Author Archives: Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th June 2025 - 10:11 am

United States

The Los Angeles riots started at a local Home Depot store. These stores are a national network of shops selling hardware and DIY material.

Throughout America they act as a magnet for illegal aliens—main Hispanic and Latinos—who base themselves outside shops in search of part-time construction and handyman jobs.

Where illegal aliens gather you will now find Trumps ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement) agents ready to swoop down, arrest, detain and deport. Which is exactly what happened last Friday at the Home Depot store in Los Angeles’s Westlake District and at LA’s Huntington Park.

Normally, the arrests are relatively peaceful. The arrestees may try to run for it, but generally, they are quiet affairs. This time they fought back. They were soon joined by friends, neighbours and family trying to prevent the arrests.

The result was a riot. There was looting and cars were set alight. But the fighting was confined to a few city blocks. Elsewhere in Los Angeles life continued as normal.

Trump did not care. The Los Angeles riots were an opportunity to project his strong man image on the one issue that resonates most with American voters—immigration. Despite the local nature of the riots he went over Governor Gavin Newsom’s head and ordered in 2,000 National Guardsmen and 600 marines.

According to the LAPD, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and Governor Newsom, Trump inflamed the situation and – most important of all—broke the law.

The law which they claim Trump broke is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which restricts the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement. There are exceptions, mainly those governed by the 1807 Insurrection Act which says the president can order in federal troops in order to suppress rebellion or insurrection or to enforce federal law when local authorities are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Home Depot disturbances were not an insurrection—however much far-right nationalists claim otherwise. Neither were they a rebellion. And as for the willingness of the local authorities, the mayor had already ordered in the police who said they were in control.

The end result is three-fold. First liberal progressives are now convinced that Trump will use every demonstration as an excuse to shout “insurrection” and possibly declare martial law which could lead to a postponement of elections. Secondly, MAGA Republicans think their president is even more wonderful which means the country is even more divided. Finally, Trump faces another court case. This time he is being taken court by Governor Newsom who also happens to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.

Trump v Musk

The Battle of the Titans—Trump v. Musk—is over. And Trump has won.

It was inevitable. Alright, Musk is the world’s wealthiest man at $400-plus billion. But Trump controls the machinery of the world’s most powerful country, and he has repeatedly proven that he is not afraid to use that power to further his own ends.

Musk talked—or rather tweeted—big about exposing Trump’s sexual antics and funding a third political party. But his power is based entirely on his pile of cash and Trump has the power to reduce it.

Musk does have some leverage. Both NASA and the Pentagon are dependent on the billionaire’s technology to maintain vital satellite communications and complete planned lunar expeditions. The contracts to provide this technology are worth billions for several years to come.

Trump—in one of his more peevish moods—did threaten to terminate those contracts. It was an empty threat.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged european union, israel, palestine and united states | 1 Comment

Observations of an Expat: Bombing Iran

By Tom Arms | Sat 14th June 2025 - 10:03 am

There is no safe way to bomb an Iranian nuclear reactor.

This is especially true of Iran’s facilities as the key ones are buried deep underground and heavily protected.

The more impregnable the target. The bigger the bomb required to destroy it. The greater the risk of a nuclear disaster.

This is why Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), quickly called a press conference when he heard of Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear power plants.

Nuclear sites, he said, should never be attacked. He added: “Any military action that jeopardises the safety and security of nuclear facilities risks grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region and beyond.”

The 1986 Chernobyl Disaster resulted in radioactive dust carried to a dozen European countries. Forests died in Scandinavia. Fish stocks were polluted and restrictions on sheep grazing were in place in Wales and the English Lake District for decades. A total of 2,600 square kilometres around Chernobyl has been closed.

Iran has five nuclear facilities – Natanza, Fordow, Isfahan, Arabk and Bushehr. The ones suspected of producing nuclear warheads are Natanza and Fordow. Natanza’s reactors are buried 40-50 metres underground. Fordow’s are also buried deep inside a mountain.

If one of them is severely damaged than the Shamal wind would blow radioactive particles towards Iraq, Syria, the Persian Gulf, Lebanon and even Israel.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iran and israel | 14 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 25th May 2025 - 9:49 am

Romania, Poland, Portugal

On the surface, this week’s elections in Poland, Romania and Portugal were a victory for Europe’s political centre. But look an inch or two below and a different, darker story emerges.

Let’s start with Romania. A few week ago the country was looking into a political abyss after the first-round of presidential elections was won by Calin Georgescu. The far-right, ultra-nationalist, pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine, anti-NATO, agronomist was a political unknown before the December vote. Yet he managed to top the first round of a two-part elections. A quick investigation revealed Russia skulduggery. The election was annulled and Georgescu barred from running for office.

So, the Romanian far-right put up another candidate—George Simion—who adopted many of the same policies of the barred Georgescu. He lost this week’s election. The centrist Nicursor Dan can claim a solid victory with 53.6 percent of the vote but Simion was close enough—at 46.4 percent of the vote—to be a future threat.

A bit further to the north the first round of the Polish presidential elections were much, much closer. Centrist candidate Rafal Trzaskowski narrowly topped the poll with 30.8 percent of the vote while far-right candidate Karol Nawrocki’s slice was 29.1 percent. The two men will face-off in a final round on June 1st.

A far-right Polish president could easily undermine the country’s centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk who has been in the forefront of world leaders supporting Ukraine. The president’s role is largely ceremonial except for the power to veto any legislation passed by the Polish parliament (Sejm) and to appoint the judiciary.

Further to the West, on the edge of the European continent, Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won enough seats to form a government, although it fell short of a majority.

AD’s success, however, was not the big news of the night. The big news was the triumph of the far-right Chega Party which more or less tied with the established centre-left Social Democrats with 23 percent of the vote. Three years ago Chega polled only seven percent.

The Chega Party joins Vox in Spain, Reform in the UK, AfD in Germany, AU in Romania, Sweden Democrats in Sweden, Freedom Party in Austria, National Rally in France….All of these parties have risen on the backs of inflation, a housing crisis and general uncertainty about the future. They are waiting for the established political parties to mis-step, or, fail to deliver.

United States

Gold is Donald Trump’s favourite colour. It is also expensive. These two factors could explain why the American president is calling his proposed missile defense shield the “Golden Dome.”

The wished-for shield is loosely modelled on Israel’s highly successful “Iron Dome” which has successfully rebuffed missile attacks from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

I say, loosely, because Israel’s Iron Dome is 15 mobile Patriot missile batteries which are moved around the country to the best sites for intercepting incoming missiles. The batteries are all land-based and cover an area of 8,550 square miles.

Trump’s Golden Dome would be based on sea, land and in space and would cover an area of 7,650,000 square miles. It would also be designed to detect and destroy missiles before they are launched as well as after they are launched.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged poland, portugal, romania and United states of America | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: South African farmers

By Tom Arms | Sat 24th May 2025 - 9:44 am

South Africa’s White farmers—and, face it, most of South Africa’s farmers are White Afrikaners—are facing difficulties.

Are they being subjected to a government-orchestrated genocide? No, that is a Trumpist calumny of the first order.

Are they being buried in their thousands along the road as show in one of the videos that Trump showed in the Oval Office? No, that was a five year-old video showing a temporary memorial to two Boer farmers.

What about all the newspaper cuttings that Trump produced in his ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa? Those were all about fighting in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo.

How about Julius Malema singing “Kill the Boers.” He is leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters which won 9.5 percent of the vote in the last election. Describing him—as Trump did—as representative of South African politics is akin to saying that Nigel Farage and the Reform Party determine British government policy.

In short, Trump’s attempted trap was riddled with obvious lies. Except one, President Ramaphosa in February signed a bill allowing for the confiscation of farmland.

Mind you, it is more nuanced than that. The bill allows for expropriation in “circumstances where it is just and equitable and in the public interest to do so.” And defines the just and equitable circumstances as when the land is not being used and stipulates that there should be no intention to either develop the land, resell it at profit or to use it such a way to pose a risk to other people.

This may sound fair, but it is also vague enough to worry the banks who are expressing concern about loans to South African farmers. And Boer farmers, like farmers everywhere, live from bank loan to harvest to bank loan.

Actual implementation of the new law is being held up by a legal challenge from the Democratic Alliance Party which is actually a member of the ruling coalition. The DA claim that the law breaches the constitutional provision protecting private property and is preparing its case for South Africa’s Supreme Court.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and south africa | 6 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 18th May 2025 - 8:30 am

A divided Supreme Court?

