jewish society.

The next step, according to Project Esther, is to use governmental instruments originally used to combat organised crime to pursue the alleged anti-Semites. The Heritage Foundation proposed using anti-racketeer statues (RICO) and the Foreign Agents Registration Act alongside counter-terrorism laws to prosecute individuals and groups aligned with, or sympathetic to, Palestinian rights.

Universities are key battlegrounds. Project Esther calls for the identification and purging of pro‑Palestinian faculty, pressure on administrations through funding threats, and the surveillance of student protestors. It encourages public firings and invites cutting off visa status or revoking student visas for non‑citizens participating in such activism.

Surveillance and data gathering is a big part of the envisioned infrastructure. Heritage proposes a vertically integrated apparatus linking private security firms, campus police, federal agencies and universities—with techniques including facial recognition, data mining and social media scraping to monitor affinity networks and anticipate dissent before it flourish.

Importantly, the project is rooted in Christian nationalist and evangelical Zionist networks. There is minimal participation from Jewish organisations. In fact, major Jewish groups declined involvement in discussions surrounding Project Esther. They are reportedly uncomfortable with Esther’s selective focus on left-wing anti-Semitism while neglecting the far-right, which they view as the true anti-Semitic threat.

The Heritage Foundation even identifies prominent Jewish figures—such as George Soros and J.B. Pritzker—as anti-Semitic political masterminds behind the pro-Palestinian movement.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged project esther | 17 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Epstein – The History

By Tom Arms | Sat 26th July 2025 - 9:40 am

Theories, threats, counter-threats and conspiracies are flying thick and thin around the name of convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the nature of his relationship with Donald Trump.

Were the two men friends? If so, how friendly? Did Trump know that Epstein was a paedophile before his conviction? If so, how much did he know? Did he, himself have sexual relations with under-age girls? Is Donald Trump part of the deep state cabal of paedophiles who have been running the country according to QAnon and others?

All questions now being hourly discussed within and without the MAGA world and Donald Trump’s political future may hang on the answers.

It is therefore worth reviewing the known historical facts.

Jeffrey Epstein was born in Brooklyn in 1953 to working class parents. He was extremely clever and graduated high school two years early and went on to study physics and mathematics at New York University. However, for some reason, which remains unclear, he dropped out after two years.

Despite not having a degree, Epstein landed a teaching job at the posh Dalton School on New York’s Upper East Side. Former pupils there said that he was known for his “inappropriate behaviour” towards under-age female students and that this may have been the reason for his being fired in 1976. The official reason was “poor performance.”

While at Dalton, Epstein became friendly with one of the parents; Alan Greenberg, CEO of Bear Stearns. He quickly hired Epstein as a junior assistant and within four years the former teacher was a limited partner. The following year he set up his own finance house and was soon attracting billionaire clients such as Adnan Khashoggi and Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner. He used his connections with Wexner to recruit models for Victoria’s Secret, many of them underage girls.

Epstein’s mathematical genius earned him a reputation as a Wall Street wizard and millions upon millions of dollars. His wealth went on a 78-acre private island in the Caribbean, a New York mansion, a West Palm Beach mansion and wild parties for the rich and famous and – under-age girls.

Exactly how many under-age girls were recruited for his parties is unclear. The Florida indictment named 26. The Miami Herald interviewed 60. One Department of Justice document said the figure could have been as high as a thousand.

The rich and famous included Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. He introduced Trump to Melania and attended their wedding. In a 2002 profile of Epstein in New York Magazine, Trump was quoted as saying: “I’ve known Jeffrey for 15 years. He is a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them on the younger side.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, featured and jeffrey epstein | 3 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 20th July 2025 - 8:30 am

Trump

Trump has either lied, is lying or is incompetent. That is the view of an increasing number of prominent MAGA supporters.

The reason? The Jeffrey Epstein files. The so far secret activities of the late convicted paedophile is one of the key conspiracy theories that put Trump in the White House.

