This Friday, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton joined CBS News for an in-depth discussion on the challenges and opportunities presented by the Trump administration’s Israel-Hamas peace deal; Elizabeth Economy offers a succinct analysis of the significance of two upcoming meetings between President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping; and Tom Church and Daniel Heil use the financial facts of the government shutdown to draw attention to the high levels of mandatory spending baked into the federal budget.
US Foreign Policy
Former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton joined CBS News Senior Correspondent Norah O’Donnell on Friday to discuss the Israel-Hamas peace plan brokered by President Trump as the first stage of the deal takes shape. Director Rice said that the Trump administration should be congratulated for the way it put this deal together, involving multiple parties from across the Middle East from Turkey to Saudi Arabia. “This is a broader coalition of states that have an interest” in the outcome of the Hamas-Israel war, Rice said, emphasizing that the broad base of regional support will be an important component of the deal’s staying power. Rice and Clinton agreed that the Israeli government should also recognize the unique opportunities presented by this situation—with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran weakened—to forge longer-term solutions to the Palestinian conflict. “President Trump also made it very clear that Israeli security was a paramount concern for him,” Rice said, emphasizing the need to sideline Hamas in future international diplomacy.
The former State Department heads also discussed the importance of working toward a responsible Palestinian state in future diplomatic efforts, and the “hard work” of building trust among Gazans and other parties to the deal. Watch here.
Freedom Frequency
In this first edition of China Considered Quick Takes, published at Hoover’s new Substack Freedom Frequency, Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy examines President Trump’s September 19 call with Xi Jinping and two upcoming meetings between the two leaders in the next few months. She looks back at how past presidential meetings—Nixon with Mao, Carter with Deng, and Obama with Xi—have shaped the Sino-American relationship and considers what today’s agenda of trade, fentanyl, and TikTok might deliver. Economy argues that while these talks could help stabilize tensions, the real test is whether the administration can finally articulate a clear and coherent China strategy to guide US policy. Watch here.
At Freedom Frequency, Policy Fellows Tom Church and Daniel Heil analyze the government shutdown that began on Wednesday, October 1. “Despite the shutdown,” they write, “Social Security checks will still go out on time. Doctors and hospitals will still be paid for Medicare services. States will still receive Medicaid funding. And civilian and military retirees will still collect their pensions.” Heil and Church show “that the shutdown affects only a small—and shrinking—piece of the budget,” which they illustrate with a chart in the piece. They argue that this “chart highlights the real source of our budget challenges: mandatory spending.” Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
Writing in the opinion section of the Financial Times, Research Fellow Dan Wang argues that China’s advantages in energy production and the practical application of artificial intelligence (AI) systems could allow that nation to pull ahead in its AI competition with the United States. While noting that the US retains a lead in the field currently, Wang says every “month brings fresh indications that China is catching up with the US on the development of artificial intelligence.” Wang maintains that “AI is not a simple ‘race’” because AI development must be followed by deployment to achieve practical aims. The piece closes with a discussion of how the Trump administration’s plan to allow chipmakers Nvidia and AMD to sell to China would likely brighten “China’s AI development prospects.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy
Are your Social Security benefits equal to what you paid in? How does Social Security calculate your benefits, and why do most recipients receive more in benefits than they paid in taxes—while some receive less? A new episode of the short video series Here’s What We Know, from Hoover’s Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy, explores the answers to these questions. As the video shows, the highest wage earners typically receive fewer benefits than they paid into the system, while most other workers receive more benefits than they paid in taxes—provided they reach full retirement age and live long enough to collect their benefits. Watch here.
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