Birthright citizenship coupled with the power of the courts v. the executive was up before the Supreme Court this week. And it looks as if the court is divided.

A decision will take time, probably a couple of months. But based on the questioning from the Bench it appears as if a decision could go either way, or be wrapped up in so much qualifying legal mumbo-jumbo as to be nearly useless.

Birthright citizenship and the courts v the president are two separate issues but they have been judicially linked because the lower courts have been blocking Trump’s plans to deport more than 5 million people who were born in the US to parents who were illegal aliens.

There are 94 District Courts in the US that hear cases involving the US constitution that are brought to them by people in their district. A ruling by one of the federal judges in those districts can be applied nationally. This means that one of Trump’s Executive Orders can be blocked until the Supreme Court finds time to make a final ruling. This could take many frustrating months—if not longer.

The Trump Administration wants the law changed so that a District Court’s judgements apply only to their district. This would, of course, substantially increase the power of the presidency and his Executive Orders, but could create a confusing judicial quilt of which laws apply where.

Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the The 13th Amendment of the US constitution. The amendment is a direct result of disputes leading up to the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery after it. In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled that African American slaves had no right to citizenship. That meant that when Lincoln issue the Emancipation Declaration on January 1, 1863, the slaves were freed but they were also stateless. The 13th Amendment was meant to correct that.

When it was passed in 1865, no one thought at the time that the amendment would become a loophole for illegal aliens to establish citizenship for their children and a moral right to residency for themselves. But it is still the law. And because it is in the constitution, it is a chiselled in legal granite law.

The only way it can be changed is by amending the constitution. This involves one of two processes. The most difficult is a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress followed by passage of the change by three-quarters of the state legislatures. The second, more usual route, is by ratifying conventions in three-quarters of the states. Both are difficult and time consuming and the reason why the constitution is rarely amended.

Trump likes moving at speed, which is why he is hoping that the Supreme Court will either find a way to declare the 13th Amendment null and void or come up with a work around that will allow him to circumvent it.

Midterm dilemma

Republican Congressmen and Senators are in a bind. Or at least they will be in November 2026 when all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are up for election.

I keep hearing that a growing number of the Republican congressional club are fed up, appalled and seriously worried at the way that Donald Trump is riding roughshod over the constitution, destroying established trade patterns with his tariffs and jettisoning important allies.

But they feel trapped. If they speak up. If they oppose him. They risk losing their seats. And if they lose their seats they lose the platform from which they can oppose him if they can find a way to do so.

It has happened before. Liz Cheney was a highly respected, extremely conservative, Republican senator who vociferously opposed Trump because she thought he was a dictator in the making. Trump turned to his loyal MAGA base and told them to dump Cheney in the Senate primaries and support the far-right MAGA alternative. They did as instructed.

Cheney’s demise was an object lesson for ever centrist-minded Republican in Congress. Tow the Trump line are you are out. Hence the climate of Omerta which has descended on Capitol Hill.

But, Trump is falling in the approval stakes. The majority is starting to turn against the president. Not everywhere. In some states MAGA remains dominant. But enough states that the anti-Trump vote is like to return enough Democrats for the Republicans to lose control of the House of Representatives.

Republican anti-Trump lawmakers are thus caught in the middle between Trump and the MAGA crowd on one side and baying Democrats on the other. It may just be possible that moving against Trump now could win them enough centrist and Democratic votes to keep their seats. That, however, seems unlikely.

Anti-Trump Republicans still, have 18 months until the next election. Will they remember their oath to defend the constitution, rediscover their morals and fight against Trump’s increasingly corrupt authoritarianism? If they do—and lose—at least they will have the knowledge that they went down fighting.

Nobel ambitions

Donald Trump desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize. One of his success v failure yardsticks is outdoing Barack Obama. Obama won the peace prize. Trump must have it too.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 1 Comment

Observations of an ex pat: Middle East

By Tom Arms | Sat 17th May 2025 - 8:30 am

The Middle East has been called Byzantine, a snake pit and a political cesspit. It is a land where there are said to be no national interests, only interests. Where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s bedfellow and vice versa.

The region’s many leaders have changed horses so many times that the horses are dizzy.

All the above is especially true today when the region’s faraway overlord—the President of the United States—is likely to change his mind at the drop of a bitcoin, especially if the coin drops into his account.

This week Donald Trump has been touring the region and it has changed. The Arabs and the Turks are very happy with America. The Iranians may be coming around. The Israelis are—surprise, surprise—unhappy with the mercurial president.

One of the reasons that the Turks and Arabs are pleased is that the US is lifting sanctions on Syria. This became a certainty when Trump met with Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa and pronounced: “I think he has got potential.” Not so many months ago the US had a $10 million dead or alive bounty on his head.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 3 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th May 2025 - 8:59 am

The Vatican

What’s in a name? If you’re the Pope, quite a lot.

With 2,000-years of history, the incoming Bishop of Rome is able to choose a name from among his 266 predecessors whose career best reflects his values.

American-born Robert Prevost has chosen to be known as Pope Leo XIV. This is an important nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church from 1878 to 1903 and is generally regarded as the father of modern Catholic social teaching. He called for the church to address social and economic issues, and emphasized the dignity of individuals, the common good, community, and taking care of marginalized individuals.

In the midst of the Gilded Age, Leo XIII defended the rights of workers and said that the church had not just the duty to speak about justice and fairness, but also the responsibility to make sure that such equities were accomplished.

Prevost’s choice of the name Leo invokes the principles of both Leo XIII and his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis. In his own lifetime he has aligned himself with many of Francis’s social reforms, and his election appears to be a rejection of hard-line right-wing Catholics in the U.S. and elsewhere who have used their religion to support far-right politics.

Leading the American pack as a self-appointed moral arbiter of the Catholic community is Vice-President JD Vance. Shortly after taking office in January, Vance began to talk of the concept of ordo amoris, or “order of love.” He claimed it justified the MAGA emphasis on family and tribalism and the mass expulsion of migrants.

Vance told Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel, “You love your family, and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after all that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”

The Pope’s job is to be a moral arbiter and interpreter of Christian doctrine. Much more so than that of any politician, all of whose morals are generally regarded as suspect. On February 10, Pope Francis responded to Vance in a letter to American bishops. He said the vice president was wrong. “Christians,” wrote the Pope, “know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity,” he wrote. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups…. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by…meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

“Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth,” Pope Francis wrote.

He acknowledged “the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival,” but he defended the fundamental dignity of every human being and the fundamental rights of migrants, noting that the “rightly formed conscience” would disagree with any program that “identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.” He continued: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

The next day, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who described himself as “a lifelong Catholic,” told reporters at the White House, “I’ve got harsh words for the Pope…. He ought to fix the Catholic Church, concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”

As an American-born pope in the model of Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV has the power to present himself as a moral alternative to MAGA in the same way as Polish-born Pope John Paul II countered the Soviet empire. He has already re-tweeted Pope Francis’s criticisms of Vance. This would explain the furious response to the new pope by the MAGA crowd. Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer close to the ear of Donald Trump, Pope Leo, wrote “another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.” Influencer Charlie Kirk suggested he was an “open borders globalist installed to counter Trump.” Kirk is probably right. Is that such a bad thing?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, germany, keir starmer, pope leo, the vatican and united kingdom | 7 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Kashmir in a changed world

By Tom Arms | Sat 10th May 2025 - 9:54 am

Fifteen years ago there were probably three major hotspots in the world: The Korean Peninsula, the Middle East and Kashmir. All three of them involved nuclear weapons.

Ranked in terms of potential flare-ups, the Middle East was at the top followed by Korea because the United States was heavily involved in both those disputes. Kashmir was well down the list because it was mainly a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, although China also had a foothold in the picture postcard mountain region. Kashmir, however, seemed more manageable than the other two hotspots.

This month, however, Kashmir moved up the troublesome leader board after Muslim terrorists murdered a group of Indian tourists. The links between the Pakistan government and the terrorists is uncertain. What is known is that Pakistan is controlled by the army and the army is control by General Asim Munir, an Islamic scholar who recently referred to Kashmir as “the jugular vein of Pakistan.”

The Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi does not need much to encourage it to go after Pakistan. It did so this week by threatening to cut Pakistan off from vital water supplies and by launching a surgical strike 70 miles inside Pakistan in the important Punjab region.