One of Trump’s election promises was to publish the Epstein files and prove that key Democrats were implicated in Epstein’s under-age sexual orgies. Now he says there are no files, they are a Democrat fabrication and MAGA supporters should shut up about them.

To be precise he posted on Truth Social this week:

What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.

For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. They wrote documents written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the members of the Biden Administration—they created the Epstein Files and if there was something bad in them for MAGA, the Radical Left Lunatics would have already released it.

LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT!

The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024—That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. We are saving our Country and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

They problem is that the MAGA crowd has become fixated on conspiracy theories. They are the glue that holds them together. For Trump to simply dismiss one of the most prominent conspiracy theories that he propagated is raising serious questions about his credibility.

Mike Cernovich, a prominent Trump supporter, wrote on X: “No one is buying it. No one is dropping it.”

Natalie Winters, one of Steve Bannon’s protégés, wrote: “I just think it’s frankly very grifty to have spent your entire career promoting…the idea that there is this deep state, the idea that there’s this unelected class of. You know, bankers, corporations, countries, intel agencies, blah, blah, blah. And then finally, you have the power to expose it, and either you’re not, because there’s nothing there, in which case it makes you a liar—and I don’t believe that—or you’re ineffective, or you’re compromised.”

Trump responded to his latest critics with what must rank as one of the all-time great insults. He called them “weenies.”

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama turned 90 this month. The world loves this wise old Buddhist monk. Except the Chinese. They hate him.

To Beijing, the 90-yeard-old saffron-robed monk represents Tibetan independence. In fact, he is—for many Tibetans—the spirit of independence reincarnated.

Tibet has been in and out of the Chinese orbit for centuries. During the 19th and first half of the 20th century, Tibet was free of Chinese control. During that interregnum, two-year-old Tenzin Gyatso, was declared the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama and carted off to Lhasa to be taught how to be a theocratic ruler,

In 1950, Mao’s communist troops started to reassert control over Tibet and by 1959 the 24-year-old Dalai Lama’s position had become untenable and he fled to India where he established a government-in-exile.

In the intervening years, the Dalai Lama has travelled the world n his fight for Tibetan independence, and over the years, has tempered his positions. He no longer advocates full independence from Beijing. Instead, he proposes that Tibet become an autonomous region within China.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged china, dalai lama, donald trump, iceland and tibet | Leave a comment

Observations of an Expat: Ukraine and Trump

By Tom Arms | Sat 19th July 2025 - 8:30 am

For East Europeans the overriding emotional issue is fear. Through the centuries Russia has proven itself to be a bad neighbour.

The Baltic States alone had more than 130,000 people arrested and sent to labour camps in Siberia. Their language and customs were suppressed and their countries were turned into KGB-controlled Big Brother informer societies. These events are well within living memory.

Unsurprisingly, they are taking the lead in calling for the toughest measures to support Ukraine and oppose Russia.

The further west one travels the more fear is replaced by the less tangible concerns such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law v autocracy and might is right. Big states like Russia must not be allowed to go about invading smaller states like Ukraine. If Putin is permitted to succeed then there will be dire consequences for the entire world.

This values-based assessment was the driving force behind President Joe Biden’s policy towards Ukraine and Russia. In addition, he was terrified that too much support for Ukraine could lead to a nuclear holocaust. Russia, does, after all, have the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled threats to use his deadly arsenal fuelled those fears.

Donald Trump shares Biden’s terrors of nuclear war. In March he said: “This (the Ukraine War) could lead to World War III, very easily… because of nuclear weapons.” When Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky visited Trump, the US president shouted at him: “You are playing with World War III. You are playing with nuclear weapons.”

What Trump does not share with Biden, nor any of his NATO allies, is a respect for democracy and the rule of law and the need to defend it against autocrats such as Vladimir Putin. No, in Trump’s words, Putin is “a smart guy. I mean he’s got great control over his country.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat, russia and trump | 7 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review – 13 July 2025

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th July 2025 - 8:30 am

July 4th was America’s Independence Day. It was also the day that Trump signed his Big Beautiful Bill. And it was the day that flash floods in Texas left At least 100 dead and more than 160 still missing.

