Sheila Smith

2 weeks ago | foreignaffairs.com | Zongyuan Liu |Sheila Smith |Natalie Caloca |Adam Posen

“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with,” U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted in 2018, “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” This week, when the Trump administration imposed tariffs of more than 100 percent on U.S. imports from China, setting off a new and even more dangerous trade war, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a similar justification: “I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese...

2 weeks ago | cfr.org | Sheila Smith

This guest article from Otsuka Yumi is part of the Asia program’s Women’s Voices from the Indo-Pacific Project. John E. Merow Senior Fellow Sheila A. Smith features influential women in Japan’s political, economic, and social fields. I joined Toyota Motor in 1992 as part of the first wave of women entering the Japanese workforce after the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1986.

2 months ago | foreignaffairs.com | Carl Minzner |Sheila Smith |Oscar Berry |Jesse Marks

The shocking defeat of Bashar al-Assad’s regime by rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham prompted a groundswell of domestic and international optimism. But already, Syria’s post-Assad future is on a knife’s edge. The obstacles to reconstructing the country are immense. Chief among them is the question of refugees forced from the country during Syria’s decadelong civil war.

2 months ago | foreignaffairs.com | Carl Minzner |Sheila Smith |Oscar Berry |James Goldgeier

Just a few weeks ago, the greatest threat to U.S. government computer systems seemed to be that hostile foreign powers could break into them and steal data. In late December, Treasury Department officials sent a letter to members of Congress reporting that a Chinese group had hacked their systems and stolen unclassified documents. The department said that it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to assess the damage.

2 months ago | cfr.org | Sheila Smith

On Friday, Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru and President Donald Trump sat down for the first time to discuss the U.S.-Japan alliance. Ishiba was the second foreign leader to come to Washington, D.C. to meet the president. The press conference suggested a good rapport between the prime minister and the president, but while allied reassurances were generously proffered, the partnership has new priorities. Angst about this first meeting between Japan’s prime minister and President Trump was widespread.