Pakistan responded by shooting down Indian war planes and by firing the opening shots in South Asia’s first drone war.

Then, both sides appear to have taken a step back to catch their breath and review the situation. Pakistan has said it will respond to the latest fighting “at a time and place of its choosing,” which is usually interpreted a step towards a ceasefire.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged kashmir | 2 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 4th May 2025 - 8:30 am

Kashmir

Donald Trump says that the Kashmir problem goes back thousands of years and is very complicated, which is his way of saying that he doesn’t want to be involved.

To be honest we can talk about the roots of Hinduism, the invasion of the Mughals, the British Empire, and etcetera. But in reality the Kashmir problem dates back to the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent.

At that time the semi-autonomous kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir was given the option to join India or Pakistan. But there was a snag. The monarch—Maharaja Hari Singh was a Hindu while the majority of the population was Muslim.

Initially, the Maharaja tried to solve the problem by opting for independence. However, in October 1947, tribal militias from Pakistan invaded Kashmir. This prompted the Maharaja to seek military assistance from India. In return, he signed the Instrument of Accession, formally agreeing to join India. The result was the First Indo-Pakistani War (1947–1948).

The conflict ended with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in 1949, which established a Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir between Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. The UN also called for a plebiscite to allow the people of Kashmir to choose between India and Pakistan. This never happened.

Kashmir has remained a flashpoint ever since. India and Pakistan have fought additional wars over the region—in 1965 and 1999—and tensions persist with frequent military skirmishes along the LoC.

In addition to the international dimension, Kashmir also faces internal unrest. From 1989 onward, a violent separatist insurgency emerged in Indian-administered Kashmir, fuelled by dissatisfaction with Indian rule, human rights abuses, and support for militants from across the border. This insurgency has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and widespread suffering among civilians.

Then in August 2019, Narendra Modi’s Indian government, revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which had granted Jammu and Kashmir a special autonomous status. This was followed by a heavy military crackdown, internet shutdowns, and the detention of local leaders.

Just to make things more complicated, China also holds a portion of the region (Aksai Chin) and has its own disputes with India and tends to side with Pakistan.

This is all very troubling, but what makes it more so is the nuclear dimension. In 1998 both countries started building nuclear arsenals and they both have about 170 nuclear warheads each. India has a No First Use policy. Pakistan does not. This presumably means that if Pakistan is faced what it regarded as an existential threat then it would feel justified in the nuclear option.

Following the recent murder of 26 Indian tourists in Kashmir, India has threatened to scupper the 1960 Indus Water Treaty and cut Pakistan off from water which it needs to survive. This has been interpreted as an existential threat.

To complicate matters further, Israel—with its estimated 160 nuclear warheads—is paranoid about the “Islamic bomb” represented by Pakistan. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu also has close relations with India’s Narendra Modi.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is not known for ethnical behaviour. In fact, he may be one of the most corrupt presidents in American history. And American politics have been known for their corruption throughout the country’s nearly 250-year history.

In his first term, President Trump was attacked for promoting his newly-acquired International Hotel in Washington DC as THE Washington hostelry. His message was clear to foreign and domestic visitors: stay at my hotel and I will looking kindly on you. Guess where visitors stayed?

Whenever Trump upped sticks and moved to the Florida White House at Mar-a-Lago (which was quite often) he took with him a large retinue of Secret Service agents and White House staff. He charged the government for the privilege. This earned him an estimated $2 million net in his first four years. The practice continued when he was out of office and in his second term.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and kashmir | 3 Comments

Observations of an Expat:100 Days

By Tom Arms | Sat 3rd May 2025 - 10:13 am

The first 100 days of the Trump Administration has been among the most consequential in American history. Consequential does not necessarily mean good. In this case, it means very, very bad.

Let’s start with the elusive issue of reputation. In the eyes of the rest of the world, America’s reputation is probably the worst it has ever been.

It took years of painstaking work to establish the trust and relationships that made America the leader of the Free World. It has had its problems, but generally speaking, post-war America is the closest the world has ever had to a “shining city on the hill.” Poof! Gone in 100 days or less.

Make America Great Again has become America first then we win, you lose zero-sum international politics.

The United States has gone from supporting democracies around the world to cosying up to dictatorships. It has threatened to withdraw support from its allies and threatened them with annexation.

The United States was the chief architect of the post-war rules-based international order which has resulted in one of the most sustained periods of world peace and economic growth in human history. Trump has turned his back on the rule of law in favour of might is right at both the international and domestic level.

He appears willing to turn away from Ukraine and towards rule-breaking Russia because—as he told Volodomyr Zelensky—the Ukrainian president doesn’t “have the cards.”

Domestically, he is bypassing Congress to rule by decree with a flurry of Executive Orders. These EOs have thrown tens of thousands of federal workers out of work. They have led to major cutbacks at the National Institute of Health, university research programmes and the Centre for Disease Control which will cost umpteen lives in America and the world.

His row with the universities has damaged academic freedom and the well-deserved reputation for excellence in America’s higher education.

He has called into question America’s much-admired system of checks and balances not only by bypassing Congress but by also ignoring the courts who have criticised him for arresting and deporting people without due process of law. Freedom of association, the press and speech (all of which are enshrined in the First Amendment) mean nothing to Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and United states of America | 3 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 27th April 2025 - 8:30 am

Pakistan and water

Pakistan is a water-stressed country. It is totally dependent on the Indus Valley Basin for survival.

That is why it has threatened war in response to India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty following the killing of 26 Indian tourists in Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty is considered the most successful treaty of its kind in the world. Probably in the history of the world. It has held through three wars and numerous skirmishes between two countries whose religious difference mean that they truly detest each other.

There are six rivers in the Indus Basin (Indus, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, Jhelum and Sutlej). India administers the three eastern rivers and Pakistan the three western rivers. Both countries use the network for transport, drinking water, hydro-electricity, agriculture and industry.

But here is the rub. The main headwaters for the Indus Basin are in India which gives it the power to control the flow of water downstream. And Pakistan needs the water more than India.

Ninety percent of Pakistanis live in the Indus Basin. The rivers provide 90 percent of the irrigation water needed for Pakistani farms which provide 24 percent of the country’s GDP and employ 34 percent of the labour force. Eighty percent of the water needed for domestic and industrial use comes from the basin and nearly a quarter of Pakistan’s electricity is hydro based.

Economists reckon that Indian withdrawal from the treaty would lead to a flight of capital from economically hard-pressed Pakistan and the destruction of the country’s economy. Even worse, it raises a spectre of a war for survival between the regions two nuclear powers.

The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny played a centre-stage diplomatic role this week. When Donald Trump announced the death of Pope Francis this week he stood next to an actor dressed as the Easter bunny.

The juxtaposition was symbolic. Trump hated the Pope and wanted to demonstrate this by belittling the announcement of his death.

He has proven form for such occasions. When the widely-admired Senator John McCain died, Congress directed that America’s flags be lowered to half-mast. McCain and Trump were enemies. Trump ordered that the White House flag stay up.

Donald Trump and Pope Francis could not have been more different. The Pope lived a life of poverty. Trump lives a life of gilded ostentatiousness.

There was also policy substance behind the stylistic differences—mostly on the issue of immigration and migrants. The centrepiece of Trump’s first election campaign was a “big beautiful wall” to keep out illegal immigrants.

On a trip to Mexico, Pope Francis said: “A person who thinks only about building walls…and not bridges, is not a Christian.”

Pope Francis believed that Christian love required compassionate care for migrants. Trump called them “rapists, murderers and terrorists.”

After Trump’s second election victory, the Pope gave a television interview in which he said it would be a “disgrace” if Trump implemented his mass deportation plans. He followed that up with a letter to America’s Catholic bishops in which he said: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

The Pope’s last visitor before he died was Vice President JD Vance, himself a Catholic convert. What the two men discussed is not known. But it was reported that after the audience JD Vance was sent to a Vatican cardinal to be lectured on the responsibilities of a Christian leader.

Who benefits from the Chinese/American trade war?

South American farmers are delighted with the Sino-American trade war. Especially those in Argentina and Brazil.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 1 Comment

Observations of an ex pat: The big split

By Tom Arms | Sat 26th April 2025 - 8:59 am

The possibility of a “Big Split” between Europe and America has taken another giant leap forward with a take-it-or-leave-it Ukraine plan from President Trump.