As the flood waters started to recede the blame game began, and it is clear that Trump’s cuts are playing a major part in the disaster.

At first it was thought that cuts in the National Weather Service were responsible. But it turns out that the meteorologists did accurately predict the storm and sent out the necessary warnings.

The problem was the police did not receive the warnings in time to react. This was because the weather service employee in charge of coordinating communications between police and the NWS was gone. He had been forced into early retirement by Elon Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency and had not been replaced.

On top of that, the search and rescue teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency could not respond to the disaster because Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (who is in charge of FEMA) had decreed that any expenditure over $100,000 required her personal approval. Noem didn’t sign off on the deployment of FEMA teams until 72 hours after the floods.

Both Trump and Noem have said they want to completely scrap the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Japan is having a difficult time understanding Donald Trump. They thought that the purpose of tariffs was to increase investment in American industry.

So, when Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met Trump at the White House in February he pledged to increase Japanese investment in the US from $783 billion to a staggering $1 trillion. This would, Ishiba believed, encourage Trump to go easy on Japan when it came to tariffs.

It didn’t work. Trump this week imposed a new 25 percent tariff on most Japanese goods. He announced a similar tariff on South Korea and a host of other countries are reeling from the impact of tariffs ranging from 25 to 50 percent. The worst affected was Brazil.

But the Japanese really did think they were a special case. After all, when Ishiba and Trump met they expressed their “unwavering commitment” to the Japanese-American relationship. Japan is the biggest foreign investor in the US and the key building block in America’s Pivot to Asia. Surely Trump would not jeopardise that.

No, Trump announced on Truth Social that Japan was guilty of “unfair trading practices” In particular, the Japanese were unwilling to buy American cars and rice. The US president said that the Japanese were “spoiled” and added that despite seven rounds of talks a trade deal was “unlikely”

Trump’s tariffs are a major blow to the world’s third largest economy which shrunk by 0.2 percent in the last quarter.

Japan has already been hit hard by Trump’s first round of “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. The value of Japanese exports to the US has dropped by 11.2 percent in April, May and June. Their biggest export—cars—fell by 8.2 percent in April alone.

Trump’s new tariffs could not have come at worst time domestically for the government. A general election is scheduled for July 20 and all the polls indicate strong opposition to compromise on tariff negotiations. In fact, they show a strong anti-American bias.

Windmills and solar panels v. black gold. Green technology v. fossil fuels. China v. The United States.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 7 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Leaving Trump

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th July 2025 - 10:30 am

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill helps the rich and hurts the poor. And yet, Trump was elected by a demographic shift of poor voters to Republican ranks.

They voted for him not because they believe he supports the rich instead of them, but because they feel he speaks to their values, frustrations, and identity in ways that matter more to them than traditional economic policies.

Trump validates their worldview.He gives them someone to blame for their struggles. He channels their anger into a story where they are the true Americans under siege.

So how loyal is that base? Pretty loyal. For many supporters, Trump is not just a politician—he’s a symbol of resistance to liberal elites, political correctness, globalisation, and a system they feel left them behind. He taps into identity, not just policy. That is a bond that runs deep.

So what could break that bond? Nothing less than a clear personal betrayal that his supporters could directly feel. The Big Beautiful Bill’s cuts in Medicaid are a step in that direction. And Democrats believe that they can use it to win back control of the House of Representatives and Senate in the 2026 mid-term elections.

But that will be hard road because Trump—and MAGA—are expert at blaming others such as Congress or the “deep state”.

Posted in News | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th July 2025 - 10:05 am

Donald Trump

It has been a great week for Donald Trump. Perhaps his best ever. His “Big Beautiful Bill” has passed Congress. There is nil blowback from Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and the US Supreme Court has handed him another useful decision.