In addition, there are dangers of widening chasms opening up between EU and European members of NATO.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and chief negotiator Steve Witkoff were expected in London this week for talks on Ukraine with key European leaders. But at the last minute they pulled out, saying that the president was tired of negotiations and demanded that all sides accept an agreement hammered out in Moscow between Witkoff and Putin.

The proposal on the table is basically a sell-out to Putin: International recognition of the annexation of Crimea; defacto control of Eastern Ukraine; Ukraine banned from NATO and the end of sanctions. Ukraine gets undefined “robust security guarantees” the return of small slice of the Kharkiv Oblast and undefined sum to rebuild the country. The US gets a minerals deal with Ukraine; operating rights for Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and increased cooperation with Russia, especially in the energy and industrial sectors.

Trump’s proposal makes no effort to uphold any principle of international law. It turns back the diplomatic clock to pay homage to the pre-war axiom might is right.

Vladimir Putin must be turning somersaults. If this proposal is accepted by Zelensky and his European backers the Russian president will have won. As German Chancellor said, if the Russian-American agreement goes ahead, Putin can say: “I can afford such aggression. I will prevail and I will achieve my goals.”

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

Tom Arms’ World Review

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

Trumpian chaos has dealt another blow to Ukraine.

The American president said that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. He would bring peace to the region even before he was inaugurated.

Trump had a special bond with Vladimir Putin. The two men had chemistry and he could use it to the end war.

Zelensky meanwhile was a “dictator”. Ukraine started the war. Zelensky needed to sign over his country’s mineral rights to pay an inflated price for past help.

And then, Putin isacting unreasonably. He is sending in missiles and killing children when there is supposed to be a limited ceasefire. The Russian leader is stalling.

Then finally, on Friday—exactly one month after US and Russian teams gathered in Riyadh, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tells his European counterparts that Donald Trump has decided that talks are taking too long and he is considering pulling out of the negotiations that he initiated.

Ukraine is just another example of chaotically disjointed governance which is leaving the world’s leaders standing around scratching their heads in Trump’s destructive wake

Tariff Hokey Cokey

Liberation Day, tariffs on everything and everyone except Russia, Belarus and North Korea. No, tariffs off. No, tariffs still on China. No, tariffs off some goods from China.

America is committed to NATO, says Rubio. No, NATO is full of freeloading Europeans and we should exit the alliance as quickly as possible, says Vice President JD Vance.

Trump’s anti-woke ideology harnessed to his 19th century economic policies, short-termism and demand for instant solutions to complex problems has created a crisis of confidence in America and its position in the world. It has also created a vacuum for China to step into.

China traces its civilisation back nearly 5,000 years. The United States will next year celebrate its 250th birthday.

Short term planning for China is a decade. Long term is… well, forever.

Short-term planning for the United States is until the next mid-term congressional elections held every two years. Long-term is the presidential elections every four years.

Governments in China stay in power until the “Mandate of Heaven” falls from their shoulders. American governments last four, maybe eight years if they are lucky.

Chinese people have no experience of democracy. Like their governments they live in the present and think not of tomorrow but of a future well beyond tomorrow. They are the standard bearers of an ancient well-ordered and established civilisation

American people think of themselves as the standard bearers of democracy. Their society is thrusting, fast-moving, exciting and constantly changing at a sometimes exhausting pace.

Which of these two countries is best equipped to deal with the economic hardships that Donald Trump is inflicting on both of them?

A rock and a hard place

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

Observations of an ex pat – MAGA vs the Liberal Elite

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

Cometh the hour. Cometh the university. To be more specific, that bastion of American liberalism—Harvard.

The defeated Democratic Party is worse than useless. The lawyers are frightened of threatened retribution. The media are curbing their criticisms in face of mounting law suits. The courts are hard at work, but they take time and the ultimate legal arbiter — the Supreme Court — has a decided conservative bent.

However, Trump may have met his match in Harvard University. In America money talks. Harvard has money. A $53.2 billion endowment fund. This money is a shield against all the arrows — mainly financial — that Trump is raining down on them.

The reason for the attacks on Harvard and other Ivy League universities is alleged anti-Semitism on campus.In reality it is because Harvard—and most of the other American universities are citadels of open-minded, free-thinking, liberalism of the sort that has made America great. It represents everything that the current president opposes. As Trump publicly said: “I think Harvard is a disgrace”

The liberal elite of academia is a top target. If Trump can crush liberalism and force open the university doors to MAGA thinking then he will have changed America for generations. Harvard is America’s top university. If he can succeed there the others will follow.

To that end, Trump’s administration has written to the university with a list of demands to be met with the implied threat of further action if they are not. They include subjecting the university to government oversight of Harvard’s admission and hiring policies. The university must provide personal details of all foreign students, monitor their activities and report on those activities to a federal authority. Anything that smacks of DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) programs must end along with any criticism of Israel which the Trump Administration has conflated with anti-Semitism.

And finally, Harvard University must agree to the government approving the university curriculum to ensure that faculty are promoting “American values.” Exactly who decides what those values are is needlessly left unspoken.

Harvard–in polite legal terms– has refused to comply.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 34 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th April 2025 - 9:56 am

United States

Republican Senators and Congressmen must be terrified of losing their jobs. And if they do go, they can only blame the man who helped put them in office— Donald Trump.

Before the economic meltdown, the Republican legislators were facing town hall meetings filled with constituents angry about Elon Musk’s chain saw approach to government, cuts in foreign aid, deportations of students and attacks on the constitution and the courts.

Almost to a man (or woman) they faced the crowds with a Trumpian smile that tried to reassure the voters that the president knew what he was doing and that he was going to “Make America Great Again”.

They had to say that because Trump and his billionaire acolyte Elon Musk held the campaign purse strings. The president has even managed to install his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as chairman of the Republican National Committee which vets candidates and channels party funds.

If a Republican candidate failed to pay obeisance to the MAGA leader and his policies then the next time they came up for re-election, Musk or another one of Trump’s billionaire friends, would finance their opponent in the primary elections for the nomination. In American politics, money talks.

Or does it? Elon Musk spent a record $25 million backing the Republican candidate in the race for a seat on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. The Democrat candidate, Susan Crawford, won it by ten points. The electorate balked at being told what to do by an American oligarch who was working with Donald Trump to destroy the American government and its constitution.

What happened in Wisconsin could easily be a harbinger of political battles across America, especially now that economic chaos has set in. Inflation is rising despite Trump’s promises to bring it down. Most people don’t believe his promise to protect Medicaid and Medicare. Their pensions are sliding along with the stock market. And they don’t like the rest of the world hating them.

They voted for change. But not for the ill-planned unbridled change wrought by Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants in Congress and the cabinet.

There is an excellent chance of the Democrats winning both houses in the mid-term elections. They may even win a two-thirds majority in the Senate which will give them enough seats to impeach—and convict—Donald Trump for abuse of power.

But the mid-terms are two years away and Donald Trump has proven that he can wreak untold damage on America—and the world—in under 100 days.

Some Republican congressmen have spoken out against the president. Not enough. Many more have whispered their opposition in private but backed him when the cameras turned on them. If they can be persuaded by their town halls that their futures are damaged by association with Trump and assured by opposition to him than perhaps—just perhaps—Congress can grow a backbone.

Iran

The Iranians must be terrified of Trump. That can be the only reason they have agreed to meet in Oman this weekend to discuss swapping potential nuclear weapons for peace.

The reasons are clear. Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza have been decimated. They have lost their string of bases in Syria and the Iranian-backed Houthis are suffering.

But most important of all, success has set Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-driven pulse racing. Destroying Hamas and Hezbollah is not enough for the Israeli prime minister. He wants to go after what he calls “the head of the snake”—Iran.

President Biden worked hard to keep a tight rein on Netanyahu’s blood lust, both in Gaza and Lebanon and towards Iran.

Trump appears willing to unleash him, maybe even with American help. He has proposed taking over Gaza, moving out the Palestinians and turning the area into a Middle Eastern Riviera. And as Netanyahu has increased his attacks in Gaza and the West Bank Trump has said nothing other than though to tell Hamas that “all Hell will break loose” if Hamas fails to release remaining Israeli hostages.

Posted in Op-eds | 12 Comments

Observations of an Expat: It’s War

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th April 2025 - 9:49 am

Trump has declared war on China. It’s a trade war, not a shooting war. But the fallout will still be devastating and it will reach every corner of the globe.