But within his success could be the seeds of failure. Starting with the “Big Beautiful Bill” which, among others, cuts MedicAid to an estimated 10-15 million Americans. These are the least financially advantaged (aka poor) members of society who cannot private health insurance. Many of them voted for Trump.

These voters will not be entirely cut off from hospitals. All hospitals are required to treat emergency cases such as a broken arm. But if you have cancer or a chronic condition which requires regular hospital attention and you don’t have private health insurance, then you will be in trouble without MedicAid.

But the MedicAid cuts will affect not only America’s indigent. Someone will have to cover the increased use of accident and emergency clinics. This will have to come out of either local taxes or increased health insurance premiums for the middle classes. So everyone loses and it won’t take long for them to figure out who is responsible.

As for Iran, there has been virtually nil reaction from Tehran. They bombed a US base in Qatar but warned the Americans of the incoming missiles. Then they accepted a ceasefire. There were no more attacks on Israel. No terrorist attacks on Europe or the US. No closure of the Straits of Hormuz.

Trump’s strategy of attack hard and fast, exit quickly and propose a ceasefire appears to have worked—for now. It is still early days. We don’t know how much enriched uranium the Iranians rescued, or what they will do with it and they are certainly aren’t about to tell anyone. So Iran could still blow up into a “forever war” of the type that Trump has pledged to end.

Finally, there is the Supreme Court which ruled that the lower American courts cannot block Trump’s executive orders as they have been doing. On the surface, this is a major triumph for the president. But one needs to read the written opinion of Trump-appointed Justice Amy Comey Barrett to realise otherwise.

Justice Barrett supported the majority which ruled against the lower courts. Then she laid out a blueprint of how Trump’s opponents could block him without using the courts. Furthermore, the Supreme Court made a deal with the White House than it would accept without question any future rulings of the court.

Ukraine

Good news and bad news for Ukraine. First the bad news. The US is cutting back its supply of weaponry. The reason? Because America has supplied so many howitzer shells and patriot missiles that its own arsenal is dangerously low. It is true. The US does need to replenish stocks.

The Europeans will be able to pick up some of the slack, especially Germany. But not all.

Now the good news. The Russian summer offensive appears to be faltering. Not only that, but 50,000 Russian troops are trapped in Sumy Oblast by Ukrainian forces.

The Russian summer offensive started at the beginning of May and concentrated on north and northeast regions. It was initially successful, capturing some 173 square miles of Ukrainian territory.

But then the Ukrainian counter offensive came. The country’s top general reported this week: “Based on the results of May June, we can say that this year’s wave of the enemy’s summer offensive has failed.” He added that the Ukrainian forces had not only stopped the Russians but were now attacking and had isolated an estimated 50,000 Russian troops.

In other Ukrainian news, Russian and Ukrainian diplomats meeting in Istanbul negotiated another POW swap which took place this week. Most of the Ukrainians that were released had been in Russian captivity since 2022. All of them were severely wounded or seriously ill.

Finally, according to the South Koreans, the North Koreans will be sending another tranche of troops to help the Russians.

Israel

It is clear that Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping for an Iran bounce. After all, he has been calling for an attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities since 1993 and the American attack is clearly popular with Israeli voters.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged benjamin netanyahu, donald trump, israel and ukraine | 9 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Scary Thoughts

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th July 2025 - 9:19 am

JD Vance is the bookie’s choice to be the next president of the United States. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is the all-important money man behind JD Vance.

But just as important as the money behind the cash are ideas. Vance may be the political cart wagon. Money from Thiel and other Silicon Valley Billionaires provide the dogged mule to pull it. But the wagon needs to filled with ideas if the journey is to have any meaning. And the fresher the better.

The ideas are coming from 51-year-old American Curtis Yarvin and 63-year-old British Academic Nick Land. Their political plans are truly scary.

The two men cloak their thinking in a convoluted jargon which includes phrases such as “accelerationism,” “dark enlightenment,” and “speculative realism.”

But basically they reject the ideas of the 18th century Age of Enlightenment which are the philosophical bedrock of the US constitution and current liberal Western democracies. They are also racists, ultra-capitalists and autocrats.

They advocate using technology to “accelerate” capitalism in such a way that destabilises existing social and political structures and creates a new strong man rule guided by a handful of technocrats. Democratic equality, in their opinion, is a parasitical brake on world order.

So far the philosophy of Land and Yarvin has been confined mainly to America, and US-based Yarvin has become the more prominent advocate of the Dark Enlightenment. Through his work as a blogger (under the pseudonym of Mencius Moldbug), he has influenced not only Thiele and Vance but is also said to be the guiding inspiration behind Michael Anton, Trump’s Director of Policy Planning.

Yarvin is particularly controversial on the subject of race. He claims that he is not a racist but insists that White people have a higher IQ than Blacks. “IQ is real,” he wrote. “Race is real. Their correlation is real. Deal with it.”

Yarvin also goes out of his way to defend the slavery of America’s Ante Bellum South. “It was neither cruel nor inefficient,” he wrote. “In fact it may have worked well in its time. Certainly the slaves were treated better than industrial workers in the industrial north.”

As for the abolitionist movement, Yarvin says it was not “a moral crusade but a self-righteous liberal crusade which was less about justice and more about power and ideological control.”

Perhaps more controversial are Yarvin’s views on liberal democracy and how to deal with it. He argues that democracy is “inherently corrupt, inefficient and prone to decay. Public opinion is shaped by the media and academia (A combination which he and Land call the “Cathedral”) which creates an illusion of consent.”

Countries should not be governed as states responsible to their citizens but as a private company headed by an all-powerful CEO. “A country” writes Yarvin,”is not a family. It is a business.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged jd vance | 13 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 29th June 2025 - 8:30 am

Iran

The Mullahs have brought Iran to the brink of disaster. Their theocratic Islamic anti-Israeli, anti-American crusading state has sown the seeds which its people are now reaping.

The string of proxies which comprised Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” has collapsed. Syria’s President Assad has fled to Moscow. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have been militarily and politically castrated. Defense experts believe that the regime has already fired half of its ballistic missiles.

Whether or not the regime’s enriched uranium was rescued from Trump’s “bunker-busting bombs” is irrelevant. The important point is that Israel now controls Iranian airspace and American bombers could attack unmolested.

The first responsibility of any government is to provide protection against attack. The Mullahs have signally failed in that primary task.

On top of that economic sanctions have brought the country to its financial knees and women and young people have refused to accept the strict codes of Sharia law. Their rebellion against imposed social norms is demonstrated by the fact that Iran is one of the world’s major consumers of pop culture.

The country is therefore ripe for regime change. In fact, it has been headed gradually in that direction for years as successive elections have seen “progressive” candidates garner an increasing share of the vote. A good example was last year’s victory in presidential elections of Masoud Pezeshkian over the Islamic candidate.

Exactly what might replace the clerics is unknown. The Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has offered himself as a transitional leader until democratic elections can be held. The exiled women’s rights leader Masih Alinejad has also been mentioned as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Other possibilities are leading technocrats from the Katami or Rouhani Administration and, of course, any military leader who has not been assassinated by the Israelis.

Opportunity awaits all of above—and more.

Iranian regime change would be disastrous for the cause of global Jihad. It would also be very bad news for Russia and China.

Vladimir Putin already suffered one Middle East setback with the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A collapse of the Mullahs would be even worse as Russia shares a maritime border (the Caspian Sea) with Iran and has a long history of involvement in Persian affairs.

The Russians have been carefully cultivating relations with Israel for decades. Moscow advised Tehran are how to evade Western sanctions and the two countries have been beefing up their respective infrastructures to improve north-south trade through Eurasia.