The markets rallied on the news that Trump had blinked. He had reduced everyone’s tariffs to a blanket 10 percent—plus 25 percent for cars, aluminium and steel—except China.

Then tariffs on Chinese goods went up. China retaliated. They went up again. As of this writing tariffs on China stand at 145 percent. And Chinese tariffs on US goods are at 84 percent.

That effectively means that the world’s two biggest economies, who between them control 49 percent of global trade, have locked themselves out of each other’s markets. American farmers who rely on China for their sales will be left with crops rotting in the fields. And American shops that sell everything from t-shirts to I-phones will be left with the choice of either empty shelves or more than doubling their prices.

Trump promised to bring inflation down. It will go up. So will interest rates as the Federal Reserve Bank tries to control spiralling prices. Which means that mortgages and business loans will rise. As business costs rise so will unemployment.

These problems will extend far beyond American shores. There is more than a grain of truth in the saying “when American sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.”

But there is more. If America can’t sell to China and China can’t sell to America then where will all the soybeans, wheat, steel, cars, computers… go. The answer is Europe, the UK, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and India. This means that those countries goods will have to compete against Chinese and American businesses forced to dump their surplus output on third country markets. And, of course, all those countries will have to pay tariffs to export to America.

And there is more. Trump claims that the tariffs will increase foreign investment in America. Companies, he says, will build factories in the US in order to avoid US tariffs and sell to Americans. But will they? Most major businesses these days think in global not national terms. America is sealing its market off from the rest of the world and, anyway, it is quite likely to be in recession. Finally, foreign businesses crave economic stability. Trump’s up, down, in, out, unhinged shoot-from-the-hip economic policies are creating chaos rather than stability.

Perhaps most worrying of all, is the bond market. Bonds are effectively loans. US Treasury bonds are loans made to the US government to finance America’s trade deficit. At the beginning of the month America’s foreign debt stood at $7.9 trillion. Half of the debt is held by governments. Japan, China and Britain being the top three.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged china, trade wars and United states of America | 15 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th April 2025 - 10:03 am

France

France’s Marine Le Pen has been hoisted upon her own petard. At the National Rally’s annual convention in 2015 she stood at the podium and declared that any politician found guilty of a crime should be barred from office.

Of course, she wasn’t talking about herself. She was referring to the long parade of French political leaders who had fallen foul of the law and been convicted of everything from incitement to hate crimes to pimping to old-fashioned corruption. They included her own father (Jean-Marie Le Pen) and two French presidents (Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy).

Most of them got off fairly lightly, heavy fines and mostly suspended sentences. Only one senior French politician in recent memory has been barred from office—former prime minister Alain Juppe who in 2004 was found guilty of an almost identical crime as the one committed by Ms Le Pen: misusing public funds for political purposes.

In the case of Ms Le Pen and her 24 co-defendants in the National Rally, they were found guilty of taking $4,412,000 earmarked for European Parliamentary business and using the money to pay people working for National Rally. Ms Le Pen was responsible for $520,000 of the money.

The parallels with the legal travails of Donald Trump are obvious. But the American courts took the position that they should go easy on him because he was on the cusp of becoming president. Ms Le Pen is also leading the polls. But the French judges have argued the opposite to their American counterparts.

They judged that because Ms Le Pen was a leading candidate for the presidency of France she should receive a harsher sentence. To do otherwise, argued the court, “would cause a major disruption to democratic public order.”

Ms Le Pen and Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban and just under half of French voters think that the sentence is unacceptable interference by the courts in the political process. Everyone else thinks that it is important that the law be upheld—a law which Ms Le Pen herself supported.

Canada

It’s called the “Trump Factor” in Canada and it is defined as the out-sized impact that the American president is having on the Canadian elections scheduled for 28 April.

The focus of Canadians is not surprising as Trump has taken it upon himself to threaten Canadian sovereignty by calling for it to become the 51st state and is about to slap tariffs on Canada which will destroy the country’s economy and tens of thousands of jobs.

Which brings us to Canada’s conservative leader Pierre Polievre who has been referred to as “Trump light.” He favours private enterprise; wants some immigration controls; is an anti-vaxxer; is so-so on the issue of climate change; has promised the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history; and is seriously anti-woke.

Back in January—before Trump launched his anti-Canadian crusade—Polievre’s policies were enough to put him an apparent shoe-in for the premiership as his party polled 25 points ahead of the governing Liberals.

As of this week, the Liberals are 25 points ahead of Polievre’s conservatives.

The complete reversal is partly down to the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After nine years in office, the pretty boy of Canadian politics, had run out of steam and was deeply unpopular.

He was replaced by technocrat Mark Carney whose impressive cv includes stints as the governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Carney then played the card that was the second, bigger reason for the reversal in political fortunes—the Canadian public’s growing hatred of Donald Trump.

Carney has broken with diplomatic convention and refused make his first visit to Washington. Instead he flew to London and Paris. He has been adamant that Canada will never be part of the United States. He will retaliate against any Trumpian tariffs and work to reorganise Canada’s trading patterns away from America. “Our relationship with America will never be the same,” Carney declared.

He doesn’t need any policies other than being firmly anti-Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged australia, canada, china, france, marine le pen, mark carney, peter dutton and united states | 18 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Boycott!

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th April 2025 - 9:52 am

It’s time to boycott American goods and services. Buy British. Buy European. Buy Chinese. Buy anything except American.

Non-Americans hit by Trumpian tariffs cannot influence American politics through the ballot box. But they can vote with their pocket books. And a point-blank refusal to buy American products would have more of an impact than retaliatory tariffs that make those products more expensive.

Individuals are already turning their backs on American merchandise. Last month Europeans registered their displeasure with Donald Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk by cutting Tesla sales by 50 percent. Others have shown their disapproval by refusing to buy Coca-Cola or taking their coffee breaks at Café Nero instead of Starbucks.

But these are haphazard kneejerk boycotts which may give the individual a momentary self-righteous glow. They will have little if any effect on the Washington policymakers. What is needed is a coordinated effort that organises pickets, produces literature and stuffs it through letter products. A well-oiled machine with foot soldiers, a PR team and a website that identifies products and services to boycott and names non-American alternatives and goes on to monitor success.

A boycott would also help the re-ordering of trade patterns away from the United States. If people are not buying American goods than they are buying goods from other countries. The businesses in those countries will quickly realise the opportunity and divert their supply lines accordingly

The government can’t do the job of organising a boycott. Not because it is incapable of the task but because it would be politically irresponsible. A successful government-organised boycott would almost certainly result in retribution from the ever-mercurial Trump. It would be in character for Trump to retaliate with restrictions in vital areas such as intelligence gathering or weapons procurement.

No, what is needed is an existing political machine that has significant representation in parliament but is separate from the government. There is no time to re-invent the wheel. The public requires an existing political party whose leader has already firmly staked out a firm anti-Trumpian position and called for a coordinated response to tariffs and other unacceptable behaviour by the current tenant of the White House.

What is needed is for Britain’s Liberal Democrats—led by Sir Ed Davey—to organise a proper boycott of American products. The government can’t do it. The Tories won’t do it. That leaves the Liberal Democrats – with a leader committed to doing something—with the opportunity and the responsibility.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged boycott american goods and services, donald trump, featured and tariffs | 30 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

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

Tariffs

There is a major contradiction at the core of the tariffs that Donald Trump announced this week.

Trump says that the tariffs have the dual purpose of revitalising American industry—especially the car industry—and raising billions in tax revenues which will allow him to cut other taxes.

The problem is that one will cancel out the other. If, as hoped, Americans eschew foreign cars to buy American, then other countries will stop exporting their cars (and car components) to the US. Thus the revenue from tariffs will substantially decline.

Trump vs Europe

If Europe wanted more reasons to re-evaluate its relationship with the US, Signalgate has provided them.

Trump has imposed tariffs. Vice President Vance used the Munich Security Conference to attack European values. But that was in public. Sometimes what is said behind closed doors—among like-minded friends—is more revealing.

Vance expressed some blunt opinions on America’s European allies. He said any airstrikes would benefit Europe more than America. He that three percent of US cargo passed through the Suez Canal compared to 40 percent of European goods.

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” said the Vice President. “Let’s just make sure our messaging is right here.”

Hegseth also was not a European fan. “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading,” he said. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close.”

The two men went on to agree that they should find a way to force the Europeans to pay for the attack on Yemen.

US targets foreign students

Turkish PhD Student Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to dinner at a Boston restaurant when six people with their faces covered by scarves, hoodies and large dark sunglasses surrounded her.

“We are police, and you are under arrest,” they told the 30-year-old Tufts University student. They failed to show any identification, quickly cuffed Ms Ozturk and bundled her into an SUV. The incident was captured on a surveillance camera.

Ms Ozturk is the latest foreign student to be arrested for protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza. Her specific crime appears to have been writing an op-ed for the student newspaper supporting calls for Tufts University to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Within hours, a Boston judge, issued an order prohibiting her removal from Massachusetts. Sorry, came back the reply from the Department of Homeland Security, she is already in a Louisiana detention centre. Oh, and by the way, her, student visa has been revoked.

The same fate has befallen two other foreign students—Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University and Bada Khan Suri from Georgetown University. Each of them exercised their right of free speech under the US constitution’s First Amendment and were arrested for doing so. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that there “at least” another 300 foreign students whose visas have been revoked for “anti-Semitic behaviour.”

Foreign visitors—including students—have to abide by American laws. But they are also protected by American law. This includes the right of free speech, legal representation and a fair hearing. But without a student visa they cannot stay in the country to defend themselves.

Taliban talk

Posted in News | Tagged tom arms world review | 8 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: More security boo-boos expected

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Signalgate–as it is now called—will almost certainly be the first of many security breaches by this second Trump Administration.

There are several reasons for this: Trump’s own cavalier attitude towards secret information; the president’s extreme distaste of government employees (the “deep state”); Elon Musk’s purge of the civil service and the low calibre and inexperience of the people he has appointed to high office.

No one expects political appointments to know all the dos and don’ts of the security business less than two months into the job. They shouldn’t even necessarily know that it is highly dangerous to discuss an attack plan in a glorified What’s App group call.

That is why there are paid officials who have been doing the job for years. One of the main purposes of a civil servant is to handle the mechanics of a meeting. It is the officials’ job to make certain that the right people are invited at the right time and, if classified material is being discussed, to a secure location and that the discussion is conducted so that it is leak-proof. It is important job. Lives depend on it.

I once attended a press conference on weapons procurement at the British Ministry of Defense. Journalise after journalist asked the minister about performance details of various weapons. The minister repeatedly turned to his accompanying civil servant and asked: “May I answer that?” The civil servant politely replied: “No, minister.” He did his job.

The problem is that Elon Musk has fired many of the people who did that sort of job. Or they have resigned in disgust. Or they are too frightened to speak up for fear of losing their job.

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

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 23rd March 2025 - 9:18 am

Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a high. His Syrian proxy is in power in Damascus. The Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has called on his followers to lay down their arms and disband. Kurdish fighters in Syria are doing that and amalgamating their forces with those of the new Erdogan-backed government.

It is the perfect time for the Turkish president to go after his domestic opposition. And that is exactly what he has done.

This week he arrested his chief political opponent—Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu– on charges of corruption and aiding and abetting terrorists. Funnily enough, the arrest came just before Imamoglu was due to be nominated as the candidate for the presidency by the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The elections are not due until 2028, but the opposition wanted to give Imamoglu the maximum campaign time to break the stranglehold that Erdogan has on the media, courts, police and electoral processes.

Erdogan shouldn’t be worried about the Istanbul mayor simply because he has announced that he is retiring in 2028 when his term of office ends. In fact, he has to retire. Unless… he changes the constitution.

The current constitution limits the president to two terms in office. Erdoğan was first elected in 2014, but changed the constitution so that he was able to serve three consecutive terms instead of the two under the old constitution.

Erdoğan has made statements in the past indicating that he would retire in 2028, but there’s also speculation that he might seek to alter the constitution or push for an extension of his term. Both of which are possible given the dominance of his Law and Justice Party (AKP). And his chances are improved even more by the elimination of the only personality presenting a serious challenge.

Putin

In 2007 President George W. Bush declared: “I looked into the soul of President Putin and found a man I could trust.” He later admitted that that he was wrong.

In 2014 Putin denied that Russian troops were in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. They were “local militia” or “volunteers,” he claimed. He also denied any intention of annexing Crimea. He lied about the “volunteers” and annexed Crimea.

In July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. Putin blamed the Ukrainians. A multinational investigation determined it was the Russians.

At Helsinki, the Russian leader told Donald Trump that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections. The Mueller Report and every one of the US intelligence agencies said it did. Putin dismissed the allegations as part of a wider conspiracy against Russia.

In 2018 former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with novichok in the quiet English town of Salisbury. Putin said it had nothing to do with Russia. British intelligence determined that he ordered the attempted assassination and identified the assassins.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel, turkey and vladimir putin | 11 Comments

Observations of an Expat: First Shots Fired

By Tom Arms | Sat 22nd March 2025 - 10:14 am

The first shots were fired this week in the war between the White House and the American judiciary.

As expected, the courts have moved to block Donald Trump’s disregard for the constitution and the rule of law and to nudge him toward legality.

Not so expected is the Republicans response: The threat of impeachment.

So far four judges have either been threatened with impeachment or have had articles of impeachment lodged against them in the House of Representatives. They are:

Judge Paul Engelmayer issued an order preventing DOGE from accessing the federal payments system.
Judge John Bates ruled that health agencies must restore data related to gender-affirming care,
Judge Amir Ali granted a temporary restraining order that halted Trump’s 90-day suspension of foreign aid.
Judge John McConell ordered the White House to lift a freeze on federal spending.

But the bulk of the White House’s venom has been saved for and directed against Judge James Boasberg. He had the temerity to challenge the administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members to an El Salvadorean prison.

The deportation was wrong on so many counts. For a start, the deportees were suspected criminals. They had not been convicted in a court of law. Furthermore, the Alien Enemies Act allows for the deportation of citizens of countries with which the US is at war. America is not at war with Venezuela. Finally, the administration ignored the judge’s ruling not to land the deportees in El Salvador and to return to the US.

Trump has chosen his fight well. Immigrants are unpopular. Immigrants who are suspected members of a violent Venezuelan gang even more so. So, MAGA—and the Republican Congress—is standing four-square behind Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump | 4 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Ukraine

The Ukraine ball has bounced from Ukraine’s court to Russia’s court and now back into America’s court.

Donald Trump has always claimed a special relationship with Vladimir Putin– “He listens to me…the war would never have started if I had been in office…I can stop this war in 24 hours.”

Not if Vladimir can help it. As I write this Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is flying back to Washington after exhausting talks in the Kremlin. He went asking Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine had already—under pressure from Trump—said yes.

Putin said…I’ll think about it. Actually he was a bit more diplomatic. He prefaced his hesitation with the normal flattery that must precede any exchange with the American president. He said that he is “aligned” with Trump and “expressed solidarity” with the man in the White House.

Then the Russian leader said: “I need more information,”which is another way of saying “I’ll think about it,”which is another way of stalling.

Putin is stalling because at the moment he is on the offensive. It looks as if he might soon push the Ukrainians out of their Kursk salient. He continues to inch forward in the Donbas and every captured inch improves his negotiating position.

That negotiating position has not changed for three years: Ukraine out of NATO and EU and demilitarised. International recognition for the annexation of the Donbas and Crimea. Sanctions lifted. Zelensky replaced by a Russian puppet.

Trump, however, is not focused on Putin’s long-term aims. He wants a ceasefire now. He has demanded it and has threatened renewed sanctions if his ultimatum is not met. It hasn’t been and Trump’s next move will reveal more about his role as honest broker.

Trump’s tariff rollercoaster

Tariffs up, down, off, on. Markets crave certainty. They fear uncertainty and they panic at chaos.

Trump’s muddled tariff policy is causing the stock market to dive. And according to Trump’s past statements, the stock market is the best judge of his economic policies.

He started off well. His election in November was followed by big rises. Nasdaq and the Dow Jones reached record highs in December. The S&P 500 two months later. American business was anticipating an economic boom fuelled by a bonfire of government regulations. It didn’t believe that Trump would actually follow through with threats of tariffs.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, international trade, the philippines, tom arms world review and ukraine | 11 Comments

Observations of an Ex Pat : Development Bonds

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th March 2025 - 8:30 am

It’s all about timing, and in my case the time may have arrived for an idea that I first mooted 25 years ago. In 2018 it was shortlisted for a prize in honour of the late Paddy Ashdown.