After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Iran became a major supplier to Moscow of Shahed drones which are now being produced under license in Russia. In January of this year the two countries signed a major security partnership which included the sharing of intelligence and military technology. It, however, stopped well short of a military alliance.

Iran is essential to China’s policy in the Middle East. To demonstrate this, Beijing in 2021 signed a 25-year strategic partnership with Tehran and agreed to invest $400 billion in the country.

China is almost totally dependent on oil from the Gulf for its oil and gas energy needs. To guarantee the flow of oil it must diversify away from the pro-American suppliers of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. Iran enables them to do this. As a result, China ignores western sanctions and imports 20 percent of its oil and gas requirement from Iran.

Iran is also the Middle East link in China’s ambitious Belt/Road trade network.

Its staunch anti-Americanism is also useful to Beijing at international forums such as the UN. China reckons that Iran could be important in re-shaping international institutions so that they have a pro-China bias instead of the current pro-Western bias.

Finally, China’s brokering of a diplomatic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia has allowed Beijing to protect itself as a peaceful player in the region in contrast to America’s military-based power.

An upset in New York

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iran, kenya, new york and tom arms world review | 15 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: A new era

By Tom Arms | Sat 28th June 2025 - 9:28 am

Trump’s bombing of Iran and the NATO summit mark the beginning of a new era in international relations.

They were both a political success for the American president.

They were also both a disaster for international law and the rules-based order that has underpinned the longest period of peace and prosperity in world history.

We have now entered an age of strong man politics where laws and political outcomes are determined not by legal precedence and a sense of equality and justice, but by the strength of the political leader and the country they lead. In short, might is right.

Many argue that it has always been thus. To a large degree they are right. But since the end of World War Two the establishment of international structures, law, alliances, global trade and treaties have acted as a brake on unfettered power. Trump has dismantled—or is in the process of dismantling—the post-war world order and removing the brake.

Let’s start with the bombing of Iran. Depriving Iran of the ability to have a nuclear bomb is a good thing. Iran is a dangerous ideologically-driven rogue state. However, the way in which the bombing was organized was another nail in the coffin of international law.

There was no attempt to secure international backing for the attack. There was no attempt to even secure domestic or congressional or bipartisan backing for the attack.

Donald Trump did not try for a UN Security Council resolution. He did not consult with his NATO allies. It is debatable whether or not he should have sought a declaration of war from Congress as the constitution stipulates. But he should have at least conferred with the senior members of both parties in the House of Representatives and Senate. He didn’t.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 13 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 22nd June 2025 - 10:31 am

Trump

MAGA is divided. Its strength in the past that it has been united behind one man—Donald Trump.

Whatever he said was taken as gospel. Whatever he did was heroic.

But now there is a possibility that he may decide to join forces with Israel and drop a bunker-busting bomb on Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment facilities. As a result some of the shine is coming off MAGA’s great leader.

“This has not been thought through,” said Trump’s former campaign manager Steve Bannon. He added: “Stopping forever wars is one of the three planks of the MAGA Movement.”

Tucker Carlsson is known as Trump’s lead trumpeter. “I am afraid this (the US bombing of Iran) will see the end of the American Empire,” he said.

And then there is loony MAGA to the core Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Forever wars, intervention, regime change, put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke and will ultimately lead to our destruction.”

Then on the other side are figures such as senators Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. They have both called on the president to support Israel and strike Iran while it is at its weakest. But then they are Old Guard rather than MAGA.

Iran

Iran desperately needs friends. Unfortunately for Tehran they appear to be backward in coming forward.

The two most likely candidates for a supporting role are China and Russia. The Russians have been the grateful recipients of Iranian-made drones which are making an impact in the Ukraine War.

Moscow was quick to condemn the Israeli attack which it said was unprovoked and in breach of the UN Charter. The Russians also accused Moscow of undermining diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to peacefully abandon any nuclear ambitions.