It if won first prize the idea might have progressed. But instead it has sat on my computer hard drive waiting for the right moment to be pulled out.

The idea concerns foreign aid. Trump has slashed US aid by 80 percent, Britain by 40 percent, France by a third and Germany and Japan by a to-be-announced amount. On top of that, the liberal bastion “The Economist” this week sounded “The Death of Foreign Aid.”

The result will be that literally billions of people will suffer. They will have less money for education, military protection, health and investment in infrastructure projects that can lift their countries out of poverty and create markets for the developed world. Many will die. Many already have.

The Economist argues that the cuts could be silver-lined clouds. That many developing countries have become aid-dependent and the dramatic cutbacks could force governments in the developing world to reorganize and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

If so, development bonds, might be worth considering by both the developed and developing world. The concept of development bonds had its genesis in Renaissance Italy where bonds were sold to wealthy merchants to fund local building projects. The idea was unearthed by New York to finance the Erie Canal and over the years has become a financial pillar for America’s infrastructure finance. In 2023, $456 billion was raised in municipal bonds. It is estimated that $4.5 trillion is currently outstanding.

The structure is simple. Wealthy individuals invest in a bond issued by a state or local authority. The bondholders receive regular interest payments which they can deduct from federal income tax. When the bond matures they receive the principal which they invested. This also is untaxed.

My development bond proposal would extend the US system to the developing world. Wealthy individuals, banks, pension funds and others would invest in bonds to build infrastructure projects in the developing world. The investors would deduct the interest payments from taxes due in their country of residence.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 14 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Germany

Friedrich Merz is steaming ahead—and he hasn’t even formed his government.

The string bean leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is certain to be chancellor as soon as he has formed his coalition with the Social Democrats. But that will take several weeks of political haggling and the fast moving and fast deteriorating international scene dictates that the power house of Europe must be involved NOW.

So, next week the German parliament is being recalled to amend the federal constitution to allow the government to increase borrowing to boost the economy by investing in infrastructure and to pay for a bigger defense establishment. This means that when the new government is sworn in on March 25th it will have the financial means to hit the ground running.

Up until the election of Donald Trump Merz was a firm Atlanticist. But on election night he he spun 180 degrees. “My absolute priority,” he told supporters, “will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

And for those who worry about Trump pulling out of NATO, Merz strongly hinted that Europe may be the ones to leave the alliance.

United States

The US Department of Defense recently published a manual on counter-insurgency called Joint Publication 3-24 (JP3-24). It argued that the lessons over the past 60 years show that in the 21st century the only way that one country can successfully occupy another is through total annihilation.

“To hold countries,” wrote the American planners, “you need to impose order. To impose order you need to control populations. To control populations you need to use violence. Violence leads to violence, which is inherently antithetical to order.”

American forces have discovered in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that, even with the support of local governments, tiny pockets of resistance can make chaos more or less permanent. Attempts to quell that chaos are counterproductive as they only result in reactive violence.

The days of colonial empires imposing their rule on near-docile populations is over. In the post-colonial world populations demand the right to rule. If occupiers want to usurp that right they have to impose draconian anti-insurgent measures and each new imposition undermines their control.

What the US has found to its cost, the Russians should have concluded after the failure of their Ukrainian puppet Viktor Yanukovych and will discover again if they succeed in ousting Volodomyr Zelensky and installing a stooge in Kyiv. Vladimir Putin will certainly discover the truth of JP3-24 if he goes onto re-establish the Russian empire and conquers Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and others.

His only hope is to replace the local majority with an ethnic Russian majority. This was a well-tried tactic of the tsars and Joseph Stalin which led to the forced removal of local populations to less equable climes such as Siberia.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged canada, elon musk, germany, new zealand and United states of America | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Buy American, Save Ukraine.

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th March 2025 - 9:11 am

There is an outside, long shot chance of saving Ukraine and the Western Alliance—Buy American.

I don’t mean American cars or cereal. I mean something which really costs—American weaponry, American satellite links and American intelligence.

The money is there, $300-plus billion in frozen Russian assets that was being held back for Ukrainian reconstruction. There is not much point in saving it for reconstruction purposes if there is no country to reconstruct.

On top of that the normally frugal Germans are about to remove the EU debt brake and leap into a defense spending spree. And across Europe taxes are set to rise and welfare budgets cut to pay for what is now a defense emergency.

The purpose of the rapid rise in defense spending is to fill the huge hole left by the withdrawal of the United States from Ukraine and probably Europe as a whole. The problem is that no matter how big the budget it will take at least five—probably more—years to rebuild military forces and defense industries, and Putin is banging on Europe’s door today.

That is why British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pressed Donald Trump for security guarantees as part of any ceasefire agreement.

The problem is that Trump does not see any advantage for him—or America—in providing such guarantees. It involves expensive aid until a ceasefire agreement is reached; commits US forces to a clash with Russia if Putin—as expected—breaks the ceasefire and potentially interferes with his plans to buddy up with fellow autocrat and would block access to Russian natural resources.

So give him a cash incentive with a bit of ego boosting thrown in for good measure. This is the kind of enticement Trump easily understands.

To start with the US gets the mineral rights deal he is demanding for past aid. Next,Trump is the recognised point man in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but he has to consult and keep informed European leaders and Zelensky.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence, ukraine and United states of America | 13 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd March 2025 - 8:26 am

Germany

Europe’s largest economy and largest population has lurched to the right. Friedrich Merz is on the conservative wing of the right of centre Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been relegated to the number three slot for the first in post-war German history. But, more importantly, the far-right Alternativ fur Deutschland (AFD) is now firmly entrenched in the number two position.

Electoral success such as that enjoyed by the AfD in last weekend’s federal elections would normally ensure a place in a coalition government. Not in Germany, the mainstream parties have agreed to a firewall between themselves and the AfD that prohibits political cooperation between themselves and the AfD.

It was this firewall that was recently attacked as “undemocratic” by US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference.

But then America does not have the burden of a Nazi past which many Germans fear the AfD threatens to resurrect. It favours remigration which many interpret as a mass deportation of immigrants. It is Euro-sceptic; anti-LGBTQ; pro-Russian; opposes sending military aid to Ukraine and is ambivalent about Germany’s Nazi past. Germany’s Committee for the Protection of the Constitution has designated the AfD as an “extremist right-wing” organisation which means it is being closely monitored by the police and security services.

But the AfD garnered 20.8 percent of the vote—double what it won in the previous federal election. The party—or at least its policies—cannot be disregarded, especially its position on immigration.

The traditional German mainstream parties—CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD and Greens—have tended to deal with the immigration issue by ignoring it. In the case of the CDU, Angela Merkel went further and declared that Germany had a moral responsibility to help refugees and in 2015 admitted more than a million and laid the foundations of a backlash.

The new soon-to-be Chancellor Merz is determined to win back AfD supporters by stealing some of their clothes and introducing tough anti-immigrant legislation.

The difficulty is that the AfD has positioned itself as the only party willing to talk about immigration and propose radical action to tackle the perceived problem. If Merz and the CDU position themselves in this space, they risk being perceived as a less authentic version of the AfD. Voters are convinced that the AfD cares passionately about limiting immigration. They may be less convinced that it is a genuine priority of the CDU.

United Kingdom

The famed British Welfare State is threatened by the American withdrawal from Europe and the resultant increase in defense spending.

In fact, social spending belts across Europe will need to tighten as money is poured into missiles, drones, tanks and howitzer shells to protect Western Europe from the Russian bear.

This week, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, announced that he was cutting overseas aid from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent to pay for an increase in defense spending from 2.3 to 2.5 percent by 2027 and three percent by the end of the decade.

The cuts in aid will put $15 billion in the British exchequer which is enough to fund the increased spending up to 2.5 percent but not enough to go all the way to three percent. And, the fact is, that three percent is unlikely to be enough. American officials are talking about five percent across Europe if they want to keep Donald Trump happy and in NATO. And if the US abandons Europe as feared than defense costs will be much, much higher.

Britain, devotes 25 percent of GDP on welfare spending and another 10 percent of GDP on the NHS. Other European countries spend between 25 percent and 30 percent on social welfare. Funding structures for health services varies.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence spending and germany | 7 Comments

Observations of an Expat: A British Knight in King Donald’s Court

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 9:20 am

The British Foreign Office set a low bar for Sir Keir Starmer’s trip to America—Don’t fall out with King Donald. He succeeded.

That is not to say that substantive issues were not discussed. They were and included:

Tariffs – and the possibility, nay probability, of reviving the Johnson era US-UK trade deal that could exempt Britain from the crippling tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose on the EU.

The Chagos Islands – Trump is inclined to go along with the British position.

And Ukraine – On this top of the agenda item Sir Keir failed. Trump was immovable – No backstop. No security guarantees and total confidence in the honesty of fellow dissembler Vladimir Putin.

The tete a tete started with a cringe-making pantomime when in front of the world’s media the prime minister reached into his suit pocket and drew out a letter from King Charles III.

It was the expected invitation to Trump to make an historic second state visit to Buckingham Palace.

Royal Family fan Donald evinced childlike surprise and delight at the expected letter and the friendly tone was set for the private talks in the Oval Office. The first box was ticked.

An Anglo-American trade deal has long been one of Trump’s priorities. Not because of any love for the royal family or the homeland of his mother. No, Donald Trump wants a trade deal with Britain because he hates the EU. It is a threat to American trade hegemony. Trump wants to encourage its break-up and insure that Britain does not return to the European fold by pulling it closer to America.

In any upcoming trade talks the British public will be focused on chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-fed beef and higher prices for NHS drugs. The attention of Trump’s negotiators will be on coordinating regulations across a wide-range of goods and services to make it more difficult for Britain to negotiate re-entry into the European single market and/or customs union.

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

The End

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 7:00 am

February 28, 2025 may well go down in history as the day that the Western Alliance ended and the world was suddenly thrown into an unknown future by a White House bully and his initialled sidekick.

The undynamic duo’s treatment of the president of a country which has sacrificed thousands upon thousands of lives in the cause of the protection of the West shamed the United States and countries who have been in alliance with America.

“Say thank you. Say thank you,” shouted J.D. Vance when he should have been thanking Zelensky for the ultimate sacrifices his countrymen and women have made.

“You are not showing any respect,” said Donald Trump, sounding more like a mafia don then the leader of the Free World. It was draft dodger Trump who should have been respecting wartime leader Zelensky who has—against all odds—held out against the Russian war machine for three years.

Several times Zelensky tried to say thank you and explain his position, but each time he was shouted down by Vance and/or Trump.

At one point Trump pursed his lips shook his head back and forth and repeated in a childishly petulant mocking voice: “I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire.”

Again, Zelensky tried to explain that he wants an end to the war but that any ceasefire must come with security guarantees because Putin has broken every ceasefire, treaty and agreement that Ukraine has negotiated with the Russian dictator.

Zelensky flew to Washington to sign a deal which would hand over a major chunk of his country’s mineral rights. Trump said the rare earths that American companies would mine was compensation for the aid that America has given Ukraine. Zelensky agreed to that but also wanted assurances that included in the deal would be future security guarantees. A deal which gave away billions worth of mineral rights in perpetuity without protecting Ukrainian territorial integrity was worthless.

But Trump and Vance were determined to secure the rights and at the same time withdraw American support and bully Zelensky into effectively surrendering to Russia. And it was done before a television audience of billions in what appeared to be an attempt to humiliate the Ukrainian leader. The result was possibly the most disgraceful scene in diplomatic history.

European leaders, Democrats and officials from the first Trump administration seemed to regard it as just that.

John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, said on X: “Trump and Vance have declared themselves to be on Russia’s side in the Russo-Ukraine war, This is a catastrophic mistake for America’s national security. And let’s be clear: Trump and Vance now personally own that policy. It is not the view of a majority of Americans of either or no political party.”

>H.R. McMaster another former national security advisor in the first Trump administration, said it is “impossible to understand” why Trump and Vance “seem determined to put more pressure on President Zelensky while they seem to be coddling Putin—the person who inflicted this terrible war in Ukraine.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a post on X said the “outrageous display” from Trump and Vance was “disgraceful” and “downright un-American.”

French president Emmanuel Macron said: “We should respect those who have been fighting since the beginning,”

“Ukraine, you’ll never walk alone,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said via X. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.” Friedrich Merz, the likely incoming German leader, also said he stands with Zelensky before adding that the “aggressor and victim in this terrible war” must never be confused. Top diplomats for the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland issued similar messages of support for Kyiv and the Ukrainian president.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Zelensky for his “dignity” and said the bloc will continue working with him “for a just and lasting peace.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said: “Estonia’s support for Ukraine remains unwavering. It is time for Europe to step up. We do not need to wait for something else to happen; Europe has enough resources, including Russia’s frozen assets, to enable Ukraine to continue fighting,”

The diplomatic meltdown at the White House comes as European leaders—including Zelensky—are preparing to meet in London on Sunday to discuss their next moves in the Ukrainian imbroglio. Host Sir Keir Starmer sees Britain as bridge between Europe and America. The problem is that Trump and Vance appear to be intent on burning that bridge.

Here is the transcript of Trump, Zelensky, and Vance’s contentious exchange. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, featured, j d vance, ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 23rd February 2025 - 8:48 am

Europe and United States

The European tag team of Starmer and Macron is off to Washington next week. The British Prime Minister and the French President will be trying to persuade Trump to save the Western Alliance by continuing to back Ukraine.

It will be a difficult if almost impossible task given the flood of anti-Zelensky, anti-European and pro-Russian rhetoric that has been pouring out of Washington. But they must but try.

Macron will be the first to arrive. He will sit down with President Trump on Monday.

The French president has taken the lead in trying to rally Europe-wide support for Ukraine with two Paris summits within a few days of each other. He has argued for years that the danger of American isolationism required Europe to increase its defences to fill the American vacuum.

At the summits he proposed that European countries despatch a peacekeeping force of up to 30,000 troops to guard key parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure. They would be supported by Western air and sea power.

Keir Starmer arrives at the White House on Thursday. The British took the lead in supporting Ukraine and continue to do so. The prime minister supports the idea of a peacekeeping force, but only as part of a ceasefire agreement and only with “an American backstop.”

Starmer has been vague about what the backstop would involve, but it is likely that he would want a guarantee of US air support.

However, the peacekeeping proposal could be dead in the water before it reaches the Oval Office. Germany is opposed to it. Chancellor Olof Scholz said such a proposal is premature and would be a serious escalation. Vladimir Putin has rejected any deal that involves European troops based in Ukraine.

Ukraine

What are the negotiating positions in Ukraine? There are four actors, only two of which have started talking: The US, Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

Donald Trump’s immediate objective is clear: Stop the fighting. And he appears ready to concede victory to Russia to achieve that aim. Longer-term, Trump clearly wants to withdraw American military support from Europe and move it into the Indo-Pacific region. The US president also appears to want rehabilitate Russia in order to gain access to that country’s natural resources.

Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine. In the short term he wants recognition for the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas Region (including parts which it has not occupied). He also wants guarantees that Ukraine will be demilitarised; will not be allowed to join NATO and that no western (European or American) troops will be based in Ukraine. He also wants a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. Putin wants to win so that he can use victory in Ukraine as a springboard to exert Russian influence over Eastern Europe and beyond so that Russia is once again a Great Power.

Ukraine’s wants are simpler. It wants Russia out of its territory and guarantees that it will be protected in the future through membership of NATO. In the short-term Volodomyr Zelensky will agree to a ceasefire along the current front line if it is backed up by European/American peacekeepers.

Europe is riddled with differences. Despite what many Americans think, Europe is not one country. It is 27 members of the EU, Britain and a few small states. But with a few exceptions, Europe is united in wanting to contain a resurgent Russia and regards Ukraine as fighting a war on its behalf. Europeans regard NATO and American support as crucial in their aims. Europe—as a collection of countries—has given more aid to Ukraine than anyone else. After years of American pressure they are increasing defense spending and building up their militaries to replace American troops. But it takes time and they face an uphill task persuading Donald Trump to give them that time.

NATO

Here’s the good news: Donald Trump cannot unilaterally decide to withdraw from NATO. In December 2023 the NATO Enhancement Act was passed by Congress (co-sponsored by the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio). This bill required the president to seek a two-thirds majority of the Senate before withdrawing from the NATO Alliance.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged europe, germany, NATO, ukraine and United states of America | 20 Comments

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