That all sounds very warlike, and in January of this year Tehran and Moscow signed a 20-year “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” which covered a wide range of interests including, defense, intelligence sharing, nuclear technology and energy. The agreement, however, does not commit Russia to come to Iran’s defense if the latter is attacked.

On Thursday Moscow closed all of its diplomatic offices in Iran and withdrew its entire diplomatic staff. They were needed if Putin was going to provide substantive aid.

China—in total disregard of sanctions—gets 20 percent of its oil from Iran. In 2021 Tehran agreed to become a key link in China’s Belt/Road Initiative. In 2023 China brokered a diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

China wants to increase its influence in the Middle East and its sees Iran as its Trojan horse in achieving that goal. Unfortunately it took four days for President Xi Jinping to get around to even making a statement on Israel’s attack. And then it was to offer China’s good offices as a peace broker rather than as no-holds barred Iranian supporter.

The fact is, Tehran is a rogue state. It exports terrorism and destabilises the world order. Few people outside of Iran would grieve its demise and many inside would also be glad to see the fall of the theocracy. But that could only make the mullahs more dangerous as they are backed into a corner with no option but to lash out in return for a guaranteed ticket to an Islamic paradise.

Gaza

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, gaza and iran | 1 Comment

Observations of an Expat: End of Empire

By Tom Arms | Sat 21st June 2025 - 10:30 am

Trump’s metaphorical coin-tossing decision-making over the bombing of Iran is the clear result of imperial over-reach cloaked in dangerous isolationism.

But whichever way the president decides, the fact that he has to sit in the Oval Office with a handful of yes men and women underscores the fragility of American foreign policy and the rapid decline of a great power.

Previous post-war presidents could rely on an elaborate and carefully constructed network of alliances, treaties and international laws to help with the decision-making. The decisions were not always right. But if they were wrong the burden of the blame could be shared and recovery was easier.

Trump suffers from hubris – aka excessive pride – has extended that hubris to a significant portion of the American electorate and wrapped it in a cloak of isolationism. This in turn has led to the withdrawal – or threatened withdrawal – from alliances, treaty obligations, and international and domestic law.

In 1987 the British historian Paul Kennedy wrote the seminal geopolitical history “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.” In it he set down the axiom that great powers decline when their military commitments outstrip their economic base—a process he called “imperial overstretch.”

Before Trump the United States appeared to be set to avoid the Kennedy Trap. For a start the fount of its power was liberal democratic values rather than the naked greed which drove the imperial age. It then concentrated on forming alliances and diplomatic cooperation with the countries – Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada… – with which it shared those values.

Those countries in return provided military bases and support. MAGA Republicans claim that America’s allies have exploited American goodwill. That is true. But they have also delivered the facilities that have provided America with a global reach which in turn has increased its trading and economic power.

Trump has rejected liberal democratic values and attacked the countries and political leaders that continue to espouse them. He has rejected the rule of law at home and abroad. Trump is a 17th century mercantilist who is governed by the belief that might is right. Billionaires are mighty so they must be right. America is mighty therefore it must be right.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iran | 8 Comments

Op-eds

The future of war has arrived: It’s the Navy (Edward Marsh)
The law has never told you which door to use (Tanya Park)
Lincolnshire – a flawed reform of local government and why it matters (Nigel Lindsay)
Welcome to my day: 3 August 2026 – some thoughts on migration… (Mark Valladares)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)

Advert

Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

Author Archives: Tom Arms

Drone wall

Democrats’ shutdown gamble

Trump and Russia

Brazil

France

United Kingdom

United States

United States

China

France

Donald Trump

Where are the Democrats?

A US Grand Jury is involved now.

When it comes to law and order…

Tariff Time

Gaza

Trump to Moscow?

El Salvador

Gaza

Brazil and Canada

Trump

Dalai Lama

Donald Trump

Ukraine

Israel

Iran

An upset in New York

Trump

Iran

Gaza

Subscribe

Most Read

Search

Op-eds

Recent Comments